2025-2026 University of Virginia

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2025-2026 U Virginia Secondary Essay Prompts: (one question less than last year)
2 essays:
1. Why are you interested in attending the University of Virginia School of Medicine? What factors will be most important to you in choosing a medical school? Please answer the question in 350 words or less.

2. Tell us about a challenge or obstacle you experienced. How did you manage it? Please answer the question in 350 words or less.

2 short answer questions:
1. Please briefly describe how the pandemic impacted your ability to pursue experiences like clinical work, shadowing, research, or community service.

2. Please list any and all future activities in clinical work, shadowing, research, or community service that you plan to pursue in the upcoming year.

Good luck to all applying!

Interview Feedback:

University of Virginia School of Medicine - Admission, Tuition, Ranking & Overview | Student Doctor Network

Detail information of University of Virginia School of Medicine including admission, tuition, ranking, and overview.

www.studentdoctor.net

 

[thefirerisen]

Rising M2 at UVA Med. Happy to answer any and all questions but please put them in the thread in case others are wondering the same thing! Good luck to everyone and hope to see you future Hoos in C'ville!

 

[ihavetwobraincells]

Rising M2 at UVA Med. Happy to answer any and all questions but please put them in the thread in case others are wondering the same thing! Good luck to everyone and hope to see you future Hoos in C'ville!

What’s the overall culture like among students? Are they more collaborative or competitive? Also, are research opportunities easy to find?

 

[thefirerisen]

What’s the overall culture like among students? Are they more collaborative or competitive? Also, are research opportunities easy to find?

UVA is known to be the most "chill" out of all the elite schools and thats partly why I chose it. Having gone through my first year, thats absolutely true, and there is so much collaboration. It helps that everything is P/F including pre-clinicals and clinicals. They've even converted the midterms to be collaborative and you can do them in a group now.

Research opportunities are plentiful—I got into a lab my second week of school. There is an elected officer in the student government that organizes all open research projects and sends them out to all the M1s via this research portal so you can pretty much start Day 1 if you wish. And the research departments here are huge, and you can find a PI doing pretty much anything that you'd be interested in.

 

[Ernieke]

UVA is known to be the most "chill" out of all the elite schools and thats partly why I chose it. Having gone through my first year, thats absolutely true, and there is so much collaboration. It helps that everything is P/F including pre-clinicals and clinicals. They've even converted the midterms to be collaborative and you can do them in a group now.

Research opportunities are plentiful—I got into a lab my second week of school. There is an elected officer in the student government that organizes all open research projects and sends them out to all the M1s via this research portal so you can pretty much start Day 1 if you wish. And the research departments here are huge, and you can find a PI doing pretty much anything that you'd be interested in.

Hi! I am starting at UVA this august 😀 ! I am curious about this research portal you mention, is that a website or an excel? Where would I find this? Thanks and cannot wait to be in Charlottesville in a couple months!!!

 

[thefirerisen]

Hi! I am starting at UVA this august 😀 ! I am curious about this research portal you mention, is that a website or an excel? Where would I find this? Thanks and cannot wait to be in Charlottesville in a couple months!!!

Reach out to the Mulholland officer if you're interested - i'm not sure if they'll let you start since you haven't onboarded yet officially. I believe it is an file that is updated regularly with new projects for the M1s. Its very popular amongst the M1s but lots of people also just email different PIs in various departments and find research that way.

 

[PreDeltaMed]

UVA is known to be the most "chill" out of all the elite schools and thats partly why I chose it. Having gone through my first year, thats absolutely true, and there is so much collaboration. It helps that everything is P/F including pre-clinicals and clinicals. They've even converted the midterms to be collaborative and you can do them in a group now.

Research opportunities are plentiful—I got into a lab my second week of school. There is an elected officer in the student government that organizes all open research projects and sends them out to all the M1s via this research portal so you can pretty much start Day 1 if you wish. And the research departments here are huge, and you can find a PI doing pretty much anything that you'd be interested in.

I’m also committing to UVA as a new M1 this August. (the financial aid UVA gives is no joke!) I had no idea about these research resources and the fact that midterms are collaborative now. I actually made a Class of 2029 GroupMe that already contains a majority of the class (114 so far). We would definitely love if you could join as a rising M2 and provide some insight onto the school that is really only known by the students and not really found online.
(GroupMe - Join the group for UVASM Accepted Students ‘29)


Also can you expand on the group midterms? When did this start and what does it really entail?

 

[thefirerisen]

I’m also committing to UVA as a new M1 this August. (the financial aid UVA gives is no joke!) I had no idea about these research resources and the fact that midterms are collaborative now. I actually made a Class of 2029 GroupMe that already contains a majority of the class (114 so far). We would definitely love if you could join as a rising M2 and provide some insight onto the school that is really only known by the students and not really found online.
(GroupMe - Join the group for UVASM Accepted Students ‘29)


Also can you expand on the group midterms? When did this start and what does it really entail?

Happy to expand on that! Yes, this has been a gradual change over the past few years and its still ongoing.

We have blocks that each consist of two summatives (AKA the "take home exams"). Between those summatives, there are smaller "mid-terms" or sometimes called "quizzes". These are low stakes and a few small percentage of your entire block grade - the great thing is that you can now do a lot of these in groups which helps you learn even more; or you can still opt to do them by yourself if you so choose.

I'll prolly not join the groupme right now and leave it to y'all to make friends and form connections between each other. Don't worry about school right now and try to enjoy your last few months of freedom. But if there are any questions from rising M1s, happy to talk - reach out and I can send you my number. And once school starts, the M1s/M2s all have one large group chat so you'll always be able to get support from our class 🙂

 

[saiyan.uzumaki17]

are secondaries available yet?

 

[TXTripleDore]

On the website it said July 8

 

[permasenior]

+1 OOS secondary, regular MD

@wysdoc Here are the prompts (Background prompt from last year dropped):

Why are you interested in attending the University of Virginia School of Medicine? What factors will be most important to you in choosing a medical school? Please answer the question in 350 words or less.

Tell us about a challenge or obstacle you experienced. How did you manage it? Please answer the question in 350 words or less.

 

[wysdoc]

+1 OOS secondary, regular MD

@wysdoc Here are the prompts (Background prompt from last year dropped):

Why are you interested in attending the University of Virginia School of Medicine? What factors will be most important to you in choosing a medical school? Please answer the question in 350 words or less.

Tell us about a challenge or obstacle you experienced. How did you manage it? Please answer the question in 350 words or less.

@permasenior did they still have the 2 short questions about effect of the pandemic on you, and/or what your plans are during this application year?

 

[permasenior]

@permasenior did they still have the 2 short questions about effect of the pandemic on you, and/or what your plans are during this application year?

Ah yes, those were still there! No apparent limit on either

Please briefly describe how the pandemic impacted your ability to pursue experiences like clinical work, shadowing, research, or community service.

Please list any and all future activities in clinical work, shadowing, research, or community service that you plan to pursue in the upcoming year.

 

[TXTripleDore]

+1 OOS

 

[regularguy12]

Ah yes, those were still there! No apparent limit on either

Please briefly describe how the pandemic impacted your ability to pursue experiences like clinical work, shadowing, research, or community service.

Please list any and all future activities in clinical work, shadowing, research, or community service that you plan to pursue in the upcoming year.

Does anyone have any tips on how to respond to the COVID-19 prompt if we were in high school during then?

 

[manifestingmdacceptance]

+1 OOS

 

[Kendo(c)]

+1 OOS

 

[premedaloo]

Rising M2 at UVA Med. Happy to answer any and all questions but please put them in the thread in case others are wondering the same thing! Good luck to everyone and hope to see you future Hoos in C'ville!

For the short answer questions, do you have any recommendation on how long they should be. I was originally going to do 350 like the other essays, but that's more than enough and I don't want to write too much extra. Would you say around 200 words is good?

 

[batmanpremed123]

Does anyone have any tips on how to respond to the COVID-19 prompt if we were in high school during then?

I talked about getting COVID (while I was recovering from knee surgery) and how that impacted my EC's, and other stuff. I think as long as you approach the prompt with a level of introspection, it will be fine.

 

[TK1121]

+1 OOS

 

[blonolo]

+1 OOS MD/PhD

All of the MD questions plus this question: “Below please discuss the areas of biomedical research and clinical specialty that interest you the most. (350 words)”

 

[saiyan.uzumaki17]

Does anyone have any tips on how to respond to the COVID-19 prompt if we were in high school during then?

curious as well!

 

[thefirerisen]

curious as well!

There is no right answer but I wouldn't leave it blank. I'm assuming its geared towards non-trads that did get affected by the pandemic. If you were in high school, you can say that it did not affect you significantly if it didn't (obv in an empathetic, professional way) and then you could briefly mention how the pandemic changed your personal trajectory in medicine. Don't make it too long and fill it with empty words if you don't have anything meaningful to say

 

[likeits1978]

@thefirerisen A couple questions if you had time!

1. Do you remember when you got your interview invite?
2. What's your favorite thing about UVA?
3. How was the orientation period? Did you feel like you guys had enough time to get acclimated?

 

[saiyan.uzumaki17]

There is no right answer but I wouldn't leave it blank. I'm assuming its geared towards non-trads that did get affected by the pandemic. If you were in high school, you can say that it did not affect you significantly if it didn't (obv in an empathetic, professional way) and then you could briefly mention how the pandemic changed your personal trajectory in medicine. Don't make it too long and fill it with empty words if you don't have anything meaningful to say

thanks appreciate it! Also, for the activities question, would you suggest just listing them out like "1. X. 2. X...., etc.." or describing what they entail?

 

[anklelocktheworld]

+1 IS secondary

 

[lucky1127]

+1 OOS secondary

 

[saiyan.uzumaki17]

where do we upload the headshot for this secondary, or is there none?