Anyone struggling with secondary questions after PS completed??

[Rainbow Zebra]

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Seems like you pour your heart and soul into the Personal Statement, then you get the biography question for a secondary. Or some other inane question which you try to figure out a new way to say the same thing.

I really enjoyed the schools who ask about what else you do out of school/work. And what is up with some schools secondary repeating your activities/EC list?? Do they have such a bad computer system that can't import and sort it the way they want?? Sorry about my vent, but I've been reviewing the secondary questions for 20 schools, and I'm getting a bit overwhelmed. I was trying to take the advice seriously about pre-writing secondaries, but I'm having writer's block (and maybe burn out from PS and EC/Activities writing).

Any suggestions would be welcome on how folks approached secondaries. If I didn't start now, I would be in a world of hurt trying to get these all done in a few weeks during the summer. Many thanks for your help

 

[DrHart]

still working on university finals doooooooood

 

[Rainbow Zebra]

still working on university finals doooooooood

Yes, I'm 1.5 years out of school (graduated Dec 2013). Tried to apply 2 cycles ago, but couldn't study for MCAT and complete application, and realized my activities were woefully inadequate. Now I'm ready. Best wishes for folks still in finals, knock it out of the park. Then come back to SDN and commiserate with us new applicants for the 2016 cycle.

 

[SweetCaroline7]

Count me in as a "YES." I honestly didn't realize how draining it would be to write the primary application essays (I'm from Texas, so I had 2 additional essays to write for TMDSAS). Secondaries are going something like this: 😴

I do not understand why schools have you repeat your activities list, either. I mean, I don't care, if it means an acceptance I will write them all again with slight variations so as to not repeat information...

I don't know if you want advice from seasoned veterans, but thought I'd offer my advice in case it's helpful. It sounds like you work full-time or have your hands full with some other time consuming activity? That's the #1 reason I started so early.

I know it sounds cliché, but I'm just taking these bad boys one at a time. I've found looking at the massive number of questions overwhelming as well, so I separated each school's secondary prompts into individual Word documents. I just set a date and try to stick to it. I try to use bullet points to answer at first, and I call it a day if I can list ideas for all of the prompts. The bullet points are pretty concrete ideas/examples, but there's still much to be desired when I'm at this stage. So it is something like this:
Day 1: School A bullet point ideas
Day 2: School B bullet point ideas
Day 3: School A's bullet points expanded into paragraph form. Draft once more after it is in paragraph form.
Day 4: Repeat day 3 for school B.
Day 5: School A's prompts redrafted, goal of preliminary final draft.
Day 6: Repeat day 5 for school B.
Day 7: Do something non-app related because otherwise I might explode.

I know this is only 2 prompts per week, but sometimes I will start a prompt and find a bunch of yes or no questions and no essays, so it probably yields itself to 3 prompts per week, on average. I've found that if I sat down to write essays, I ended up writing absolutely nothing. When I sit down just to jot down ideas, or turn ideas into full sentences, or redraft a paragraph that is already written, etc., I actually get something accomplished.

I think I've outed myself as a "ducks in a row" kind of person. Might be time to change my avatar.

 

[Rainbow Zebra]

Count me in as a "YES." I honestly didn't realize how draining it would be to write the primary application essays (I'm from Texas, so I had 2 additional essays to write for TMDSAS). Secondaries are going something like this: 😴

I do not understand why schools have you repeat your activities list, either. I mean, I don't care, if it means an acceptance I will write them all again with slight variations so as to not repeat information...

I don't know if you want advice from seasoned veterans, but thought I'd offer my advice in case it's helpful. It sounds like you work full-time or have your hands full with some other time consuming activity? That's the #1 reason I started so early.

I know it sounds cliché, but I'm just taking these bad boys one at a time. I've found looking at the massive number of questions overwhelming as well, so I separated each school's secondary prompts into individual Word documents. I just set a date and try to stick to it. I try to use bullet points to answer at first, and I call it a day if I can list ideas for all of the prompts. The bullet points are pretty concrete ideas/examples, but there's still much to be desired when I'm at this stage. So it is something like this:
Day 1: School A bullet point ideas
Day 2: School B bullet point ideas
Day 3: School A's bullet points expanded into paragraph form. Draft once more after it is in paragraph form.
Day 4: Repeat day 3 for school B.
Day 5: School A's prompts redrafted, goal of preliminary final draft.
Day 6: Repeat day 5 for school B.
Day 7: Do something non-app related because otherwise I might explode.

I know this is only 2 prompts per week, but sometimes I will start a prompt and find a bunch of yes or no questions and no essays, so it probably yields itself to 3 prompts per week, on average. I've found that if I sat down to write essays, I ended up writing absolutely nothing. When I sit down just to jot down ideas, or turn ideas into full sentences, or redraft a paragraph that is already written, etc., I actually get something accomplished.

I think I've outed myself as a "ducks in a row" kind of person. Might be time to change my avatar.

Sounds like a great plan. Many thanks.

 

[nRomaleos]

Seems like you pour your heart and soul into the Personal Statement, then you get the biography question for a secondary. Or some other inane question which you try to figure out a new way to say the same thing.

I really enjoyed the schools who ask about what else you do out of school/work. And what is up with some schools secondary repeating your activities/EC list?? Do they have such a bad computer system that can't import and sort it the way they want?? Sorry about my vent, but I've been reviewing the secondary questions for 20 schools, and I'm getting a bit overwhelmed. I was trying to take the advice seriously about pre-writing secondaries, but I'm having writer's block (and maybe burn out from PS and EC/Activities writing).

Any suggestions would be welcome on how folks approached secondaries. If I didn't start now, I would be in a world of hurt trying to get these all done in a few weeks during the summer. Many thanks for your help

I am in your position. It took me awhile to get a hang of things, one person likened to being your own psychologist, and then sitting yourself on a sofa. Find a peaceful place, and just THINK, reliving at least your college years. I think you will be surprised that so many influential events happened to you, but you just simply forgot and moved on.

I agree with SweetCaroline7, avoid "writing essays." Pour out everything you can think of, then re-arrange and refine. But trust me, I share your feelings of burnout.

 

[SmurfingReviews]

Yea take some time off working on secondaries. I know the rush in getting it done asap but to be honest the applications for primaries don't even open until June if I remember correctly. Also secondaries, while many schools reuse their secondary prompts, may be different each year. So I would just have the general ideas laid out before going ham on it. Take a deep breath, relax it's going to be a long, hard journey as you expressed in your tag, but you will survive.

By the way I also graduated in 2013 too! Best of luck and if you have any questions let us know!

 

[NickNaylor]

Not to mention that, if previous years are any indication, your application won't even be released to schools until the end of June. You likely won't get any secondaries until late June/early July.

 

[amad01]

Seems like you pour your heart and soul into the Personal Statement, then you get the biography question for a secondary. Or some other inane question which you try to figure out a new way to say the same thing.

I really enjoyed the schools who ask about what else you do out of school/work. And what is up with some schools secondary repeating your activities/EC list?? Do they have such a bad computer system that can't import and sort it the way they want?? Sorry about my vent, but I've been reviewing the secondary questions for 20 schools, and I'm getting a bit overwhelmed. I was trying to take the advice seriously about pre-writing secondaries, but I'm having writer's block (and maybe burn out from PS and EC/Activities writing).

Any suggestions would be welcome on how folks approached secondaries. If I didn't start now, I would be in a world of hurt trying to get these all done in a few weeks during the summer. Many thanks for your help

secondaries were the worst. You just have to mob through them. I was expecting a huge rush but they actually came in batches and I was able to handle most with about ~1 week turnaround time. Pre-write is good but I don't think absolutely necessary, maybe get some going that you know for sure won't change prompts. I copied and pasted a little too much which may have hurt my app at some schools haha!

 

[NonTradJp]

Fast turnaround seems to make a pretty good difference with secondaries.

 

[NachoPlatter]

I grouped all my secondary write up by subject/themes ("why medicine", "challenging moment in my life", "what am I doing during gap year" etc) and honestly just tweaked them according to word count/specific prompt details. It saved me a lot of writing, time and gave me focus when I wasn't sure what to address for certain questions. Obviously some were outliers still but it made it less chaotic for me.

 

[Eppur Si Muove]

I grouped all my secondary write up by subject/themes ("why medicine", "challenging moment in my life", "what am I doing during gap year" etc) and honestly just tweaked them according to word count/specific prompt details. It saved me a lot of writing, time and gave me focus when I wasn't sure what to address for certain questions. Obviously some were outliers still but it made it less chaotic for me.

+1 I found that many secondaries asked various versions of the same questions and that a few tweaks were all that was necessary. Other common questions were "How do you believe that you will fit in with our schools mission" etc. and even these questions only required minor tweaks between each secondary to answer. I didn't find secondary writing to really be that bad.

 

[f4reignbeauty]

I was so burnt out when it came down to secondary applications. I will say, however the secondary prompts were easier to answer after I finished my personal statement. The secondaries allowed me to build upon my story and add new perspectives etc.

 

[Josieisonfire]

.

 

[Rainbow Zebra]

@Rainbow Zebra I've been sitting at my desk staring at several different prompts but I haven't been able to get anything down yet. I know what you mean though. I need to start now or else I will most assuredly be having a mental breakdown when schools start sending out secondaries

You must be my twin. I stared at secondaries for a couple of hours today. Think I'll take a walk now, clean my room, day dream. Why is this so hard??

 

[Wolfpack93]

This is probably a dumb question, but how do you already have the secondary prompts?

 

[Rainbow Zebra]

This is probably a dumb question, but how do you already have the secondary prompts?

Most of the time same as last year. Check out the last two cycles almost always the same when you look at theSDN secondary questions

 

[NeuResurgens]

Do the secondary questions from one school at a time. I'd say start with your top choice school, and spend about a week working on those, proofreading/having several others proofread them, edit again and the proofread again. Keep doing this, one by one, with your top 2-5th schools, but with a more condensed timeframe (say, 3-4 days per school). Then move on to the rest, perhaps being less thorough in order to give yourself a break, probably spending 1 or 2 days on essays per school. One key technique might be to recycle essays for questions which are similar to secondary essay promps you've already written, and adapt them for the new prompt.

 

[Josieisonfire]

.

 

[Rainbow Zebra]

Do the secondary questions from one school at a time. I'd say start with your top choice school, and spend about a week working on those, proofreading/having several others proofread them, edit again and the proofread again. Keep doing this, one by one, with your top 2-5th schools, but with a more condensed timeframe (say, 3-4 days per school). Then move on to the rest, perhaps being less thorough in order to give yourself a break, probably spending 1 or 2 days on essays per school. One key technique might be to recycle essays for questions which are similar to secondary essay promps you've already written, and adapt them for the new prompt.

Sounds like a good plan. However, anyone who will take me will be my top choice!!