Chicago application

[grasshopper]

hey guys, just curious--how did you respond to that Chicago question about "what is the most difficult thing you've ever encountered"? I was a bit confused, since my most difficult situation is probably something pretty personal that I don't particuarly want to share with the admissions committee, a situation I think a lot of people would be in . . . do they expect you to go into it anyway, just so they have an easy way to bring up a tough topic an interviews, or . . .? I ended up using something more benign which is probably not truthfully the most difficult thing I've ever encountered, but come on!

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[moo]

I was thinking of saying how, when taking the VR section of the MCAT, I realized that I had misbubbled with 5 minutes left and six questions on the last passage remaining and had to go back, find my mistake and fix everything, hence wasting 3 minutes and having to guess the last six questions without reading the passage. Would that qualify as hardship?????

 

[praying4MD]

Originally posted by grasshopper:
•hey guys, just curious--how did you respond to that Chicago question about "what is the most difficult thing you've ever encountered"?•

AMCAS 2002 BY FAR! Actually, I would just be honest, unless of course the most difficult thing is you going through rehab for heroine addiction, going to jail for murder, or not paying child support. Unless it paints you in an unfavorable light, my advice is to just be honest, difficult as it may be.

Then again, if you are so uncomfortable with it that you will not be able to discuss it come interview time, then do not write about it. Write about something you are comfortable with, but still try to be honest. Good luck.

 

[Rudboy3]

The problem I have with this question is that my main hardship is pretty much what my personal statement was about. Should I just talk about the same thing again in this essay? Or should I try to use something else?

 

[grasshopper]

Yeah, I wonder about secondaries that ask specifically for stuff not covered elsewhere in the application. AMCAS, for all it's faults, seems to be a pretty comprehensive covering of all my relevant characteristics as a med school applicant. Aside from saying why I want to go to a specific school (e.g. Yale and how I fit with the curriculum or whatever), it's really hard for me to come up with *anything* for questions about hardship, research, religion, etc., that aren't at least touched upon in my activities or essays from AMCAS. My thought concerning your question: use the same hardship if it's really the most interesting, but try to approach it more from the "personal coping skills" side and less from the "why this makes me want to be a doctor" side, which is, I assume, how it was addressed in your personal statement. But that's just my guess; I really have no clue! Nor have I any clue who in Chicago actually wants to read several thousand of these secondaries!

People that have heard from past years: Chicago and Yale are by far the most extensive ones I've seen so far. Are there many others that are just as extensive or worse? Where? Just trying to plan the rest of my summer . . . ;-)

GH

 

[DrMakes]

I applied to UChicago last year. The secondary essay questions are exactly the same as they were last year, and I included information in the essay question answers that I had included in the AMCAS.

Anyway, I'll be going there this September. I don't think it had too adverse of an effect on my application.