Do schools re-use secondary app essays?

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frost08

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Hello,

I am a reapplicant. My AMCAS reached "ready for review status" on June 20th and I am hoping it gets verified in the next week or so, but while I'm waiting I wanted to get started on my secondary applications. Do schools re-use secondary applications from one cycle to the next? Is there a different secondary application for reapplicants? Am I only considered a reapplicant for schools which I am reapplying to (I'm applying to 20 schools this time around versus 11 last cycle)?

Any help is greatly appreciated.
 
Same secondaries. I think schools expect at least minor changes in how you write them or at least something new.
 
Do schools use the same secondary from one year to the next or will they change prompts, etc.?
 
They rarely change them from year to year. However, if you reapply, your answers should not be the same
 
If you look at this years verification thread and amcas.org login, they're only on apps marked ready for review on June 13th. And the June 12th verification took almost a full week . Plus by July 3rd there were already 16,000 applications submitted, much higher than previous years. You most likely will be waiting a full month if not more so keep that in mind.

In terms of secondaries, I've already submitted the 19 schools that sent it out already, and the only ones that were different were USC, and RWJ(cause I applied in 2010) so far.

I would try and use different secondary essays from your previous cycle. The schools I've contacted said that they either use your old application or they have it and "might" use it. Either way you don't want to give them any reason to think your too lazy to write a new essay. Even if you just reword what you wrote before.

Some schools do ask what you've been doing since you finished undergrad, and 1-2 asked about what I've done to improve from my last application. theres also a section to "add additional info" that I used to talk about my improvements. Hope that helps!
 
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