Do you REALLY spend that much time on secondaries?

[LAman10]

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alright so I keep hearing people saying things like "secondaries are taking over my life!!" but I don't understand why... I mean, I've gotten about 13 secondaries back and I'm finished with all of the essays (except for the ones I got yesterday). but honestly, I write maybe one essay per day, which takes about 2 hours; otherwise I'm just goofing off at home/work and catching up on my favorite tv shows. so when people say that secondaries are taking over their lives, I'm just curious: how many hours a day do you actually spend on these things????

Note: my LORs aren't in yet, so I haven't actually FILLED OUT any of the secondary information. I've just written the essays. Is this where all the time goes?

anyway, I'm just curious, wondering if I'm missing something. good luck to everyone!

 

[caniac]

alright so I keep hearing people saying things like "secondaries are taking over my life!!" but I don't understand why... I mean, I've gotten about 13 secondaries back and I'm finished with all of the essays (except for the ones I got yesterday). but honestly, I write maybe one essay per day, which takes about 2 hours; otherwise I'm just goofing off at home/work and catching up on my favorite tv shows. so when people say that secondaries are taking over their lives, I'm just curious: how many hours a day do you actually spend on these things????

Note: my LORs aren't in yet, so I haven't actually FILLED OUT any of the secondary information. I've just written the essays. Is this where all the time goes?

anyway, I'm just curious, wondering if I'm missing something. good luck to everyone!

I mean, I'm a grammar nazi, so I go through and edit my papers several times before I send them off. I also work full time ("full time") and have a part-time gig for beer money. Jefferson/Mayo took me less than an hour because they didn't have essays, but I've spent 6 or so on BU so far. I guess I just am more meticulous with my word choices than most 😳. Some essays also flow more easily than others--I wrote USUHS in 2 hours, came back to it the next day and only made very minor corrections. It really just depends on the school.

Duke's is going to ruin my weekend 🙄 c'est la vie!

 

[PinkIvy08]

Ehhh, I think it depends on the individual and I think that pre-meds (esp on SDN) tend to exaggerate. I'm sure many "spend hours/days" working on each essay, but neglect to mention that they are sitting in front of the tv or are not solely focusing on the essays. Also, I know that personally, I tend to write rather quickly without having to outline/draft/etc, but I'm sure some feel they need to outline before writing...

Plus, I feel that once you've written answers to 2-3 secondaries, the answers can easily be reused and modified to fit other schools. The most timeliest to answer (imo) are the "Why this school?" questions...and only because that requires research on that specific school.

Very few schools (i.e. Duke) require an intense amount of time to thoroughly answer...imho

 

[armybound]

Most of my secondaries took less than an hour. The ones I really cared about got about 3-5 hours.

 

[nick_carraway]

I agree with you, OP. The trauma of secondaries is usually exaggerated. This year I did all but a few of mine in advance since I need to move in two weeks and needed to give the GF extra time for proof-reading. When I first applied, I worked full-time and still found it possible to churn out 40+ secondaries with reasonable turnaround.

That said, due to a number of factors my turnaround time went from 2 weeks max in 2007 to 48 hours max this year. Due to differences in the LOR system, I am now nearly 2 months ahead of last year's pace. Whether any of this makes a difference or not remains to be seen.

 

[BlueElmo]

Most of my secondaries took less than an hour. The ones I really cared about got about 3-5 hours.

yeah, it's basically the same for me.

 

[DrYoda]

I think it takes some people forever because they apply to tons of schools. I applied to 14 and it wasn't bad at all.

 

[RaginRajon]

When it comes to writing, I am a bit of a perfectionist. Most secondary applications take me anywhere between 10 to 20 hours of work to complete. Yuck! Hope it pays off with an acceptance...

Edit: Let me change perfectionist to obsessive-compulsive lunatic... Apparently I am the only one spending lotsa time on secondaries! Eeek!

 

[JJMrK]

I'm sure many "spend hours/days" working on each essay, but neglect to mention that they are sitting in front of the tv and on SDN or are not solely focusing on the essays.

Fixed it.

 

[LAman10]

haha ok this makes me feel a lot better. I had the last two weeks off from work and basically lazed around and maybe spent 1-2 hours/day working on secondaries. and then whenever I come on sdn people start complaining about how bad their secondaries are and talking about how they finished 4 secondaries in one weekend and I'm just like "oh crap, I'm the most neurotic of all my friends and I feel like a bum compared to these people!"

but I suppose as long as they get done, then all is good 👍

 

[BlueElmo]

There is just too many interesting stuff on the Internet. Wish I could turn it off when I'm working on secondaries.

 

[camaras2480]

Fixed it.

hahaha well said!
cheers!

 

[PinkIvy08]

Fixed it.

lol, you sure did! How did I forget factoring in one of my biggest life distractions - SDN?!?