Duke Secondary Question

[lilxsmilez]

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Each student brings strengths and weaknesses to the medical school class. How might your own experiences or lack of experiences, strengths and/or weaknesses, advantages and/or disadvantages contribute to the makeup of next year's class? How have these impacted your personal development and how have they contributed to your preparation for a career in medicine?

Ok, so they only give you 500 characters which totals to about 6 or 7 lines. So did any of you talk about a strength AND a weakness? Because it's kind of hard to do that AND back it up with an example at the same time. eek~ 😱

Any help would be greatly appreciated...thanks 😛

 

[NubianPrincess]

Yes, I did. I did the best I could.

 

[delchrys]

from a close friend who actually sat on the duke med school admissions committee...

be real. they see the same bullsh*t answers every time, and they get tired of it. the "after working in honduras in an orphanage i realized that i needed to save lives" crap is more typical than you could possibly imagine. realize that the people who review this stuff (at least at duke) are students, and those students then present the results to the committee for consideration. so, write like you're writing to a student, but keep it professional and most importantly keep it REAL.

this part comes from other observations i have made, and not specifically from the friend on the admissions committee: your chances are a TON better if you are neither white, nor male.

 

[lilxsmilez]

from a close friend who actually sat on the duke med school admissions committee...



this part comes from other observations i have made, and not specifically from the friend on the admissions committee: your chances are a TON better if you are neither white, nor male.

LOL...why is that? are there too many white guys there or something 😛

 

[Psycho Doctor]

this part comes from other observations i have made, and not specifically from the friend on the admissions committee: your chances are a TON better if you are neither white, nor male.

what??? that's ridiculous! don't tell me it's reverse racism all over again

 

[futuremsfdoc]

so you're telling me that only the medical students see the secondaries in any sort of depth, then they summarize them for the committee, who offers interviews based on the student's reading of the secondary?

are other schools like this?

 

[delchrys]

well, i definitely don't want to pretend to know the entire process. i THINK the process goes like this, though: school reviews it based on basics--MCAT, GPA, and race/gender. (the latter of which is SO lame, but whatever, don't want to get into that debate.)

committee leader then breaks up the apps that made that "cut" into small bits, like batches of 4-5, and assigns them to individuals to review, MOST of whom are students (i can't recall if they said they are all students or mostly students who do this stage of the review). the students then score the apps on a secure online form for certain things. the students then present each of their apps to the committee with their scores and with any additional feedback.

the committee then either takes those recommendations off to a dark corner to make final decisions or they vote or something...that's the part i'm most murky on.

 

[All-Star14]

LOL...why is that? are there too many white guys there or something 😛

Yes, but that's the case at most med schools. 🙄

 

[calstudent]

for the last question, do you think they want us to actually take a stand on the issues like stem-cells, or can we just report what we found? i can't interpret it.

many many thanks!

 

[calstudent]

please help or PM me (i know some ofyou have done it), and mine's due soon.
thanks!

 

[futuremsfdoc]

for both the longer questions, i took such a strong stance that they'll either love it or hate it. i had my dad read over one of them and he suggested that i tone it down a little bit, so i changed one or two words but what i wrote was a pretty scathing commentary on research.

 

[futuremsfdoc]

oh and calstudent, i didn't turn my application in within the two week timetable. i really couldn't think up decent answers to one or two questions and i was in and out of town. from what i've read on here, it shouldn't hurt if you take a day or two longer. the quality of your answers is more important that submitting it within the "suggested" 2 weeks.