generic essays to have before secondaries

[ihatebluescrubs]

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So, a couple of my LOR writers have asked for all my essays including the ones I'm going to use for my MD/PhD secondaries. What I understand is that we need to have a ordinary "why MD" essay that addresses only that and another essay based around the question "Why MD/PhD".

My question is: What generic prompts should all of us MD/PhD applicants have on hand that will be useful (i.e. so theres minimal editing for each secondary) that we can start now? I read somewhere in this forum that we should have two essays: "Why MD/PhD" and another essay detailing our research experience. Is that correct? What's the difference between the two? Should our "Why MD/PhD" essay be more personal in the same degree as the "Why MD" essay? Does the research experience essay have to be somewhat similar to a detailed and dry ?

Thanks for your help,

 

[debateg]

You are correct. The why MD/PhD is a personal statement where you discuss what motivates you to join the program, your future ambitions, etc. You can tell anecdotes, jokes, etc.

The research essay is much drier. It should describe your evolution as a scientists with specifics. Discuss your projects with hypothesis, brief procedures, results, conclusions, and future directions. You can make it a little more personal than a paper abstract.

 

[Neuronix]

My opinions:

You don't need a why MD essay. You're applying MD/PhD. There's an MD in the MD/PhD.

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=120072

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=815605

 

[ihatebluescrubs]

Thanks for all your help. Does anyone have a formal prompt I can use along with a character limit?

Thanks!

 

[AGG]

For your three primary AMCAS essays:

The MD essay (why do you want to be a doctor) is 5,300 characters.
The MD/PhD essay (why you want to do both) is 3,000 characters.
The PhD essay (recounting your various research experiences in detail) is 10,000 characters.

Some helpful resources I used:

The Johns Hopkins Writing Center - http://web.jhu.edu/writingcenter
The AMCAS Instruction Manual -http://www.aamc.org/students/amcas/start.htm
The American Medical Student Association's "Personal Statements: Completing Your Medical School Application"
http://www.amsa.org/premed/premedguide/pstatement.cfm


I'd also recommend looking at last year's secondary prompts from the schools you're targeting just to get a sense of what you'll be writing for them. Often times you'll have some extra secondary essays as an MD/PhD applicant, but they're usually pretty similar between schools so you can often use common elements on multiple secondaries.