Honest Secondary answers?

[HomerJayBYU]

I suppose my situation is similar to many of you: I know very little about many of the schools I am applying to. I'm applying to probably 5-10 schools because their MCAT/GPA ranges looked similar to mine and they are located in a city I wouldn't mind living in. After a few minutes looking at their websites and MSAR, I decided that I would apply.

Have any of you had luck being totally honest on the secondary questions that ask things like "Why do you want to go to our school?" I really want to just write "you offer an MD and I want to get an MD. Also, your city sounds nice and I think I have a shot at getting into your school." Is that suicide or has anyone actually done that and been accepted?

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[calvnandhobbs68]

I suppose my situation is similar to many of you: I know very little about many of the schools I am applying to. I'm applying to probably 5-10 schools because their MCAT/GPA ranges looked similar to mine and they are located in a city I wouldn't mind living in. After a few minutes looking at their websites and MSAR, I decided that I would apply.

Have any of you had luck being totally honest on the secondary questions that ask things like "Why do you want to go to our school?" I really want to just write "you offer an MD and I want to get an MD. Also, your city sounds nice and I think I have a shot at getting into your school." Is that suicide or has anyone actually done that and been accepted?

Look up what they emphasize on their website and tie that in with yourself. You're good because you offer/have x, x and x, I'm interested in x and x, etc. Tried and true formula, no need to mess with it.

 

[HomerJayBYU]

Look up what they emphasize on their website and tie that in with yourself. You're good because you offer/have x, x and x, I'm interested in x and x, etc. Tried and true formula, no need to mess with it.

I do what you suggested. I don't have the balls to say I don't really know anything about the school. I'm just curious if anyone has had success doing it.

 

[Envix]

Honestly, I applied to 18 schools, and I think only 3 asked me why I applied to them. They usually had reasons, too. One was a brand new school, and one was Georgetown who gets 1/4 of all applicants in the entire country to apply there every year.

I mean, most will ask at interview time, but even that I felt like was more a judge of how passionate you are in your response and if you can actually see yourself there than what you actually say.

For the secondaries you do have to answer that question for, just look up interview feedback on SDN and look under positive impressions- it's really not lying if those positive attributes about the school are a part of why you'd be happy to go there.

 

[Myuu]

I do what you suggested. I don't have the balls to say I don't really know anything about the school. I'm just curious if anyone has had success doing it.

If you can't be bothered to do a little research on the school, why do you think you can convince them to spend their time on you?

 

[Astarael]

If you can't be bothered to do a little research on the school, why do you think you can convince them to spend their time on you?

Just to play devil's advocate here, a lot of schools don't give a very good indication of what their strengths and weaknesses are. Curriculum highlights and mission statements are often very generic, which makes it hard to form a reasonable opinion of the school before you get there and get a chance to talk to some of the current students.

To the OP, there can be any number of reasons why you'd be interested in applying to a school. It could be the location, it could be a facet of the curriculum that you're interested in, or something else. Read the school's website and see if anything jumps out at you. It doesn't have to be groundbreaking, but you should be able to come up with something other than, "The MSAR told me to apply here."

 

[circulus vitios]

Rewrite their mission statement into your secondaries and lie your ass off. It's just another stupid hoop to jump through in this stupid game.

 

[Barcu]

I do what you suggested. I don't have the balls to say I don't really know anything about the school. I'm just curious if anyone has had success doing it.

Find something on the website and talk about it. For example, I was interested in opportunities to gain experience in underserved areas. I looked up programs at each school that I applied to, and talked about that program. You can take something pretty generic and easily make it specific to each school.

If you are interested by the location, include that too. Schools want to know you are interested to go there and location definitely fits into that.

 

[Whiskeypunch]

.

 

[FutureDr8429033]

rewrite their mission statement into your secondaries and lie your ass off. It's just another stupid hoop to jump through in this stupid game.

+1

 

[mauberley]

Yeah I wish we could just be honest. I took a spread sheet with all the schools and the MSAR/USNWR data and started culling based on MCAT/% OOS/Tuition/Crap cities until I had 20 schools left over.

There's certainly nothing stopping you from being honest. It just won't make you a very attractive applicant.

 

[mauberley]

Rewrite their mission statement into your secondaries and lie your ass off. It's just another stupid hoop to jump through in this stupid game.

Tell me why you love me and chose me over all the other girls.

 

[Whiskeypunch]

.

 

[music2doc]

Tell me why you love me and chose me over all the other girls.

1) You're hot.
2) You were interested.
3) We had xyz class together and there was an opportunity.


Oh...and you're "one of a kind" "my soul-mate" and (the classic in American religious communities) "because God told me you were going to be my wife"


J/K...

 

[KLycos]

rewrite their mission statement into your secondaries and lie your ass off. It's just another stupid hoop to jump through in this stupid game.

+2

 

[mauberley]

You just said what is stopping me.

I should have said "no one is stopping you from being honest." Good luck to you.

 

[HomerJayBYU]

1) You're hot.
2) You were interested.
3) We had xyz class together and there was an opportunity.

Lol so I take it nobody has mentioned their awesome excel spreadsheet with avg. GPAs & MCAT scores in these essays? I bet the pre-med that does & gets in becomes a legend.

 

[arfc6]

I think I may put down the truth on one of my applications just to see what happens. Maybe some adcom sick of reading the same tired answers over and over again will take pity on me. It is definitely hard to come up with stuff for these secondaries. I have more trouble with the "overcoming adversity and what you learned" type questions. I'm not very good at self refleciton and I feel like my answers are just adjective soup.

 

[rentedmule]

Look up what they emphasize on their website and tie that in with yourself. You're good because you offer/have x, x and x, I'm interested in x and x, etc. Tried and true formula, no need to mess with it.

 

[music2doc]

Lol so I take it nobody has mentioned their awesome excel spreadsheet with avg. GPAs & MCAT scores in these essays? I bet the pre-med that does & gets in becomes a legend.

As in apumic and the other people who worked on the med school spreadsheet? lol....

 

[music2doc]

I think I may put down the truth on one of my applications just to see what happens. Maybe some adcom sick of reading the same tired answers over and over again will take pity on me. It is definitely hard to come up with stuff for these secondaries. I have more trouble with the "overcoming adversity and what you learned" type questions. I'm not very good at self refleciton and I feel like my answers are just adjective soup.

You have to at least "fake" self-awareness.... They really do seem to be looking for self-aware individuals, so not sounding self-aware will hurt you...hate to say

 

[StoicJosher]

Lol so I take it nobody has mentioned their awesome excel spreadsheet with avg. GPAs & MCAT scores in these essays? I bet the pre-med that does & gets in becomes a legend.

I am going to do this to one school I apply to this cycle (out of the 21) just to see if I even get an interview..

 

[music2doc]

I am going to do this to one school I apply to this cycle (out of the 21) just to see if I even get an interview..

"I have decided to apply to the University of XYZ School of Medicine because, according to the spreadsheet on SDN, I am a 'High Chance' at your institution with a 76.5% chance of matriculating (and a 90.0% chance at an interview). Since this means I am basically the essence of an ideal candidate at the University of XYZ School of Medicine, I believe I will contribute greatly to the excellence of your next MS1 class. Further, based on my calculations using said spreadsheet, my matriculation will raise your average GPA by 0.015 points and your average MCAT by 0.12 points. Finally, while my sGPA is slightly below average, I would like to point out that it will lower your average by a value that is insignificant at the P<0.05 level."

 

[StoicJosher]

"I have decided to apply to the University of XYZ School of Medicine because, according to the spreadsheet on SDN, I am a 'High Chance' at your institution with a 76.5% chance of matriculating (and a 90.0% chance at an interview). Since this means I am basically the essence of an ideal candidate at the University of XYZ School of Medicine, I believe I will contribute greatly to the excellence of your next MS1 class. Further, based on my calculations using said spreadsheet, my matriculation will raise your average GPA by 0.015 points and your average MCAT by 0.12 points. Finally, while my sGPA is slightly below average, I would like to point out that it will lower your average by a value that is insignificant at the P<0.05 level."

I'm copy pasting this to a word document and saving.. I will just expand on this and come on.. atleast one ADCOM should have a good sense of humor.. but Im definitely not gonna test that theory on all 20 schools im applying to..

 

[kpcrew]

&quot;I have decided to apply to the University of XYZ School of Medicine because, according to the spreadsheet on SDN, I am a 'High Chance' at your institution with a 76.5% chance of matriculating (and a 90.0% chance at an interview). Since this means I am basically the essence of an ideal candidate at the University of XYZ School of Medicine, I believe I will contribute greatly to the excellence of your next MS1 class. Further, based on my calculations using said spreadsheet, my matriculation will raise your average GPA by 0.015 points and your average MCAT by 0.12 points. Finally, while my sGPA is slightly below average, I would like to point out that it will lower your average by a value that is insignificant at the P<0.05 level.&quot;

haha this was great