How do you guys choose which secondaries to write first?

[uphillBattle]

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Once the app gets verified and secondaries hopefully start rolling in, how do folks normally choose which ones to tackle first?

I was thinking preference would go towards which school screens and which school the applicant is most interested in.

 

[loltopsy]

I set a 1 week deadline. Every secondary I get must be submitted within a week of receiving it. That forced me to do triage. I'd pick out the ones that required no essay/little effort and get that done first. Then I'd do the book writing competitions.

 

[BABSstudent]

Once the app gets verified and secondaries hopefully start rolling in, how do folks normally choose which ones to tackle first?

I was thinking preference would go towards which school screens and which school the applicant is most interested in.

In reality you will end up doing them in the order they come in.

It isn't like you send in 15 primaries and get 15 secondaries on June 28th.

 

[AdrianVeidt]

In reality you will end up doing them in the order they come in.

It isn't like you send in 15 primaries and get 15 secondaries on June 28th.

Possible if none of them screen and all send out first day.

 

[Ellie Arroway]

Rolling admissions get priority, but You should not sit on any secondary for more than 2 weeks.

 

[didimao]

I submitted my primary to about 30 schools and definitely got at least 2/3rds of the secondaries back within a week. I took care of those that required minimal time, then my state school, followed by easiest to hardest secondaries. That allowed me to reuse most of my essays near the end 🙂

 

[uphillBattle]

Ah that makes sense.

Another question: Looking through some of these secondary prompts, I feel like I touched upon many of the prompt topics (challenge, qualities, etc.) in my primary and meaningful activity sections.

Would it be ok to reuse those experiences but go into greater depth in the secondary prompts?

 

[thisandthat]

Ah that makes sense.

Another question: Looking through some of these secondary prompts, I feel like I touched upon many of the prompt topics (challenge, qualities, etc.) in my primary and meaningful activity sections.

Would it be ok to reuse those experiences but go into greater depth in the secondary prompts?

I am curious about this as well!

 

[darkjedi]

You really should be looking up prompts to all the schools you applied to even before verification.

By doing so you can try and tease out some common themes between some of the secondaries as most of them tend to be pretty similar (except obviously the why this school ones). I wound up writing maybe like 5 big essays that I would adjust and tweak a little for each individual school, but who's core messages was already read over and well critiqued by many people. There will always be a handful of very unique essays, which you'll have to spend significantly more time on, but this should help you manage your time better if you are applying to like 20 schools.

I remember Duke's secondary was ridiculous and had like 5 essays that were pretty unique and I wound up just dropping them from my list haha.

 

[airabuyu13]

yeah i was on the edge for applying to duke or not and i saw last year's numerous long secondary prompts and well, it made my decision for me haha

 

[uphillBattle]

You really should be looking up prompts to all the schools you applied to even before verification.

By doing so you can try and tease out some common themes between some of the secondaries as most of them tend to be pretty similar (except obviously the why this school ones). I wound up writing maybe like 5 big essays that I would adjust and tweak a little for each individual school, but who's core messages was already read over and well critiqued by many people. There will always be a handful of very unique essays, which you'll have to spend significantly more time on, but this should help you manage your time better if you are applying to like 20 schools.

I remember Duke's secondary was ridiculous and had like 5 essays that were pretty unique and I wound up just dropping them from my list haha.

That's what I've been doing right now.

So far I've gotten:

- Challenge
- What experiences gave you qualities to be a physician
- Like Best about med
- Like least

I'm in the process of brainstorming some experiences and writing a few out. But for the qualities to be a physician part, a big reason I now want to be a physician is because of homeless shelter work I did for many years.

Wasn't so much that I saw a lack of medical care, though there was that, but more because I wanted to care for people more intimately.

I talk about that in my ps but I feel like repeating that in the secondaries wouldn't tell them anything new.

Same thing with my challenge. I shouldered some big respons. last year and I made that a most meaningful experience. I guess I could go into greater depth or something but not sure if that would be appropriate.

 

[mmmcdowe]

I prioritized rolling admissions, especially those with Oct 15 acceptances.

 

[uphillBattle]

Any input on my last post?

Slightly concerned that I used a lot of the 'good' experiences in my PS and meaningful activities sections.

 

[Mosa]

In the order they rolled in.

 

[darkjedi]

Ah that makes sense.

Another question: Looking through some of these secondary prompts, I feel like I touched upon many of the prompt topics (challenge, qualities, etc.) in my primary and meaningful activity sections.

Would it be ok to reuse those experiences but go into greater depth in the secondary prompts?

Ideally you would want to share more of yourself in the secondary. Simply rehasing what you wrote about in the primary won't help you that much. On the other hand, if you write an essay with an entirely different topic/context, but still use some of your primary as your examples, that wouldn't be too bad. Basically, if you can reapproach what you wrote at a different angle, adding significantly more value to your application, it wouldn't be the worst. It is just harder to be able to add value to something you have already talked about.

 

[uphillBattle]

Ideally you would want to share more of yourself in the secondary. Simply rehasing what you wrote about in the primary won't help you that much. On the other hand, if you write an essay with an entirely different topic/context, but still use some of your primary as your examples, that wouldn't be too bad. Basically, if you can reapproach what you wrote at a different angle, adding significantly more value to your application, it wouldn't be the worst. It is just harder to be able to add value to something you have already talked about.

So the ideal is to add more information about myself. Elaborate on different experiences.

And the less than ideal but not worse would be to approach what I wrote from a different angle and elaborate a bit more.

 

[BABSstudent]

Any input on my last post?

Slightly concerned that I used a lot of the 'good' experiences in my PS and meaningful activities sections.

You can reuse things, but bring out different qualities they express that fit with the mission statement of each school.

For example, you may have done research on how income level may affect illness and success in school. At school A that wants to train physician scientists, stress the research and how you wish to continue publishing as a physician (if that's what you want to do). At school B that focuses on helping the underserved, write about how this could help the socioeconomically disadvantaged. At school C that wants to create physicians that give back to society, you may not be able to use this at all and another activity may help you out more there.

Hope this helps.

 

[uphillBattle]

You can reuse things, but bring out different qualities they express that fit with the mission statement of each school.

For example, you may have done research on how income level may affect illness and success in school. At school A that wants to train physician scientists, stress the research and how you wish to continue publishing as a physician (if that's what you want to do). At school B that focuses on helping the underserved, write about how this could help the socioeconomically disadvantaged. At school C that wants to create physicians that give back to society, you may not be able to use this at all and another activity may help you out more there.

Hope this helps.

Ah I see. So I guess the appropriate strategy is to draw up a list of mission statements to the schools.

I was going to approach them from one specific angle that was the main motivator for me to consider medicine but I should attempt your recommendation.

 

[GatsbyK]

I think attacking it from the schools mission statement would be the best choice of action on the secondaries. It not only attempts to give them another angle to read but also tries to show why you are a good fit for the schools that you chose.

 

[uphillBattle]

A follow up question is:

Which prompts did everyone tackle first?

I noticed that not all of the schools have a 'why this school' prompt. Only a small fraction do. Is it better to focus on tackling the diversity/altruism/challenge essays first then?