How early to submit secondaries?

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deleted444768

My app has been verified and I have received 6 secondaries so far and was wondering when I should submit. From past threads, people have been saying about 2 weeks. When is the latest to submit to still be considered 'early'?
 
You should submit the secondary whenever you are ready. Why would you wait 2 weeks? Most secondaries have a deadline, like 2 months or so.


roflmaoxqz said:
My app has been verified and I have received 6 secondaries so far and was wondering when I should submit. From past threads, people have been saying about 2 weeks. When is the latest to submit to still be considered 'early'?
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roflmaoxqz said:
My app has been verified and I have received 6 secondaries so far and was wondering when I should submit. From past threads, people have been saying about 2 weeks. When is the latest to submit to still be considered 'early'?
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How early to submit them? The same day you get them if possible.
 
I'd like to know this as well.

I know the answer is ASAP. However, some of these secondaries are beastly, and I really don't want to sacrifice quality to submit the same day. I'm probably gonna set the goal to one week.
 
I have a question about this too.

Since I'll get a billion secondaries all at once, would it be better to be complete at all the schools in one area first incase of interviews? or is the interview timing too random for it to matter.
 
sodarayg said:
I have a question about this too.

Since I'll get a billion secondaries all at once, would it be better to be complete at all the schools in one area first incase of interviews? or is the interview timing too random for it to matter.
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I think its a little random and well, they won't really be looking into interviews until August anyways. So you have a month to do a billion!

I would pre-write some if you are nervous about being overloaded. I'm applying to a lot of places to but honestly, many of them don't require essays and most others ask the same 2-3 questions. Shouldn't be too hard to turn them all around in a timely fashion (i.e. before August). I also won't have my application complete until August 17th when my MCAT scores come back so that will also give me a little extra time to complete things (and make me a little late to the party).
 
Jepstein30 said:
I think its a little random and well, they won't really be looking into interviews until August anyways. So you have a month to do a billion!

I would pre-write some if you are nervous about being overloaded. I'm applying to a lot of places to but honestly, many of them don't require essays and most others ask the same 2-3 questions. Shouldn't be too hard to turn them all around in a timely fashion (i.e. before August). I also won't have my application complete until August 17th when my MCAT scores come back so that will also give me a little extra time to complete things (and make me a little late to the party).
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Good luck! Yeah I'm stalking the school application threads to find out what the secondaries are so I can start prewriting since I won't be verified until the end of July
 
Don't sacrifice the quality of your secondary just so you can submit a few days earlier. It makes no sense to do this this early on in the cycle. Some schools strongly recommended returning their secondaries within 2 weeks last year. For the schools that didn't say this though, they didn't seem to care that it took 2-3 weeks to finish mine.

You can submit in late July and still be considered early imo (i.e. be amongst one of the first few groups to interview, assuming your application is competitive). Good luck! 🙂
 
Like others have said, you should submit it whenever you are ready. I have never seen an ADCOM ask about the date you submitted your secondary. I don't even think the date is on their printouts.
 
The rule of thumb is two weeks. Why? Because it takes time to make sure the essays are just right and have people read over them and make sure you are saying everything you want to say. For the most part don't take any longer then two weeks and if you have essays don't submit for at least one week so you can check over it. If there are no essays you can submit it day of.
 
my strategy is just to get them done ASAP...while doing the best job that I can. I don't see the sense in sitting on a secondary for weeks trying to make it perfect. There's so much variability in how people fill them out that there really isn't a "right" way...at least IMO.
 
What should you write about when they ask for "additional information"?

Anything in general, reasons for bad grades, personality traits, experiences? This seems to be a common question on the secondaries.
 
roflmaoxqz said:
What should you write about when they ask for "additional information"?

Anything in general, reasons for bad grades, personality traits, experiences? This seems to be a common question on the secondaries.
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There is so much variability in how people fill out secondaries there is no "right" or "wrong" way...at least IMO. I've heard a lot of people say you should only write something here if it's really relevant to your application. For example, if bad grades were the result of an illness in your family that required a lot of your attention then that would be something to put here. Experiences should've already been put in ur AMCAS and your LORs should speak about ur personality traits. Don't write a bunch of BS because you assume ADCOMs want to read it. hope this helps!
 
NickNaylor, on what grounds do you say this? If it's rolling admissions, time has to play SOME role...
 
Bumbl3b33 said:
NickNaylor, on what grounds do you say this? If it's rolling admissions, time has to play SOME role...
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My grounds are common sense I suppose. If you turn in a complete piece of **** it isn't going to matter when you returned it. Unless a school's secondary essentially consisted of filling out demographic information (I'm looking at you, Harvard), secondaries are very important - especially those that ask meaningful questions. Remember that a school specifically included the questions they did on a secondary. They obviously put some sort of importance on these questions, otherwise they wouldn't waste your and their time. Half-assing responses to questions like that will completely abrogate any imagined advantage to submitting within the same 24 hours.

Obviously the best situation is a well-written secondary turned in within a very quick amount of time. Since that's not possible in many cases though, I would much rather turn a secondary in late and have it be high-quality than the other way around. As an example, I turned in my Pritzker secondary almost a month after I received it - I struggled with the questions and provided lengthy responses. I now attend medical school there. Yes, that's just one anecdote, but turning a secondary in late isn't going to kill your app.

I agree that for the secondaries that don't have any sort of essay questions, returning them the same day is a good way to go.
 
NickNaylor said:
Do not rush to fill out secondaries in an attempt to return them by some arbitrarily defined deadline. A high quality secondary returned three weeks or a month later beats a hastily written secondary returned the same day every time.

(sent from my phone - please forgive typos)
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Yes, but at the same time, it really shouldn't take this long. It honestly only takes a few hours to complete a secondary. I would complete a secondary in one day, and review it the next to make sure I wasn't out of my mind the day before.

You should strive to make it the best quality work you can put forward without dragging it out too long. The general consensus is a 2 week turnaround from when you get it to when you turn it in. The earlier you get the secondary, the more leniency you have in submitting it.
 
phnerd1105 said:
Yes, but at the same time, it really shouldn't take this long. It honestly only takes a few hours to complete a secondary. I would complete a secondary in one day, and review it the next to make sure I wasn't out of my mind the day before.

You should strive to make it the best quality work you can put forward without dragging it out too long. The general consensus is a 2 week turnaround from when you get it to when you turn it in. The earlier you get the secondary, the more leniency you have in submitting it.
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I agree with Nick. Duke for example has prompts that if you knock a same day response I can tell you that you probably weren't answering the questions in ThE thoughtful and introspective way that they were looking for. Based on past threads and talking with successful applicants. I think the advantage gained from a same
Day turn around and a 2 week turn around is very small.
 
SourD21 said:
There is so much variability in how people fill out secondaries there is no "right" or "wrong" way...at least IMO. I've heard a lot of people say you should only write something here if it's really relevant to your application. For example, if bad grades were the result of an illness in your family that required a lot of your attention then that would be something to put here. Experiences should've already been put in ur AMCAS and your LORs should speak about ur personality traits. Don't write a bunch of BS because you assume ADCOMs want to read it. hope this helps!
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I've looked at some past threads, and people are saying it's optional? Is it wise to just leave it blank?
 
GrabSlamBoot said:
I agree with Nick. Duke for example has prompts that if you knock a same day response I can tell you that you probably weren't answering the questions in ThE thoughtful and introspective way that they were looking for. Based on past threads and talking with successful applicants. I think the advantage gained from a same
Day turn around and a 2 week turn around is very small.
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I agree that you shouldn't turn in a hastily written secondary just for the sake of getting it in on time. My only point was that it shouldn't take you a month to write them if you're really trying. Though, it does vary from school to school, especially with Duke like you mentioned.
 
I found that it was best for me to sit down and just write a candid answer to each secondary prompt, give it a quick edit for spelling and grammar, and then submit. You shouldn't need to spend more than a few hours on each secondary. My best advice is to devote a weekend day to secondaries, take your laptop to a place where you know you work well (your room, library, coffee shop, etc.) and just bang them out at once. A lot of prompts are similar so you'll end up reusing sentences or paragraphs, and it's easier to do this when you're writing them all at once. This is how I did my secondaries and it was successful for me.


Sometimes I think the amount of time you spend on a secondary means nothing; just write honestly. Sometimes you'll give the type of response a school wants to hear, sometimes you won't. I spent a lot of time on NYU's interviews and ended up with an interview when I probably wouldn't have gotten one otherwise. I also spent a lot of time on Loyola's and Wake's secondaries, only to get rejected from both at the end of the cycle. I hardly spent any time on SLU's secondary, but I wrote about my experiences with the Jesuit tradition that were very important to me--clearly my answer fit with the school's philosophy, because I got an interview invite three days after submitting my secondary. It really just depends.


Oh, and as far as answering "optional" questions--only do it if you have something truly meaningful to say. If you're filling it out just to eradicate blank space, it will be obvious.
 
I doubt that your committee letter is even finished at this point, so turning in your secondary on the same day will not make your application complete.
 
roflmaoxqz said:
I've looked at some past threads, and people are saying it's optional? Is it wise to just leave it blank?
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I've left the one on UMDNJ blank. It's really up to each person though and what you feel comfortable with. I personally don't think it makes sense to write something just for the sake of them reading it. If its relevant by all means add it, but otherwise I wouldn't bother.
 
ak21 said:
I've left the one on UMDNJ blank. It's really up to each person though and what you feel comfortable with. I personally don't think it makes sense to write something just for the sake of them reading it. If its relevant by all means add it, but otherwise I wouldn't bother.
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So did I! Glad I'm not the only one lol😉
 
Praefectus said:
I doubt that your committee letter is even finished at this point, so turning in your secondary on the same day will not make your application complete.
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My schools committee must be amazing bc I've had my letter in since 6/7. Does that mean sending my secondaries in early helps me?
 
Praefectus said:
I doubt that your committee letter is even finished at this point, so turning in your secondary on the same day will not make your application complete.
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My school doesn't have a committee, and all my LORs have been submitted a while ago.
 
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