How important are the secondary essays

[Chankovsky]

---

Members don't see this ad.

How important is it in the admission process. Do schools look closely at it before offering interviews?

 

[No Egrets]

They're worth approximately 64%.

 

[mikedc813]

Look at the small % of interviews granted out of everyone who applies. How can you not think it plays a huge role in whether you're interviewed? They have to be able to narrow down the field somehow...

 

[bkmonkey]

Schools don't send out secondaries just for fun. They are very important in evaluating candidates prospects for admission. Many secondaries give you the opportunity to tell a school why you want to go to their school in particular. Use this space to really point out the unique qualities of the school (ie curriculum, facilities, match, location, etc.) that make you want to attend. Secondaries give you the opportunity to further distinguish yourself from the multitude of other qualified applicants that also want to go to a particular school.

 

[DGhiker]

Schools don't send out secondaries just for fun.

No - they send them out for more $$$

 

[bkmonkey]

Sure they send them out for more money, but if you don't do them, you're not getting in...

 

[leechy]

I posted a thread with a similar question (I'm a bit too lazy to dig it up right now)... the consensus seemed to be that secondaries were somewhat important, but not something to be pored over like the AMCAS primary. Of greater importance was simply finishing them off quickly and turning them in.

I've come to a general rule of thumb: the longer and more tortuous the secondary, the greater weight it is given by that school in its admissions process.

Unless the adcoms are sadists AND masochists (which, hey, they may very well be), they're not going to be forcing people to write 6 essays and THEN scrutinizing all these essays... that's way too time consuming to do just for the hell of it. On the other hand, schools that only ask one or two nominal questions (like "explain any felonies if you've done 'em") are probably not giving it much weight - unless you've done felonies, of course.