I got hit with 22 applications all at once and just now submitted the last one... almost SIX weeks later! I prioritized them so I'm not freaking out too much, but will they even look at it at this point? I wish I would've known so that I could've staggered my primary applications! Did anyone else take this long for any of theirs?
How much time did you need for secondaries?
- Thread starter BeMD13
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Sounds like my timeline. My app just said have it in by December but I hope they don't pay attention to how long it was since I got it. I feel like it was almost disrespectful to turn it in after a six week lag.
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These secondaries are ridiculous. I have a second degree in journalism, and I still can't stand them or write them quick enough.
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After I submitted my primary I started pre writing them. That was 4 weeks long and then I took 1 week after I was verified for a total of 5 weeks essentially. I was taking my sweet ass time during pre verification though so might have been able to condense it.
Did you not pre-write at all?
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Can any current med students comment on their experiences with submitting secondaries >4 weeks after getting them and the results from those schools?
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It happened to me and it was completely fine. No one ever mentioned it. Better to take your time and not make mistakes than send in a sub-par essay!
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Thank you so much for your insight! Really appreciate it
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My app got verified 2 weeks ago and I still have 17 secondaries to write.... Anyone have advice on how to buckle down and just write? When I start writing I keep doubting everything and thinking that everything I'm saying is dumb.
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When my app was verified on July 10th, I was fairly quick and efficient. I had taken a little vacation and I was ready to type - I got 22 done by July 24...At some point around the 2nd day of August I had finished around 30 and I literally could not type anymore, esp to the school-specific prompts. yuck. "why this school?......" these started taking me days to even do. During the this entire month of August, I've submitted 5...lol.
Then at some point I realized that I had missed some 2-week strict deadlines or "recommended" deadlines by over a month, and I realized that I had applied to schools like Rush that want 600,000 hours of soup kitchen volunteering, and I'm like you know what forget those schools I'm done. I'm still working on about 5 secondaries now but I'm finding it really really really hard to do them
Then at some point I realized that I had missed some 2-week strict deadlines or "recommended" deadlines by over a month, and I realized that I had applied to schools like Rush that want 600,000 hours of soup kitchen volunteering, and I'm like you know what forget those schools I'm done. I'm still working on about 5 secondaries now but I'm finding it really really really hard to do them
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How on earth are you submitting 35 secondaries???
For every crazy person, theres someone even crazier!
There's a guy/girl around here or on reddit who applied to 60 schools. he/she probably began pre-writing in 6th grade
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I wrote 45 over the span of three weeks while working full time. I learned that you need too write an outline that reflects a broad swath of mission and vision statements and reflects qualities that different schools look for highlighting experiences that reflect those characteristics. Once you have the basic outline you edit to customize for each particular school. It was 7 hours every night since the last week of July to mid august.Prewriting can sometimes backfire because the prompts have changed or are subtly different. I have 10 left to go. Needless to say I am broke . So that comes out to 3.26 hours per secondary.
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About 3 weeks for the first secondary, 2 for the second and third. The rest are mostly copy/paste.
Don't worry about it, OP. I got stuck in the exact same situation when I got slammed with 25 secondaries on August 1st, and a month later I still have 7 or 8 from low-priority and far-reach schools left to finish. Our chances are a little diminished, but schools are so busy just trying to keep up with the thousands of applications they get that they almost certainly don't have time to consider small things like that.
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I've felt the same way through this whole secondary process. When I first started I thought I could sit and write the perfect answer the first time around but I would find myself wasting time just staring at a blank document. I find it best to just free write whatever comes to mind for a question and then I edit for a day or two to make it sound more professional and then have one or two people proofread it. After the first couple of secondaries I had a good reservoir of material that I could then just edit to fit questions on other secondaries, similar to the outline @libertyyne was talking about.
It's honestly insane how much time it takes. I swear these med schools think we have nothing better to do than write essays all day. I had a very intense job so 2 week turnarounds were simply not possible for the really long secondaries. We'll see how much it ends up costing me...
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I was verified in August, and I am writing secondaries now. I also took advantage of pre-writing during verification, but that only got me about 3 secondaries done. My expected turnaround time is 7-10 days, striving for less than 5 for those that are super short (100 words or 500 characters).
When those secondaries requiring screening (e.g. UCs) start to roll in, that should keep me busy for the rest of Sept.
I am almost at the fatigue/burnout points though, but I am going to try to finish the ones in hand by mid-Sept.
When those secondaries requiring screening (e.g. UCs) start to roll in, that should keep me busy for the rest of Sept.
I am almost at the fatigue/burnout points though, but I am going to try to finish the ones in hand by mid-Sept.
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Yeah you and me both, my friend. Full time swing shift and throw in moving on top of it. Sorry I couldn't plan for 30 secondaries and a 30% rent increase 18 months in advance everybody, I got laid off and had to find a new job and food is food.
I do get the feeling that most of the traditional pre-meds posting their secondary stats do not work full time to pay their own rent and rely on other sources of income to allow the "write all-day everyday" lifestyle. I mean shoot, I'd love to have a (read: single freaking) vacation day to write essays, but nope, that means taking 8 hours worth of pay away from my family.
These are the types of things I wish secondaries would ask about.
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That awkward moment when you find a typo in one of your secondaries. Jesus I swear I read it like 4 times...
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Are we late if we're still submitting secondaries this week?
I got hit with 36 secondaries on August 3rd and I've just been slowly working through them. I've submitted about 24 but most have been sent in within the past 2 weeks. I'm trying to finish them all by Monday.
I got hit with 36 secondaries on August 3rd and I've just been slowly working through them. I've submitted about 24 but most have been sent in within the past 2 weeks. I'm trying to finish them all by Monday.
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did this too. I've found reading out-loud can help-it makes you slow down and pay a bit closer attention to what you're reading
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unrelatedly, how do you type an m-dash instead of a hyphen on this site?
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I usually just search whatever I need to write on Wikipedia and copy/paste
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hahaha o shoot, at first I thought you were referring to your secondaries
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Ha! If only.
