How much time do you spend on a secondary?

[osprey099]

I've been spending 1-2 hours per secondary and also copy/pasting quite a bit. Should I spend more time on these things? I've heard some people say they spend 1-2 days per secondary. I can't imagine why you need that much time for a couple of 1000char essays

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[NCKSD]

Some people spend 1-2 hours, some people spend 1-2 days, some people spend 1-2 weeks. Why does it matter? If you think its good enough, submit it. Copying other peoples schedule doesnt do anything, I dont understand questions like these.

 

[jdfamily]

I personally take one or two days to finish a secondary to look it over with a fresh look and to go over mine with the writing center at my university. I did not do this for my personal statement and ended up with a few errors on it that I was not proud of. Of course I spent months on my personal statement, but I only had friends and family correct it rather than the writing center. Also when I look at my secondary a day or two later I seem to have better things to add and take away.

In the end it might not make that much of a difference, but for me it is a process that has been working very well. If someone things they can get good quality secondaries written in two hours then more power to them! Like was said before each person is different in the quality and quantity they want to write.

 

[hopefulMD12]

4-5 hours per secondary on average. Easier ones may take 1-2 hours and harder may take 8-9 hours.

 

[Cambover]

I spent 2-5 days writing every secondary and then sent them to people I trust to look over for errors. Some of them are going slowly now, and I'd hate to send in the essay only to find they found an error.

EDIT: I'm also working full-time this summer. If I was not they all would have been done in two days.

 

[Soulstice]

I spend about a day writing it, then take 1-2 days before I look at it again - I definitely suggest putting a gap between when you write and when you reread/submit, because you will always find that things start to stand out that you didn't notice earlier.

 

[circulus vitios]

I pre-wrote all of my essays. I spent days writing my first essays, but after a while I could copy, paste, and hack together essays in just an hour or two.

 

[sciencebooks]

I pre-wrote all of my essays. I spent days writing my first essays, but after a while I could copy, paste, and hack together essays in just an hour or two.

+1

I became the queen of recycling, even seemingly totally unrelated things. The ones that take the most time now are the "Why us?" essays. Not because they're hard but because of needing to look the stuff up, lol.

 

[Juan Solo]

I think it depends on the secondary, your interest level in that particular school and the level of importance that secondary has on getting an interview or accepted.

Longest time spent on a secondary was one month (Pritzker). Shortest time was 1 day ( UC Davis).

Good luck!

 

[bigdogrob4284]

Its definitely dependent on the specific essay. Quality is important, so don't rush them. As far as the individual essays, the way that I approached them was that I treated each prompt like it was a final essay for a class, so I would work on it until I felt is was "A" quality.