Importance of writing about different experiences/activities in secondaries?

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As I am making my way through my secondary essays, I am trying to brainstorm topics to write about but always seem to circle back to experiences that I have addressed/touched on in my primaries. I understand that the secondaries are a way for the schools to individually get a fuller picture of the applicant, but is it absolutely necessary to write about something clearly different for each essay?

For a more concrete explanation of my problem: I wrote about a moment from my clinical volunteer experience in my personal statement and am wondering if I can write about another instance/interaction from the same experience in my secondary or if I should spend more time trying to think and write about something else on my application that might fit the prompt, albeit not as well.

I appreciate any help/feedback, especially from those of you who have gone through the application process before.

 

[trobinsonmd]

short answer: no, it is not absolutely necessary to write about something different for each essay.

You can add in some more detail about the volunteering experience in your secondary essay... however, secondaries are a great place to address experiences that you could not fit into the primary, so you may want to use your secondaries to touch on stuff you were not able to fit into your primary... it's fine to further discuss your volunteering gig in secondaries, but don't let it be the only thing you talk about it. If you keep bringing it up and do not bring up other experiences, it will get ad coms wondering why you are not touching on any other experiences and it raises a multitude of questions

 

[Catalystik]

is it absolutely necessary to write about something clearly different for each essay?

For a more concrete explanation of my problem: I wrote about a moment from my clinical volunteer experience in my personal statement and am wondering if I can write about another instance/interaction from the same experience in my secondary or if I should spend more time trying to think and write about something else on my application that might fit the prompt, albeit not as well.

Don't assume every reader will have seen your PS already. Every adcomm isn't necessarily given access to all parts of the application. It's fine to use the same activity for fodder for essays for the PS, Activities area, and Secondaries, but you should switch up the vocabulary, anecdotes, and take-away points so it seems fresh and adds something new. You also need to take care to provide sufficient context so that the evaluator knows the basis for the experience in case it's the first of your essays they read.

 

[CJhooper123]

Don't assume every reader will have seen your PS already. Every adcomm isn't necessarily given access to all parts of the application. It's fine to use the same activity for fodder for essays for the PS, Activities area, and Secondaries, but you should switch up the vocabulary, anecdotes, and take-away points so it seems fresh and adds something new. You also need to take care to provide sufficient context so that the evaluator knows the basis for the experience in case it's the first of your essays they read.

This hurts my soul (and wallet). I get that adcoms get thousands of applications... but the amount of time and money people spend on this process... ughh.

 

[theKingLT]

This hurts my soul (and wallet). I get that adcoms get thousands of applications... but the amount of time and money people spend on this process... ughh.

I don't think catalystik means that parts of your app aren't read, but that some schools have a divide and conquer type of evaluation where different people look at different parts of your app. Although if you have 5+ LOR's and filled up every activity entry to the full word count, I wouldn't be surprised if some of that gets skipped over because at some point it's just too much.

 

[Catalystik]

This hurts my soul (and wallet). I get that adcoms get thousands of applications... but the amount of time and money people spend on this process... ughh.

I don't think catalystik means that parts of your app aren't read, but that some schools have a divide and conquer type of evaluation where different people look at different parts of your app.

I did not at all mean to suggest that every part of the application isn't evaluated, but rather that a given institution for the sake of head-to-head comparisons, might assign one person to evaluate the PS only, another, Secondary essays, and yet another, to score the Activities section. Other schools might divide the application evaluation process by MCAT score, so that all applications in a certain range go to evaluator A, all in another range to evaluator B, and so forth. Yet others don't allow readers to see MCAT score and GPAs. Every med school will have their own system.

 

[CJhooper123]

I did not at all mean to suggest that every part of the application isn't evaluated, but rather that a given institution for the sake of head-to-head comparisons, might assign one person to evaluate the PS only, another, Secondary essays, and yet another, to score the Activities section. Other schools might divide the application evaluation process by MCAT score, so that all applications in a certain range go to evaluator A, all in another range to evaluator B, and so forth. Yet others don't allow readers to see MCAT score and GPAs. Every med school will have their own system.

Thanks for the clarification - my soul and wallet feel better.

 

[Catalystik]

Thanks for the clarification - my soul and wallet feel better.

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