Is it possible to destroy your chances by submitting poorly written secondaries?

[LoveBeingHuman:)]

---

Members don't see this ad.

By applying to too many schools? Suppose that, at worst, the quality of the secondaries was neutral. Still, can this destroy your chances at a particular school?

 

[gyngyn]

By applying to too many schools? Suppose that, at worst, the quality of the secondaries was neutral. Still, can this destroy your chances at a particular school?

We never know where you applied or to how many schools (except in TX apparently).
It's usually just wasted effort and $.

 

[LoveBeingHuman:)]

We never know where you applied or to how many schools (except in TX apparently).
It's usually just wasted effort and $.

I was moreso referring to the fact that quality of secondaries is usually inversely related to # of secondaries submitted and was wondering if a neutral secondary can kill an otherwise good app for any particular school

 

[gyngyn]

I was moreso referring to the fact that quality of secondaries is usually inversely related to # of secondaries submitted and was wondering if a neutral secondary can kill an otherwise good app for any particular school

Weak secondaries are a common reason for not granting an interview.

 

[LoveBeingHuman:)]

Thanks you very much. I'm sorry that that this was kind of an odd question. For the past several years, many of my friends and family have applied to medical school and the ones that applied to more than 30 have been widely rejected, despite having very strong apps. So I was wondering what the reason was.

 

[Goro]

Yes yes and yes. The admissions process is in many ways a subtractive one.

By applying to too many schools? Suppose that, at worst, the quality of the secondaries was neutral. Still, can this destroy your chances at a particular school?

 

[Lawpy]

Weak secondaries are a common reason for not granting an interview.

The secondary is part of your application and will be evaluated and weighed with all other parts. You cant have a good application without having a good secondary. On the optimistic side, one of the reasons that many secondaries are poorly prepared is that applicants rush them in the belief that they must be "early" in order to be competitive. You get accepted by having your entire application, including your secondaries, written with a coherent, concise and compelling narrative, not because you rushed and got in returned in 48 hours along with 6 others.

is the so-called "two week rule" therefore another myth propagated on SDN? well written secondaries seemingly matter far more than early submission, so it looks like 4 weeks spent on well written secondaries are far better than 2 weeks sent on poor, rushed secondaries

 

[Dr.Kat]

Thanks you very much. I'm sorry that that this was kind of an odd question. For the past several years, many of my friends and family have applied to medical school and the ones that applied to more than 30 have been widely rejected, despite having very strong apps. So I was wondering what the reason was.

That's probably because they didn't spend quality time writing well thought out responses for each school's secondary. I applied to over 30 schools and received over 15 II. Applying to 30+ schools wasn't your friends/famliy's problem, writing poor secondaries was the problem.

Don't apply to that many if you're not willing to put in the hard work to make each response to each question count. It took up a lot of my day for over 2 months to generate over 30 secondary applications with well thought out content that was meaningful. Was it hell? Sure, cuz I despise writing. Was is hard work? Of course, but what piece of this process is easy? Sacrifice weekends and time away from work and studying to complete secondaries and it will get done.

 

[aldol16]

Well written secondaries are a definite requirement for scoring coveted interview spots at your target schools. For many schools, the secondary is an avenue for them to ask the questions that they really care about (e.g. take a look at Duke's multiple essay secondary). So even if your primary is strong, you can screw yourself by not answering or poorly answering the questions that the schools really care about.

This is why so many people pre-write common essays - tell us about experience X, diversity, etc. - so that they can have both well-written secondaries and turn them around quickly. You shouldn't be sacrificing quality for quantity - don't take 6 weeks to turn around a secondary but 2-4 weeks is pretty common. I sent in one school's secondary 4 weeks after I received it and still got an interview.

 

[P0ke]

Just make sure you don't leave the wrong school name while copy+pasting chunks for different essays.

 

[DameJulie]

Yes, it is possible. Secondaries shouldn't be taken lightly, especially the "why X school?" question.
However, I want to expand to OP's questions as "Can a phenomenal secondary application grant you an interview"?

 

[gyngyn]

Yes, it is possible. Secondaries shouldn't be taken lightly, especially the "why X school?" question.
However, I want to expand to OP's questions as "Can a phenomenal secondary application grant you an interview"?

It can distinguish a candidate with an otherwise acceptable ap.
It can't save an unacceptable one.

 

[efle]

It really shouldn't take more than a few hours for most places, once you have your commonly used essays written (e.g. diversity).

Having a bad secondary you wrote in half an hour = hurts. But spending 12 hours writing and re-writing and re-re-writing a 200 word "why our school" answer is not going to get you a better yield than 1/3rd as much time for 3x as many places would.

There are some exceptions like Duke and Vandy and UCSD that are asking for some major time spent on them, but overall I think you can apply to 25 schools and easily handle all the secondaries across a couple months.

 

[jcorpsmanMD]

We never know where you applied or to how many schools (except in TX apparently).
It's usually just wasted effort and $.

Yeah this surprised me when one of my interviewers asked me why I applied OOS to California..

 

[gyngyn]

Yeah this surprised me when one of my interviewers asked me why I applied OOS to California..

Awkward.