Question about application process

[Merlin0082]

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So I have a question about personal statements/secondary essays. I'm a junior, about to apply this summer.

For the initial AMCAS application thing, I only have to have 1 essay prepared (personal statement) right? And then later in the summer I'll be asked for my secondary essays right? Or do I have to right multiple essays right now.

And do I have to write secondary essays for all the schools I apply to, or do they invite me to write them?

Thanks a lot.

Also--what's a good amount of schools to apply to?

 

[Dr Lyss]

when you submit your AMCAS/primary app you will include a personal statement that will be sent to all the schools.

Then each school will send you a secondary and ask you to provide secondary essays specific to that school. If you really want to be prepared you can look at secondary essays from the past cycle and start drafting them for the schools you will be applying to -- but beware the essay topic might change!

The number of schools you apply to will depend on your stats/competitiveness and your finances. I'd say a decent number is 20 if you are average and can afford it.

 

[RySerr21]

So I have a question about personal statements/secondary essays. I'm a junior, about to apply this summer.

For the initial AMCAS application thing, I only have to have 1 essay prepared (personal statement) right? And then later in the summer I'll be asked for my secondary essays right? Or do I have to right multiple essays right now.

And do I have to write secondary essays for all the schools I apply to, or do they invite me to write them?

Thanks a lot.

Also--what's a good amount of schools to apply to?

Correct, for the initial AMCAS application you only have to write one essay, your personal statement. Everything else you will fill out is busy work like listing your jobs, volunteer activiites, awards, extracurriculars, personal information, etc. There might be an optional essay in which you can explain an unusual circumstance that affected your application.

Secondary essays will be given to you by the med schools that you choose to apply to. Schools do it differently in the sense that some schools will give a secondary to every person who applies, and some schools will screen pre-secondary so that only a select few get them. A majority of the schools just give secondaries to everyone but schools that for sure screen are the UCs. There are other ones as well, and as time goes on multiple people will make threads askign "Which schools screen pre secondary?" If you typed that in to the search tab you'd find a lot of hits and they will all have the list. So yea, you can figure it out that way pretty easily.

I think the average is about 13-15 schools. On SDN, the average is probably like 20+ cuz people are so neurotic and crazy. I think i was complete about about 13 schools or so, i dunno. It depends on your application and how competitive you are. Is it going to be a reach? Then apply to as many schools as you can afford to maximize your chances. Do you have a really strong application with high gpa and mcat and great ECs? I'd say still apply to at least 10 or so b/c you never know with this application game. The worst thing you could do is apply to like 2 schools b/c you assume you will get accepted and then you have to wait another year to apply b/c you were rejected from both. It happens every year, i gaurantee.

 

[Merlin0082]

Thanks a lot that really helped!