Reusing personal statement material for secondaries

[xc_stallion92]

Hey all, I asked this in the Physician Scientist forum but nobody responded and that forum is pretty barren. Anyway, my question is based on MD/PhD secondaries but it could also be applicable to people applying to MD-only programs.

Many of the secondaries ask for extra essays that are exactly the same as the primary essay(s). For instance, a certain MD/PhD program asks for 7000 character "Why MD/PhD?" and "Significant Research Experience" essays, which are the exact two extra essays that AMCAS requires us to write for the primary.

1) Do some schools (the ones that require the exact same info for their secondaries) not even bother reading the primary applications?

2) Would it be bad to just use a large chunk of my primary essays for those secondaries since they are asking the exact same question?

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[LizzyM]

Try contacting the schools and ask if the person reading the secondary will have access to the primary. In some cases, they may want some reviewers and/or interviewers to see your essays without seeing your grades and scores and so they provide them with only the secondary. That's one explanation I can think of.

Isn't 7000 characters longer than what is allotted on the AMCAS? So you can go into greater detail. Don't cut & paste but you can certainly use the same rationale in both essays but you might want to re-write. You also have the opportunity to put a plug in for why MD/PhD at that school which you did not do in the primary.

 

[xc_stallion92]

Try contacting the schools and ask if the person reading the secondary will have access to the primary. In some cases, they may want some reviewers and/or interviewers to see your essays without seeing your grades and scores and so they provide them with only the secondary. That's one explanation I can think of.

Isn't 7000 characters longer than what is allotted on the AMCAS? So you can go into greater detail. Don't cut & paste but you can certainly use the same rationale in both essays but you might want to re-write. You also have the opportunity to put a plug in for why MD/PhD at that school which you did not do in the primary.

Thanks for the response, that first point is really interesting and I hadn't thought about that at all. And yes, it is a bit longer on the "Why MD/PhD?" essay. Will definitely expand a little bit and throw some love to the individual school.