School Specific Questions

[Kkshake]

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How do people go about writing why they'd like to attend a specific school when that question comes up in secondaries? I know I would be happy to be just accepted anywhere, so how can I answer the question in an authentic way that makes it seem like it's the school itself that I'm interested in attending? Obviously, I'd look up the mission statement and try to tie that in, but is there any other advice because I feel like most people do that?

 

[holdthemayo]

I agree sometimes these can be hard. Do you have any ties to the region? Are they known for research? If so, does that interest you? Do you have a mission to help underserved populations? If so, does that interest you? Maybe they have student run clinics and that excites you.

Of course, no one is going to believe that you are passionate about underserved populations if you haven't worked with them, or passionate about research if you've never done any, etc. Do some research on the school's website to see what they value, find where that intersects with your experiences and interest.

 

[aymar]

Some schools (Emory, GW, UNC, and Jefferson immediately come to mind) have clinical emphasis tracks. Usually you can find pretty detailed descriptison of these on the schools' websites. With the schools that offered these, I usually talked about why these specific tracks interested me, and why I thought they would contribute to my personal career goals.