Secondaries overload

[runningdude]

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Hey so as secondaries are rolling in I am sure other people out there feel like I do... Completely overwhelmed by the amount of work each secondary application takes.

I currently have 8 secondaries to fill out and I still haven't heard from 10 other schools. Each Secondary is taking me about 3-4 days to write the essays and edit them before I submit. At this rate I will not even be done with secondaries until mid-august. Does anyone have suggestions on how to speed up this process? I also have not found only a few questions that overlap on the secondaries, most schools have come up with unique questions so I haven't been able to overlap questions.

 

[hopefulMD12]

Not sure about you, but I am currently doing 1-2 secondaries each day... but I work on it all day. I have, however, found significant overlap with some of the questions, so I guess that's where I'm saving a lot of my time.

 

[Lucky Louie]

Did you pre-write any of them using last year's prompts? Did you visit them or do lots of research before they made your final list? So you're applying to 18 schools. Imagine those folks who are applying to 35+

 

[Ost3oclast]

I started pre-writing for secondaries in June so I was ahead of the game. However, you will probably find after awhile, that you can reuse some secondaries for other schools. Be sure to save all your secondary responses on your computer. That way if you come across a duplicate question you can copy/paste and change the school name. I did that with multiple essays last cycle.

 

[TheShaker]

Are they that long? Most secondaries can be turned around in about an hour or so. Or you can be like me and make secondary length your main selection factor in picking schools. 😀

 

[BABSstudent]

I started pre-writing for secondaries in June so I was ahead of the game. However, you will probably find after awhile, that you can reuse some secondaries for other schools. Be sure to save all your secondary responses on your computer. That way if you come across a duplicate question you can copy/paste and change the school name. I did that with multiple essays last cycle.

+1

Common secondaries that you can reuse are the diversity, greatest challenge, why this school (if you preselected your schools for many of the same reasons), goals as a physician, etc.

I suggest making slight edits to each one to better match to the school's mission statement before submitting. By the end of the cycle you will easily be able to do a secondary in a few hours and still get interview invites.

 

[Ost3oclast]

I suggest making slight edits to each one to better match to the school's mission statement before submitting. By the end of the cycle you will easily be able to do a secondary in a few hours

Yep. This as well. Forgot to mention this in my post!

 

[piggle]

what I've been doing is looking at all the prompts for the apps that I've got so far and seeing which ones have significant overlap (i.e. diversity questions/what is your biggest challenge, etc). Then I wrote one longish response to those and trimmed to fit the character requirements for each school.

After that I try to go by which schools have the shortest secondary and turn those over quickly.

 

[Noggin]

Hey so as secondaries are rolling in I am sure other people out there feel like I do... Completely overwhelmed by the amount of work each secondary application takes.

I currently have 8 secondaries to fill out and I still haven't heard from 10 other schools. Each Secondary is taking me about 3-4 days to write the essays and edit them before I submit. At this rate I will not even be done with secondaries until mid-august. Does anyone have suggestions on how to speed up this process? I also have not found only a few questions that overlap on the secondaries, most schools have come up with unique questions so I haven't been able to overlap questions.

Each secondary takes me about four hours instead of four days. Quality is extremely important, but I think you may be putting a little too much time into each one. Think of it like studying for the MCAT, it's not about how much you study, it's about how you study.

 

[walkthesun]

I second all of these posts. It shouldn't be taking you 4 days to submitted one secondary application. You should see some overlapping questions between schools, so take advantage of that. When I was applying last year, I would write 2 or 3 in one day, and then revise/edit them the next day and submit.

 

[runningdude]

Thanks everyone for the advice and encouragement. I am applying to 25 schools and have already finished 7.

I have been saving my secondaries so maybe I need think more about how I can reuse old essays. However, for those of you that say you can do a secondary in 4 hours, I am stunned. I don't see how you can write 4 one page essays in 4 hours and have these essays be quality work.

Thanks everyone!!

 

[BundleofHis]

I'm one of those crazy people applying to 35 schools and what I've been doing is writing a secondary and proofreading/submitting the one that I wrote the day before every single day. That way, I'm submitting one every day! Luckily I submitted on June 10th, so even if it takes me 35 days to submit all of mine, I'll still be ahead of the poor people that aren't even verified :/

 

[runningdude]

However, another thought or two for everyone. I understand taking 4 days on an application is probably overkill. However, I applied last year to only 5 schools and I applied in August/September so I was late in the process. I received 2 interviews and was rejected and both of the schools, I interviewed. I have a 35P and 3.7 science and 3.8 overall.

Each school gave me direct feedback on my application, and in both critiques I was told that the admissions committee could see that I had not been thorough with my writing in my secondaries. For this reason I would rather spend 4 days working on the secondaries of schools that are my top choices. For other schools that are fall back options I have been turning those around in a day and a half.

Just thought some people might want to know that the admissions committees will scrutinize your writing on your secondaries, so I would not rush through these that quickly!

 

[GoPelicans]

'Why this school?' is draining most of my energy.

 

[OCDOCDOCD]

I'm having a lot of trouble pre-writing some of these secondaries. It's these essay topics that ask about well-roundedness (diversity essays, greatest rewarding non-academic experience, time you were in the minority, etc.) that are killing me. I've come to realize that I'm probably the kind of applicant schools try to avoid (heavy research background, great stats, not much else going on). My only hope is that MD/PhD programs don't care about these MD secondary questions as much as the MD programs do 🙁

 

[Espadaleader]

I am a minority so I lol'ed when I read the "time you were in the minority" prompt.

 

[Toss]

Thanks everyone for the advice and encouragement. I am applying to 25 schools and have already finished 7.

I have been saving my secondaries so maybe I need think more about how I can reuse old essays. However, for those of you that say you can do a secondary in 4 hours, I am stunned. I don't see how you can write 4 one page essays in 4 hours and have these essays be quality work.

Thanks everyone!!

This may be your problem.

You don't necessarily have to rewrite all of your secondary essays.

 

[ES2]

"I'll still be ahead of the poor people that aren't even verified :/"


I'm one of those poor people 🙁 (crying myself to sleep)