Secondaries that are so tedious that you thought, "Forget this!"

Discover Your Odds of Getting into Medical School
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What secondaries have been so bad that they made you think, "I'll take my chances with the other 15-20 schools I'm applying to?

I'll start with one:

Rush

EDIT:

Here is the

Secondary Hall of Pain

  • Rush
  • Loyola
  • OHSU
  • Duke
  • Kentucky
  • Hofstra
  • Rosalind Franklin
  • UCLA
  • Georgetown
  • UChicago
  • Kansas
  • Case
  • UCSD
  • University of Washington
  • USC
  • University of Minnesota
  • Stanford
  • Loma Linda
  • Stony Brook
  • Emory
  • Maryland
 
Last edited:
MCAT guy said:
What secondaries have been so bad that they made you think, "I'll take my chances with the other 15-20 schools I'm applying to?

I'll start with one:

Rush
Click to expand...

Loyola and OHSU. But I did them, and I did them well. Beggars can't be choosers, esp with my GPA.
 
care to share examples to support your decision?
 
MCAT guy said:
What secondaries have been so bad that they made you think, "I'll take my chances with the other 15-20 schools I'm applying to?

I'll start with one:

Rush
Click to expand...
Kentucky


and...

Kentucky
 
OrkidLover said:
Loyola and OHSU. But I did them, and I did them well. Beggars can't be choosers, esp with my GPA.
Click to expand...

I second Loyola, but I saved it for last, which made those essays a lot easier to reuse/build from other secondaries.
 
The funny thing is when you open up a secondary with no essays and you're like...

[YOUTUBE]3GwjfUFyY6M[/YOUTUBE]
 
Loyola was bad but not unbearable, at least for me.

U of Louisville and U of Kansas made me wanna punch my computer screen, especially when the former asked me what my extracurriculars in HIGH SCHOOL were. Seriously?

IMO, there should be more threads like this. People need to vent.
 
I thought loooong and hard about every secondary with unique essays.
 
I was so annoyed about Rosalind Franklin's "life in discovery" question I didn't do their secondary.
 
Can you guys give a brief explanation of why those school's secondaries were terrible?

It'd be interesting to hear.
 
DrDre2001 said:
Can you guys give a brief explanation of why those school's secondaries were terrible?

It'd be interesting to hear.
Click to expand...

Loyola: 7 questions - academic/personal challenge one, healthcare experiences one, self-teaching one, others that I can't remember. I'm really wondering how they selected the questions.

OHSU: 2 essays, max 4000 characters each...the personal statement was 5,300 characters for comparison

Rosalind Franklin: Life in Discovery essay. I looked up their 4 pillars for some info and they are like research, education, application, service or something. It wasn't much help but you have to write what life in discovery means to you. Oh and they copyright Life in Discovery 😕 In the end though I got a product I was happy with but getting started was painful.
 
OrkidLover said:
Loyola: 7 questions - academic/personal challenge one, healthcare experiences one, self-teaching one, others that I can't remember. I'm really wondering how they selected the questions.

OHSU: 2 essays, max 4000 characters each...the personal statement was 5,300 characters for comparison

Rosalind Franklin: Life in Discovery essay. I looked up their 4 pillars for some info and they are like research, education, application, service or something. It wasn't much help but you have to write what life in discovery means to you. Oh and they copyright Life in Discovery 😕 In the end though I got a product I was happy with but getting started was painful.
Click to expand...

UCLA and case! UCLA had 9 essays and case had 3 essay 2 or which were giant!
 
Do secondaries change from year to year, especially the "beastly" ones?
 
UCLA bugged to no end, cause they sent it in really late when I was applying so I had zero motivation toward the end and there were like 10 essays.

Duke was long and painful, but when I interviewed there I realized how much weight they put on those things and I did appreciate that.

Loyola stank.

Georgetown's "write me two pages on how awesome I am" made me not want to apply there.

UChicago's painfully inane essay prompt (similar to Rosalind Franklin's, I guess) telling you to explain how you fit their "motto" (a yet more inane sentence that essentially boils down to "healing the person by using science and doing research") actually annoyed me so much I didn't fill it out.
 
ButImLETired said:
UCLA bugged to no end, cause they sent it in really late when I was applying so I had zero motivation toward the end and there were like 10 essays.

Duke was long and painful, but when I interviewed there I realized how much weight they put on those things and I did appreciate that.

Loyola stank.

Georgetown's "write me two pages on how awesome I am" made me not want to apply there.

UChicago's painfully inane essay prompt (similar to Rosalind Franklin's, I guess) telling you to explain how you fit their "motto" (a yet more inane sentence that essentially boils down to "healing the person by using science and doing research") actually annoyed me so much I didn't fill it out.
Click to expand...

agreed on G'town
 
I have to second Kansas. I got it when I was in the midst of about 8 other secondaries. I also am OOS, so I just didn't finish it. Only secondary I didn't complete.

I agree with some of the others, Loyola (so many essays), Case (so long for each) Gtown (so long for one), and RFU (head-scratchers). But I got through them, and hopefully will get an interview for my hard work!
 
MCAT guy said:
What secondaries have been so bad that they made you think, "I'll take my chances with the other 15-20 schools I'm applying to?

I'll start with one:

Rush
Click to expand...

oh well . . . if you don't apply for this reason, it means a better chance for those who really want to go there 🙂 i think thats why a lot of these schools have tedious secondaries in the first place, to weed out the seriously-interested applicants from the what-the-hell-i'll-apply-here applicants. (edited to add: this is supported by the fact that the schools mentioned are similar. rfu, loyola, rush? all mid tier private schools in chicago, appealing for OOSers. they all get a LOT of primaries. i know loyola has broken 10k for a few years now.)

but rush is awesome so you should probably just suck it up and fill it out :luck:
 
Definitely UCSD and UCLA - UCSDs was a Personal statement about your entire life before college 😕

UCLAs like was mentioned earlier had 9 essays :yawn:
 
as mentioned above, Georgetown. an obnoxious prompt if ever there was one.

i ground out the Case ones last year because it was one of the first ones i finished and i really wanted to go there. but they were hard. spent part of my beach vacation on them 😡 but i got an interview out of it 😍 and was then cut from the hold list in April :annoyed:

i'll add one that i don't think anyone's said yet: Minnesota. I had to wait a month to pass the secondary screen, and then opened this monstrosity with like eight essays. between the fact that i had already done my other secondaries, and was burnt out on the whole app scene, AND they only have an OOS acceptance rate of like 6%..... that one didn't get done.
 
MaryLennox said:
oh well . . . if you don't apply for this reason, it means a better chance for those who really want to go there 🙂 i think thats why a lot of these schools have tedious secondaries in the first place, to weed out the seriously-interested applicants from the what-the-hell-i'll-apply-here applicants. (edited to add: this is supported by the fact that the schools mentioned are similar. rfu, loyola, rush? all mid tier private schools in chicago, appealing for OOSers. they all get a LOT of primaries. i know loyola has broken 10k for a few years now.)

but rush is awesome so you should probably just suck it up and fill it out :luck:
Click to expand...

Yeah, maybe.

But if I have a good shot at 18 other schools and don't have to spend four times the normal amount of secondary effort/time on a single app, I don't really care. If a school has a brutal secondary and it's in my 15-20th ranked school, then it's probability of being filled out is low.

Sometimes you're happy to be weeded out. Maybe I do it, maybe I don't. If not, $100 I get to spend on something else.
 
University of Washington, 5 essays ended up taking me about 4 pages. it included a SECOND ps
 
USC's secondary is also a beotch. It's like 6 essays, all of which are asking the same thing.
 
Multiple people have agreed that this prompt is obnoxious/rude/etc. - but to me it sounds identical to every other medical school prompt. Instead of "why Temple/other school" which all schools say, it says "Why Georgetown? How would your education here prepare you for your particular goals?" - i think it is worded just fine and a very valid question if you are trying to spend four years (if not more) at this place 🙄

gravitywave said:
as mentioned above, Georgetown. an obnoxious prompt if ever there was one.

i ground out the Case ones last year because it was one of the first ones i finished and i really wanted to go there. but they were hard. spent part of my beach vacation on them 😡 but i got an interview out of it 😍 and was then cut from the hold list in April :annoyed:

i'll add one that i don't think anyone's said yet: Minnesota. I had to wait a month to pass the secondary screen, and then opened this monstrosity with like eight essays. between the fact that i had already done my other secondaries, and was burnt out on the whole app scene, AND they only have an OOS acceptance rate of like 6%..... that one didn't get done.
Click to expand...
 
I remember not doing Loyola's because it was so long. I also didn't do OHSU's because it came out so late.
 
Yeah I don't think I'm going to work on Loyola's. Waste of time, time that can be used for other schools.
 
.
 
Last edited:
jr doctor in sd said:
Multiple people have agreed that this prompt is obnoxious/rude/etc. - but to me it sounds identical to every other medical school prompt. Instead of "why Temple/other school" which all schools say, it says "Why Georgetown? How would your education here prepare you for your particular goals?" - i think it is worded just fine and a very valid question if you are trying to spend four years (if not more) at this place 🙄
Click to expand...

It's not the wording of the question- it's more the fact that they expect a HUGE essay about it. And if I remember correctly, the year I applied that was the only essay on there. I understand why they'd ask the question (essentially they're asking, why do you specifically think you should go here?), but to make that the only focus of your application and to make it such a long essay just seems obnoxious to me. It means the only thing you care about is that I really want to go to your school- you don't care about who I am, what I've done, why that matters to me, where I've been, what has challenged me...just as long as I can list a bunch of reasons why Gtown is the shiz. I hate that.
 
Any secondary that wants an extrapolation upon the research essay for M.D./Ph.D. applicants. The research essay is a 10,000 character limit essay. Most folks can talk about their research beautifully and succinctly in those 10,000 characters, and don't need/want more room.

I'm looking at you Emory. /rantover
 
ButImLETired said:
It's not the wording of the question- it's more the fact that they expect a HUGE essay about it. And if I remember correctly, the year I applied that was the only essay on there. I understand why they'd ask the question (essentially they're asking, why do you specifically think you should go here?), but to make that the only focus of your application and to make it such a long essay just seems obnoxious to me. It means the only thing you care about is that I really want to go to your school- you don't care about who I am, what I've done, why that matters to me, where I've been, what has challenged me...just as long as I can list a bunch of reasons why Gtown is the shiz. I hate that.
Click to expand...
I beg to disagree, because you can write about who you are and what you have done in the essay of "why this schooll". In my essay I have the entire second paragraph about myself, then begin the third paragraph with something like "these are the reasons why I think Gtown is a perfect fit for me", and talk about the link between my background and Gtown.
On the other hand, Vandy's secondary questions do not care about why I'm interested in Vandy at all. It required me to write a huge autobiography (1200 words, about as long as Georgetown), and I feel a little narcisstic in writing it.
I guess Gtown and Vandy are two opposite examples, but I'm ok with both.
 
UCSD and UCLA both sucked major ass but I did them

Loyola and OHSU though... so long i dont even wanna attempt them.

RFU's life in discovery was aiiiiite....
 
Michigan state, they ask about what you did in highschool for christ sake!
 
TFS said:
u of minnesota
rush
oregon
loyola
stony brook
stanford
loma linda
u of chicago
georgetown

case was pretty bad. it took me a long ass time to get it done. uw's questions also took me a while to get done.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I saw it and I thought I was going to die...Loyola's, Rush and the UMN were a pain but at least I had legitimate answers. I had to write and rewrite Loma just so I wasn't saying the same thing in ALL seven essays. I hate repetitive questions.
 
MCAT guy said:
The funny thing is when you open up a secondary with no essays and you're like...

[YOUTUBE]3GwjfUFyY6M[/YOUTUBE]
Click to expand...


This post needs to be dipped in bronze and preserved for posterity
 
EscapedGoat said:
USC's secondary is also a beotch. It's like 6 essays, all of which are asking the same thing.
Click to expand...

I'll second this! Just annoyingly redundant!

Stony Brook is giving me a tough time. It's my last one and I just don't have the motivation to vomit up more original thoughts.
 
Secondary Hall of Pain

  • Rush
  • Loyola
  • OHSU
  • Duke
  • Kentucky
  • Hofstra
  • Rosalind Franklin
  • UCLA
  • Georgetown
  • UChicago
  • Kansas
  • Case
  • UCSD
  • University of Washington
  • USC
  • University of Minnesota
  • Stanford
  • Loma Linda
  • Stony Brook
  • Emory
  • Maryland

Emphasis added to frequently mentioned schools.
 
oh man, maryland was such a pain. I hate that its in-state for me.

I def. didnt say "Forget this" but a different f word came to mind for chicago, georgetown and loyola.
 
northwestern and OSU were the toughest for me. Something about the way they phrased asking me to describe my personality or define altruism... just killed me.

Loyola and Rush were easy to do with the help of all the other secondaries I wrote. Rosalind was annoying but shortish to write. Case was easy -- just rewrote my essay for Virginia tech.
 
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