secondary copy and paste from AMCAS primary?

[Doc Of Life]

There's a secondary question I'm trying to answer which asks about something that I directly discussed in my AMCAS primary essay. I imagine that copying and pasting a couple of paragraphs from my primary into this secondary app question would be frowned upon. But what the heck am I supposed to do if I already answered this question in my primary essay?

The question is "DESCRIBE AN OBSTACLE YOU'VE OVERCOME AND HOW IT HAS DEFINED YOU." but of course I already discussed this at length in my primary essay! I could choose a different obstacle I've overcome, but the reason why I wrote about that event in my primary is because it is by far the best one to talk about.

What do you think I should do?

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[ksmi117]

Um, I'd use the same obstacle but not copy and paste. The primary is super short, I'm sure there are other things you could say about the experience.

 

[LizzyM]

What does cutting and pasting say about you? Is that the message you want to convey to the adcom?

 

[lstone13]

Surely, you've had to overcome more than one obstacle before. I would be hesitant to discuss the same thing. You have a limited amount of space to describe your experiences and impress the Admissions Committee. Why would you want to repeat yourself?

 

[jla314]

Surely, you've had to overcome more than one obstacle before. I would be hesitant to discuss the same thing. You have a limited amount of space to describe your experiences and impress the Admissions Committee. Why would you want to repeat yourself?

if it's an obstacle that has been really significant for the OP, i can imagine he/she learned a variety of things from the experience and could talk about different facets of the same obstacle for different essays. in some situations, the obstacles have been so great that to talk about anything else sounds and feels artificial for the writer (and reader).

but i would definitely not copy/paste the same essay.

 

[Doc Of Life]

Thanks for the advice everyone. As jla314 said, I've encountered an obstacle that is far and away greater than any other in my life, so it would be weird to write about anything else. I think it would look weird to the adcom too. They'd wonder why I wrote about this relatively minor obstacle in their secondary that asked the question directly, even though I mentioned a much more major obstacle in my primary that didn't even ask about describing an obstacle. So I decided to write about the same obstacle, but describe it in much greater detail than I did in my primary, and I also expounded on how it "defined me" like the question asked.

Thanks again.