Secondary Essays how do they differ?

[DocDrakeRamoray]

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I was wondering how secondary application essay questions differ from school to school.

How much overlap is there?, if I apply to 30 schools will there be 30 different essays I will have to write?

 

[ksmi117]

Check out this thread. It has all the prompts from secondaries last year, or at least all the ones posted on SDN.

 

[Pedsbro]

I was wondering how secondary application essay questions differ from school to school.

How much overlap is there?, if I apply to 30 schools will there be 30 different essays I will have to write?

A quick and easy answer: Some school essays will be the same or similar, and some will be completely different and out of left field. Common ones include: why this school? what will you be doing while applying to med school and waiting for a decision (if you're not still in undergrad)? Explain any poor grades, etc.

 

[michigator04]

Once you have written the essays for 2-3 schools, you will start to see heavy overlap. They aren't identical, so you have to be careful when cutting/pasting, but it's not like each school has a whole set of perfectly unique questions that require unique answers.

 

[DocDrakeRamoray]

Ok then, I think there would be lots of overlap. For questions "why this school" I still can send very similar essays to schools that are similar ex. small town, strong in research etc.

 

[Appless]

If a school didnt ask for any secondary essays one year, is it likely that it will be the same next year? Or as was stated before, you just dont know they could or couldnt be the same?

 

[witness23]

best part is the different limits in character that schools have for the same essay.

makes it interesting. well, you'll see

 

[DocDrakeRamoray]

Check out this thread. It has all the prompts from secondaries last year, or at least all the ones posted on SDN.

Wow.....thanks a lot of the link

 

[ksmi117]

Wow.....thanks a lot of the link

np... there's a thread stickied at the top of the Pre-Allo forum that has links to all sorts of useful stuff from this year. Def. check it out.

 

[WaterBird]

best part is the different limits in character that schools have for the same essay.

makes it interesting. well, you'll see

I would say I had around 3 core essays that I tailored to specific schools, plus a few random short answers.

One essay I used for almost all of them, and by the end I had versions that were: 250 wds, 400 wds, 600 wds, 1200 wds and 6000 wds. I really hated that essay by then.