Secondary Review!

[pickeljuice]

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Hello everyone!

I'm currently in the middle of writing secondaries, and I was wondering if there was anyone who would be okay with reading over the secondaries I have written so far and give me some brutal feedback?

After writing for several schools, I'm left with a worrying thought about whether I'm truly answering these questions in a way that puts me in the most optimal light. If not, I would like to learn what I'm missing from other great secondaries that do.

Please let me know if you're interested and I'll send you a link to my google doc. Thank you!

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Secondary and interview feedback come as part of Becoming a Student Doctor, if you really want "brutal feedback." Otherwise, the usual advice is to answer the prompt within the time and space constraints you are given.

 

[polymerization]

If you need ongoing help beyond having a specific question you would want answered, you can take a look at Project SHORT. They have medical students willing to help you with your personal statement, secondaries, mock interviews, and any specifics you might be uncomfortable posting about in public. It is a free service organized by volunteers.

I also encourage you to use AI tools to interpret your writing and assess whether there are any uncomfortable implications you are making that you cannot support. I will say that a lot of the writing you do for medical school admissions can be very intimate and personal, and humans reviewing it may tread lightly. I'm very much a "just tell me if it's crap so I can fix it" kind of person, but a lot of the guidance I received felt nonspecific and guarded. At some point I just stopped asking humans for help because the hedging and hand-wringing made me more nervous than I already was.

You should not let AI write your essays, but I think you can leverage the tool to provide valuable feedback in an actionable way, and in the tone you feel most receptive to. You get to argue with it and it won't be offended. You can scrutinize single sentences and go back and forth on them. You can provide other essays you plan to submit and assess them as a unit for coherence. It is easily your most powerful tool if you use it intelligently.

 

[pickeljuice]

If you need ongoing help beyond having a specific question you would want answered, you can take a look at Project SHORT. They have medical students willing to help you with your personal statement, secondaries, mock interviews, and any specifics you might be uncomfortable posting about in public. It is a free service organized by volunteers.

I also encourage you to use AI tools to interpret your writing and assess whether there are any uncomfortable implications you are making that you cannot support. I will say that a lot of the writing you do for medical school admissions can be very intimate and personal, and humans reviewing it may tread lightly. I'm very much a "just tell me if it's crap so I can fix it" kind of person, but a lot of the guidance I received felt nonspecific and guarded. At some point I just stopped asking humans for help because the hedging and hand-wringing made me more nervous than I already was.

You should not let AI write your essays, but I think you can leverage the tool to provide valuable feedback in an actionable way, and in the tone you feel most receptive to. You get to argue with it and it won't be offended. You can scrutinize single sentences and go back and forth on them. You can provide other essays you plan to submit and assess them as a unit for coherence. It is easily your most powerful tool if you use it intelligently.

Wow, thank you so much for this! I had been hesitating using AI tools to help optimize my essays because, in the past, I often felt like their proposed edits were vague or confusing.

Thank you so much for linking me to Project SHORT - I'll definitely check it out. Hope you have an amazing rest of your day!

 

[polymerization]

Wow, thank you so much for this! I had been hesitating using AI tools to help optimize my essays because, in the past, I often felt like their proposed edits were vague or confusing.

Thank you so much for linking me to Project SHORT - I'll definitely check it out. Hope you have an amazing rest of your day!

Happy to help. Good luck on your cycle! May the odds be ever in your favor. For the night is dark and full of terrors.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Also, don't forget to read

Read Like a Screener: Giving the Best Personal Statement Feedback | SDN

Asked to review a prehealth peer's personal statement? Read like an admissions screener and skip the line-by-line rewrite.

www.studentdoctor.net

Even better, let the article guide you on the quality of feedback you get from anyone.

Not everyone who got into medical school wrote "strong" secondary essays. Just don't let AI do it.