Should I answer these secondary essay prompts?

[miss chievous]

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Both are optional and say "If not applicable, please so indicate." For the first question, I can't really think of anything that's relevant. And for the second, it was a whole bunch of experiences that influenced me, not a single person. What do you guys think?

1) Describe any circumstances indicative of some hardship, such as, but not limited to, financial difficulties, personal or family illness, a medical condition, a death in the immediate family or educational disadvantage.

2) Please describe how a parent, guardian, friend, relative, or mentor influenced your aspirations to obtain a medical degree. If not applicable, please so indicate.

 

[LiveLoveLearn]

For the first one, you should really only write something if it is actually applicable to you. If you don't have anything that is a significant hardship, and you use something like, "both my parents work, so I had to tuck myself in at night" this could come off as being whiny and entitled.

I would be surprised if you don't have something meaningful to answer the second one with. It seems that such a huge decision had to be influenced in some way by someone in your life, right? Given that I feel that way, I could imagine that ADCOMs may also react with the same thought, and presume no answer = laziness. That is complete conjecture, of course, but if it were me, I would write something.

 

[zhartley]

No for the first one.

Pick the most influential one and make sure you can say important things about it.

 

[miss chievous]

Thanks for your responses!

1st one - I'm starting to think they're looking for any kind of hardship that you bounced back from, even a minor one, am I right? Or no? Are they looking for MAJOR hardships (deaths, major illnesses).

2nd one - I think I like the idea about writing about the most influential doctor (even though he didn't get me interested in medicine because I was already interested). That should be fine, right?