should I prioritize getting my secondaries done by the 2 week goal (which would be by Friday) or would taking a bit more time be ok?

[premedbarista]

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I'm sorry in advance for the neuroticism lol. Because I was verified later on July 23, I got almost all of my secondaries on July 24. I've been trying to get it all done before the recommended two-week deadline, but as of today I've only submitted five out of the 26 secondaries I've received. I am so overwhelmed/stressed bc I feel like I'm already late enough to be at a disadvantage compared to earlier applicants. This has led me to writing, editing, and submitting within the span of a few hours, and I'm worried that doing them in such a short time is making my essays bad. However, I know that spending more time might not even improve my work because I am prone to getting stuck in the review/editing "this isn't good enough" loop. I'm most nervous about not having anyone else look at them before I submit, but I can't ask my one friend who reviews my essays to do so much for me in such little time.

My two options that I can see are:

1. finish at least the 20 I care about most by the end of the week and work faster with a more "**** it, we ball" perspective. not saying i'm going to be producing garbage essays, but not worrying so much about making them perfect might lead to lower quality.
2. take my time and finish them all by around August 18 (likely in order of how much I want to go to each school). giving myself more time might help me catch more mistakes/improve my work, but it also has a moderately high chance of leading me to get stuck on perfectionism and then being in the same situation I am now with 50000 essays to do and no time, just later.
   • I also don't have much time to write, because I'm working 12-hour night shifts and have a time-consuming medical treatment going on, so I feel like slowing down is going to make things take too long.

Thank you for any advice, you guys are all so helpful and I really appreciate it 🙂

 

[LizzyM]

Please take the time you need to do it well. Don't be that applicant who looks back at the secondary and sees the typos, outright errors, omissions, and -- the worst of all-- the poor edit that results in misspelling the school's name or substituting the name of a different school!

 

[LunaOri]

Well-written essays, submitted later, may help you. Poorly written essays will never help you, no matter how early they are submitted. Take the time to do it well.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I have no data to suggest "most," but "most" premeds underestimate the amount of work that goes into secondaries. It's just part of the marathon, so get it done.

Here are some cheerleaders to encourage you.