Sick of Getting Revisions for my Secondaries

[54578]

Ok I'm getting overwelmed. On top of doing full-time research and other obligations, I'm frantically finishing secondaries, trying to prepare for interviews, and booking hotels and flights left and right. What I fear doing is checking the balance in my checking account.

Anyway, I get my family (siblings) to read my essays. I'm getting sick of their comments: "You can't write like this," "Don't say that," "Why did you do this," "Who do you think you are!?"

Its getting to the point where, for some applications, I write my own essays and send them off. I'm wondering: is their advice helping me? If anything, it gets me down. It makes me lose faith in my ability to write. And it makes the next secondary even harder to compose.

Anyone else having these problems?

God bless SDN; it seems like no one else understands this process!

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[drbriggz]

Yah, I learned early on that my family (which includes my older sister, a triple major in english, literature, and creative writing) is the last of all people who provide important insight into my writing. No one, and I mean NO ONE gets this process unless you're going through it or have gone through it. Leave the fam out of it and ask a friend or fellow pre-medder to check out your ****. Or if you have any good ties to a humanities prof, ask if they would be willing to help.

 

[priyanka]

Ok I'm getting overwelmed. On top of doing full-time research and other obligations, I'm frantically finishing secondaries, trying to prepare for interviews, and booking hotels and flights left and right. What I fear doing is checking the balance in my checking account.

Anyway, I get my family (siblings) to read my essays. I'm getting sick of their comments: "You can't write like this," "Don't say that," "Why did you do this," "Who do you think you are!?"

Its getting to the point where, for some applications, I write my own essays and send them off. I'm wondering: is their advice helping me? If anything, it gets me down. It makes me lose faith in my ability to write. And it makes the next secondary even harder to compose.

Anyone else having these problems?




God bless SDN; it seems like no one else understands this process!

Atleast personally, I wouldn't have my family members read it. Probably just other med students or premeds, who are not too busy. My family members have no idea what it takes to be in med school or what the whole thing is like. If your family is similar, then don't have them read those. Secondaries are more about the content than about grammar and other english related complexities. I very well hear my parents saying " what do you think you are", but I guess, if you don't write your good qualities down,just to keep up your modesty, there is no way the schools will know you and your interests. They just know you from whatever is on your AMCAS, transcripts, secondaries, ... all documented stuff.

So take the right decision,since you dont wanna affect your mindstate while writing the other secondaries.

 

[54578]

Yah, I learned early on that my family (which includes my older sister, a triple major in english, literature, and creative writing) is the last of all people who provide important insight into my writing. No one, and I mean NO ONE gets this process unless you're going through it or have gone through it. Leave the fam out of it and ask a friend or fellow pre-medder to check out your ****. Or if you have any good ties to a humanities prof, ask if they would be willing to help.

Dude I totally agree. My sister and brother-in-law are harvard squared (undergrad, law and undergrad, business school). They're brilliant. But I feel like my own voice doesn't come out as I am drowned in their revisions on how to "write properly." Think I'm going to start going solo on more of these (do they ever freaking stop?)

BTW Drbriggz, did u find that link that posted all the secondaries for the MAYO phone interview? Why the heck are we the only two people talking about this? Maybe Mayo really does love us

 

[hanjoko]

Anyway, I get my family (siblings) to read my essays. I'm getting sick of their comments: "You can't write like this," "Don't say that," "Why did you do this," "Who do you think you are!?"

Its getting to the point where, for some applications, I write my own essays and send them off. I'm wondering: is their advice helping me? If anything, it gets me down. It makes me lose faith in my ability to write. And it makes the next secondary even harder to compose.

Anyone else having these problems?

God bless SDN; it seems like no one else understands this process!

Well...at least your family support your idea of going to med school. Mine doesn't.

So...no discussion with interviews. No help in shopping for a suit. No Nothing. Grammar check? Ya..I might as well trust Word.

Good luck with your writing.

 

[SpeedRacer]

Ok I'm getting overwelmed. On top of doing full-time research and other obligations, I'm frantically finishing secondaries, trying to prepare for interviews, and booking hotels and flights left and right. What I fear doing is checking the balance in my checking account.

boo hoo, so many interviews

at least you have invites. quit your b!tching.


wow i didn't know i could be so mean! this process is bad...i apologize. i'm putting myself in the corner for time-out.

 

[54578]

boo hoo, so many interviews

at least you have invites. quit your b!tching.


wow i didn't know i could be so mean! this process is bad...i apologize. i'm putting myself in the corner for time-out.

many apologies; didn't mean to flaunt anything in anyone's face!

I'm sure your interview invites will come racer! Don't forget, I'm from TX, where they start interviews super early.

Best of luck

 

[diosa428]

Umm ok, so I had to bump up this thread b/c I'm getting really annoyed. I've been having my best friend edit my secondaries, and although I appreciate her having the patience to help me, I'm getting really sick of her acting like she could do everything better. I'm pretty sure if she came home from being at work all day and had to start writing essays about why she's unique, it would be a different story. I think that ppl reading these essays don't understand that, for some essays, there is a character or word LIMIT, so although I would like to say more, I CAN'T. Also, another friend told me last night that my essay for Stanford does not talk about anything unique (I talked about running). Yes, I know it's not unique, but I'm a white, middle-class female. My parents paid for my college education. I haven't faced any serious challenges. Everything that I have done that is unique is in my personal statement. I'M RUNNING OUT OF THINGS TO WRITE ABOUT HERE. WTF?

 

[jbrice1639]

there was a thread about secondaries similar to this one a while ago, and i'd have to say all the people that said they don't have anyone edit their secondaries seem to have the right idea. the key is to say what you want to say and get it turned around and in the hands of the adcoms. the personal statement already took care of the obsessively critiqued essay, these secondaries are about saying something new and doing it quickly. i'd also have to say getting them turned around a few days faster is probably more of a benefit than finding the "perfect" word order for the concluding sentence of a 250 word essay.

sorry if i'm being too cranky...doing data entry at work today...

 

[DeadorAlive]

While I had family and friends help with the Personal Statement (and I'm grateful, my parents turned out to be excellent editors - who knew?) I have started to write and send out secondaries in a few hours. At this point I've done so many that I cut and paste, and rarely even double-check them myself, let alone ask someone else to chip in... (although I recommend at least reading 'em over, I did catch another school's name in one of my repeat essays.... whoops!)

I think, because the character limits are so short, you can just write 'em. If a school has one or two-pagers, then maybe it's worth having someone edit. In the end though, if your friends are making you feel worse, then stop asking for their help! You don't need added stress in this process, try not to bring it upon yourself.

 

[nutmeg1445]

Yeah, I prefaced all my revision asking with, I only want blaring grammer mistakes, ways to make what I have already said flow better, or if I said something completely stupid. I also never send the rewrite back to the same person because I dont want them to see which of their suggestions I took or not.

 

[SpeedRacer]

many apologies; didn't mean to flaunt anything in anyone's face!

I'm sure your interview invites will come racer! Don't forget, I'm from TX, where they start interviews super early.

Best of luck

wow i can't even remember posting that!!! scary...and it was only a few days ago

yeah i've stopped getting someone to proofread mine...mostly because i'm adapting old essays that have been proofread, and i'm not going to wait 2 days until someone can look over the 2 sentences i added.

it's probably bad, but i'm really trying to get these out asap...

 

[BooMed]

I only allow proofing for major problems and grammer. I've found that if you give people free reign all of the sudden it becomes the essay THEY would write to get into med school!

 

[tigress]

I had my parents and my husband edit all of mine, and I'm glad I did. I guess I'm lucky that they were very normal about it. They told me if it was good or not, and made suggestions. I made sure to tell them about any word limits and to include the prompt. Of course my husband has applied to med school before, so he knows all about it. But I was really happy to have my parents help. In the end I think my secondaries were better for it.

Don't want to rub it in! I just thought I'd defend those of us who did have family revise our secondaries . (My PS went through much more revising than my secondaries, though.)

 

[Centinel]

I edit and critique my own essays. I first write an essay on paper, then I leave that paper right where it is and don't come back to it for at least 24 hours. Then, I read that paper to understand what I was trying to say. Finally, I type up an essay; sometimes it closely follows what I had written before, but oftentimes it takes on an entirely different form and feel while keeping true to the same original thoughts.

I've found that in this way I can be rather impartial in my autoredacting (nonce word, sorry). Essentially, if in reading the essay that I wrote down on paper I start to feel awkward or embarrassed, that's my cue that my writing style was just off base. If I can read it and think, 'this is what i wanted to say,' or (even better) 'wow, this is a solid essay', then I don't do much editing as I transcribe that beast.