Which schools' secondaries should I prioritize pre-writing?

[BicycleGuy]

Assuming that I get verified and sent out by the first wave of applications, which schools should I expect to receive secondary essays first? Is there data from previous years logging the notification dates?

For now, I'm just outlining and writing blocks for the general motifs that come up in secondaries.

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[AllBleedingStops]

I would guess schools that send out secondaries to everyone. Personally I feel that you are wasting time with this "general motifs" stuff. Just looks up some favorite schools on the school specific threads and write for those, that way you can return your top choices as soon as they come in.

 

[Dagrimsta1]

Diversity essay, why we should accept you (these 2 are usually kinda similar but good to have both). Favorite undergrad class and why showed up a few times for me.

 

[The Unburnt]

If you're applying to Duke or U Miami I'd recommend looking at last year's threads for those as they were both VERY lengthy and took me the most time!

The school specific threads for all schools have the prompts from last year and they don't usually change much so I'd read through and see if you can knock out some. I'd probably start on the longer ones first since you have the most stamina right now but I could also understand wanting to knock out the easier ones first so that you can submit those straight away once they come in, its your call. I wouldn't waste time writing general motifs when you could just as easily look up the actual prompt for whatever schools you're applying to.

I wrote all my secondaries within a 2 week period (it was awful but worth it) so you can definitely get a lot of prewriting done while waiting to be verified so that you can just copy and paste the responses into the secondaries and submit right away.

 

[Lucca]

Personally, I scanned through the secondary Qs on my school list and prioritized pre-writing by the most common question types. For example, "Tell us what you did during your gap year if you took one", "talk about a time you faced adversity / overcame a challenge", etc. were pretty common

 

[buckoh24]

This is how I am doing them:

1. How badly I want to go there.
2. How realistic it would be for me to get an II (based on stats).
3. I busted out a couple of the super easy schools that were short and sweet.
4. Work on some of the longer diversity, adversity, etc essays then cut down to fit the other schools limits.
5. If the school is known to send out quick IIs (Tulane, WVU) then I would get those in early cuz they love early apps.
6. Tried to do a good mix of reach and target schools. Obvi research schools will help if you get it in asap but you dont want to neglect the other schools because that may mess up your competitiveness.
7. I usually leave the "why us" until last because I like to do more research into the school to sue specifics. Instead of "I like your research", saying "Opportunities provided by X program will allow me to research" would be much better IMO and shows you are interested enough to learn about the program instead of just a copy paste job for every school

 

[Tim_Hortons_Cafe]

Assuming that I get verified and sent out by the first wave of applications, which schools should I expect to receive secondary essays first? Is there data from previous years logging the notification dates?

For now, I'm just outlining and writing blocks for the general motifs that come up in secondaries.

-Pick your top three choices for schools, do those first.
-Then do any schools who have one or more similar questions in their secondaries.
-Focus on picking the next one's you do based 50% on how likely you are to get in and 50% on how much you want to go there.

 

[altblue]

Personally I'm working on my secondaries for my favorite Match schools first so I can polish them more over time.

It's a good combination of focusing on high yield schools and my own personal preference.