After submitting your primary medical school application, it’s time to face the next hurdle: the secondary essay questions. These essays offer medical schools a deeper insight into your personality, values, and how well you align with their program. While secondary essays vary from school to school, many common questions tend to appear across institutions. By preparing in advance, you can efficiently tackle these essays and improve your chances of acceptance.
3 Most Common Secondary Essay Questions
1. Why Our School?
The Importance of Personalizing Your Answer
The “Why our school?” essay is one of the most commonly asked secondary essay questions. Around 53% of medical schools include this question in their application process. The admissions committee wants to know why you are specifically interested in their program and how their resources and values align with your goals.
How to Approach This Question
To answer this prompt effectively, focus on the unique aspects of the school that resonate with your academic and professional goals. For instance:
- Research Opportunities: Highlight specific research programs or faculty members whose work excites you.
- Clinical Training: Mention any unique clinical settings or patient populations that the school serves.
- Mission and Values: Connect the school’s mission to your own experiences and aspirations, demonstrating how they align.
- Support Systems: If you have family or other personal connections in the area, discuss how that support network would help you thrive during medical school.
Your answer should reflect a genuine interest in the school, so avoid generic statements. Show how you are not only a good fit for the program but also how the program is a good fit for your career goals.
2. How Will You Enhance Our School’s Diversity?
Understanding the Importance of Diversity in Medical Education
Around 51% of medical schools ask applicants to address how they will enhance the school’s diversity. This question aims to assess how your background, experiences, and perspectives will contribute to a diverse learning environment.
Key Considerations for Answering the Diversity Essay
Diversity in medical school isn’t just about race or ethnicity. It encompasses a wide range of experiences that shape how you view the world and interact with others. When crafting your response, consider the following:
- Unique Experiences: Think about your professional, academic, or extracurricular background. For example, are you an athlete, engineer, or have unique work experiences?
- Cultural Awareness: Discuss how you’ve engaged with people from different backgrounds or how your life experiences have given you insight into diverse communities.
- Learning from Differences: Reflect on how interacting with classmates from various backgrounds will help you become a more empathetic and effective physician.
This essay provides you with an opportunity to demonstrate how your life experiences have prepared you to work with diverse patient populations and contribute to a well-rounded classroom dynamic.
3. Describe a Significant Challenge or Failure
Why Medical Schools Ask About Challenges and Failures
Approximately 51% of schools include this question to assess your resilience and ability to cope with adversity. Medical school is demanding, and the admissions committee wants to ensure you are prepared for the pressures and challenges you will face.
Crafting a Strong Response
When answering this prompt, it’s important to focus on how you handled the challenge or failure and what you learned from the experience. Here are some tips for crafting a strong response:
- Be Honest and Self-Reflective: Describe a real challenge or failure—whether academic or personal. The goal is to demonstrate how you grew from the experience.
- Emphasize Resilience: Explain how you coped with the setback and what steps you took to overcome it. Medical schools value applicants who show perseverance.
- Focus on Growth: Discuss how the challenge or failure helped you develop skills that will be useful in medical school and as a physician. This could include stress management, time management, or how to work under pressure.
If the prompt specifically asks about a failure, be sure to frame it as a learning opportunity. Admissions committees are more interested in how you respond to setbacks than in the failure itself.
Conclusion: Answering Secondary Essay Questions Effectively
Secondary essays are an integral part of the medical school application process. They allow you to showcase your personality, motivations, and ability to contribute to the school’s community. By thoughtfully answering questions such as “Why our school?”, “How will you enhance our school’s diversity?”, and “Describe a significant challenge or failure”, you’ll be able to present a compelling case for why you’re a great fit for the program.
Additional Tips for Writing Strong Secondary Essays
- Tailor Each Response: Make sure your answers are specific to each school’s values and mission.
- Be Authentic: Show your true self in your responses. Don’t try to craft an answer based on what you think the school wants to hear.
- Focus on Your Unique Qualities: What sets you apart from other applicants? Use your secondary essays to highlight these unique qualities.
By preparing in advance and approaching each essay with thoughtfulness and authenticity, you can make your medical school application stand out.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. How specific should my answer be to the school in the “Why our school?” essay?
Your answer should be as specific as possible. Avoid generic statements, and instead, connect the school’s offerings to your personal goals and values. Tailor your response to each school you apply to.
2. What if I don’t have a particularly diverse background?
Diversity encompasses many aspects, including academic experiences, work history, and personal perspectives. Think about how your unique background can contribute to a diverse learning environment.
3. Can I discuss a failure that wasn’t directly related to academics?
Yes, you can. Medical schools are interested in how you handle adversity in all areas of life. Personal and professional failures are equally valid topics for this essay.