how many essays for med school

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The Only 3 Medical School Personal Statement Examples You Need to Read

Posted in: Applying to Medical School

Table of Contents

The personal statement is one of the most important parts of the med school application process because t his mini-essay is a critical opportunity for you to stand out from other prospective medical students by demonstrating your passion and personality, not just your grades.

Admissions committees receive hundreds or more AMCAS medical school applications , so yours should be unique and captivating. Your medical school personal statement shows admissions officers who you are beyond your high school or pre-med GPA , extracurriculars , and MCAT score . 

The best personal statements are… well, personal . This is your chance to share what life experiences have compelled you toward a career in healthcare or the medical field , and how those experiences shape the picture of your ideal future.

MedSchoolCoach has crucial advice for writing your personal statement . 

Read these examples of personal statements for prospective med students.

Writing a great medical school personal statement is a lot easier with the right support. We’ve helped numerous med school applicants craft top-notch personal statements and can do the same for you.

But first: 7 steps to writing an engaging personal statement.

Before you read these excellent examples, you need to understand the process of writing a personal statement.  

Include these in your medical school personal statement:

• Why you’re passionate about becoming a doctor
• Your qualities that will make you a great physician
• Personal stories that demonstrate those qualities
• Specific examples of the communities you want to serve as a member of the medical field

What are the most important things to remember when writing a medical school personal statement ?

• Begin the writing process early: Give yourself plenty of time for brainstorming and to revisit your first draft, revising it based on input from family members and undergrad professors. Consult the application timeline for your target enrollment season.
• Choose a central theme: An unfocused essay will leave readers confused and uninterested. Give your statement a clear thesis in the first paragraph that guides its formation.
• Start with a hook: Grab the reader’s attention immediately with your statement’s first sentence. Instead of opening with a conventional introduction, be creative! Begin with something unexpected.
• Be the you of today, not the you of the future: Forecasting your future as a physician can come across as empty promises. Don’t get caught up in your ambitions; instead, be honest about your current situation and interest in the field of medicine.
• Demonstrate your passion: It’s not enough to simply state your interest in becoming a doctor; you have to prove it through personal stories. Show how your perspectives have been shaped by formative experiences and how those will make you an effective physician.
• Show, don’t tell : Avoid cliches that admissions committees have heard hundreds of times, like “I want to help people.” Make your writing come alive with dynamic, persuasive storytelling that recounts your personal experiences.
• Tie everything together: Conclude by wrapping up your main points. Reiterate your passion for the medical profession, your defining personal qualities, and why you’ll make a good doctor.

You can read more about our recommended method in our step-by-step guide , but those are the major points.

Example 1 — From the Stretcher to the Spotlight: My Journey to Becoming an Emergency Medicine Physician

Another siren shrieks as the emergency room doors slide open and a team of EMTs pushes a blood-soaked stretcher through the entrance. It’s the fifth ambulance to arrive tonight — and only my first clinical shadowing experience in an emergency medicine department since my premed education began.

But it wasn’t my first time in an emergency room, and I knew I was meant to be here again.

In those crucial moments on the ER floor, many of my peers learned that they stumble in high-pressure environments. A few weeks of gunshot wounds, drug overdoses, broken bones, and deep lacerations in the busiest trauma bay in the region were enough to alter their career path.

They will be better practitioners somewhere predictable, like a pediatrician in a private practice where they choose their schedules, clients, and staff.

Every healthcare provider has their specialties, and mine are on full display in those crucial moments of lifesaving care. Why am I pursuing a career in Emergency Medicine? Because I’ve seen firsthand the miracles that Emergency Medicine physicians perform.

12 years ago, I was in an emergency room… but I was the one on the stretcher.

A forest-green Saturn coupe rolled into my parent’s driveway. The driver, my best friend Kevin, had just passed his driving test and was itching to take a late-night run to the other side of town. I had ridden with Kevin and his father many times before when he held his learner’s permit. But this time, we didn’t have an adult with us, and the joyride ended differently: with a 40-mph passenger-side collision, T-boned by a drunk driver.

I distinctly recall the sensation of being lifted out of the crumpled car by a paramedic and laid onto a stretcher. A quick drive later, I was in the care of Dr. Smith, the ER resident on call that night. Without missing a beat, he assessed my condition and provided the care I needed. When my mom thanked him for saving my life, he simply responded, “It’s what he needed.”

Now I’m watching other doctors and nurses provide this life-saving care as I observe as a premed student. I see the way the staff works together like a well-oiled machine, and it reminds me of my time in high-school theater.

Everyone has a role to play, however big or small, to make the show a success. All contributions are essential to a winning performance — even the technicians working behind the scenes. That’s what true teamwork is, and I see that same dynamic in the emergency department.

Some actors freeze during performances, overcome by stage fright. Other students are too anxious to even set foot in front of an audience; they remain backstage assisting with split-second costume changes.

Not me. I felt energized under the spotlight, deftly improvising to help my co-stars when they would forget their lines. Admittedly, I wasn’t the best actor or singer in the cast, but I provided something essential: assurance under pressure. Everyone knew me as dependable, always in their corner when something went awry. I had a reputation for remaining calm and thinking on my feet.

My ability to stay unruffled under pressure was first discovered on stage, but I can use it on a very different platform providing patient care. Now, when other people freeze under the intensity of serving public health on the front lines, I can step in and provide my calm, collected guidance to see them through.

As an ER doctor, I will have to provide that stability when a nurse gets flustered by a quarrelsome patient or shaken from an irreparably injured infant. When you’re an Emergency Medicine physician, you’re not following a script. It takes an aptitude of thinking on your toes to face the fast pace and unpredictable challenges of an emergency center.

During my time shadowing, I saw experienced physicians put those assured, gentle communication skills to use. A 13-year-old boy was admitted for a knife wound he’d received on the streets. He only spoke Spanish, but it was clear he mistrusted doctors and was alarmed by the situation. In mere minutes, one of the doctors calmed the patient so he could receive care he needed.

Let me be clear: I haven’t simply gravitated toward Emergency Medicine because I liked it most. It’s not the adrenaline or the pride that compel me. I owe Emergency Medicine my life, and I want to use my life to extend the lives of other people. Every person brought into the trauma bay could be another me , no matter what they look like.

People are more than their injury, health record, or circumstances. They are not just a task to complete or a challenge to conquer.

My childhood injury gave me an appreciation for the work of ER doctors and a compassion for patients, to foster well-being when people are most broken and vulnerable. I already have the dedication to the work and the heart for patients; I just need the medical knowledge and procedural skills to perform life-saving interventions. My ability to remain calm, think on my toes, be part of a team, and work decisively without making mistakes or overlooking critical issues will serve me well as an Emergency Medicine physician.

Some ER physicians I spoke with liked to think that they’re “a different breed” than other medical professionals — but I don’t see it that way. We’re just performing a different role than the rest of the cast.

Breaking It Down

Let’s look at what qualities make this a great personal statement for med school.

• Engaging opening: The writer painted a vivid scene that immediately puts the reader in their shoes and leaves them wanting more.
• Personal examples: The writer demonstrated his ability to stay calm, work as a team, and problem-solve through theater experience, which he also uses as a comparison. And, he explained his passion for Emergency Medical care from his childhood accident.
• Organized: The writer transitions fluidly between body paragraphs, connecting stories and ideas by emphasizing parallels and hopping back and forth between time.
• Ample length: Makes full use of the AACOMAS and AMCAS application personal statement’s character limit of 5,300 characters (including spaces), which is about 850-950 words.

Unsure what traits and clinical or research experience your preferred medical school values ? You can research their admissions requirements and mission statement using the MSAR .

Example 2 — Early Clinical Work For Empathetic Patient Care

The applicant who wrote this personal statement was accepted into University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine, University of Central Florida College of Medicine, and Tufts University School of Medicine.

As I walked briskly down the hall to keep up during our daily rounds in the ICU, I heard the steady beeping of Michelle’s cardiac monitor and saw a ruby ornament twinkling on the small Christmas tree beside her. She was always alone, but someone had decorated her room for the holidays.

It warmed my heart that I wasn’t the only one who saw her as more than a patient in a coma. I continually felt guilty that I couldn’t spend more time with her; her usual companions were ventilators, IV bags, and catheters, not to mention the golf ball-sized tumors along her spine. Every day, I thought about running to Michelle’s bedside to do anything I could for her.

Thus, I was taken aback when my advisor, who was visiting me that day, asked me if I was okay. It never crossed my mind that at age 17, my peers might not be able to handle the tragedies that healthcare workers consistently face. These situations were difficult, but they invoked humanity and compassion from me. I knew I wanted to pursue medicine. And I knew I could do it.

From my senior year of high school to my senior year of college, I continued to explore my passion for patient interaction.

At the Stepp Lab, I was charged with contacting potential study participants for a study focusing on speech symptoms in individuals with Parkinson’s Disease. The study would help future patients, but I couldn’t help but think: “What are we doing for these patients in return?” I worried that the heart and soul behind the research would get lost in the mix of acoustic data and participant ID numbers.

But my fears were put to rest by Richard, the self-proclaimed “Parkinson’s Song & Dance Man,” who recorded himself singing show tunes as part of his therapy. Knowing that he was legally blind and unable to read caller ID, I was always thrilled when he recognized my voice. The spirit in his voice indicated that my interest in him and his journey with Parkinson’s was meaningful. Talking with him inspired me to dive deeper, which led to an appreciative understanding of his time as a sergeant in the U.S. military.

It was an important reminder: my interest and care are just as important as an effective prescribed treatment plan.

Following graduation, I began my work as a medical assistant for a dermatologist. My experience with a patient, Joann, validated my ability to provide excellent hands-on patient care. Other physicians prescribed her painkillers to relieve the excruciating pain from the shingles rash, which presented as a fiery trail of blisters wrapped around her torso. But these painkillers offered no relief and made her so drowsy that she fell one night on the way to the bathroom.

Joann was tired, suffering, and beaten down. The lidocaine patches we initially prescribed would be a much safer option, but I refused for her to pay $250, as she was on the brink of losing her job. When she returned to the office a week later, she held my hand and cried tears of joy because I found her affordable patches, which helped her pain without the systemic effects.

The joy that pierced through the weariness in her eyes immediately confirmed that direct patient care like this was what I was meant to do. As I passed her a tissue, I felt ecstatic that I could make such a difference, and I sought to do more.

Since graduation, I have been volunteering at Open Door, a small pantry that serves a primarily Hispanic community of lower socioeconomic families. It is gut-wrenching to explain that we cannot give them certain items when our stock is low. After all, the fresh fruits and vegetables I serve are fundamental to their culturally-inspired meals.

For the first time, I found myself serving anguish rather than a helping hand. Usually, uplifting moments strengthen one’s desire to become a physician, but in this case, it was my ability to handle the low points that reignited my passion for aiding others.

After running out of produce one day, I was confused as to why a woman thanked me. Through translation by a fellow volunteer, I learned it was because of my positivity. She taught me that the way I approach unfavorable situations affects another’s perception and that my spirited attitude breaks through language barriers.

This volunteer work served as a wake-up call to the unacceptable fact that U.S. citizens’ health suffers due to lack of access to healthy foods. If someone cannot afford healthy foods, they may not have access to healthcare. In the future, I want to partner with other food banks to offer free services like blood pressure readings. I have always wanted to help people, but I now have a particular interest in bringing help to people who cannot afford it.

While the foundation of medicine is scientific knowledge, the foundation of healthcare is the word “care” itself. I never found out what happened to Michelle and her Christmas tree, but I still wonder about her to this day, and she has strengthened my passion to serve others. A sense of excitement and comfort stems from knowing that I will be there for people on their worst days, since I have already seen the impact my support has had.

In my mind, becoming a physician is not a choice but a natural next step to continue bringing humanity and compassion to those around me.

How did this personal statement grab and sustain attention so well?

• Personalization: Everything about this statement helps you to understand the writer, from their personal experiences to their hope for how their future career will look.
• Showing, not telling: From the first sentence, the reader is hooked. This prospective medical student has plenty of great “on paper” experience (early shadowing, clinical experience, etc.), but they showed this with storytelling, not by repeating their CV.
• Empathy: An admissions committee reading this personal statement would know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this student cares deeply about their patients. They remember first names, individual details, and the emotions that each patient made them feel.
• A clear path forward: The writer doesn’t just want to work in the medical field — they have a passion for exactly how they want to impact the communities they serve. Outside of strictly medical work, they care about the way finances can limit access to healthcare and the struggle to find healthy food in food deserts around the US .

Read Next: How Hard Is It to Get Into Medical School?

Example 3 — Beyond the Diagnosis: The Importance of Individualized Care in Medicine

The applicant who wrote this personal statement was accepted into Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine and Nova Southeastern University College Of Osteopathic Medicine.

Dr. Haywood sighs and shakes her head upon opening the chart. “I was worried about her A1C. It’s up again. Hypertension, too. Alright, let’s go.”

As we enter the patient’s room, I’m expecting the news about her blood sugar and pressure to fill the room. Instead, Dr. Haywood says, “Roseline! How are you doing? How’s your girl, doing well?”

Dr. Haywood continues to ask questions, genuinely interested in Roseline’s experience as a new mother. If not for the parchment-lined examination chair and anatomy posters plastered to the wall, this exchange could be happening in a grocery store. What about her A1C? Her blood pressure? Potential Type II diabetes?

As I continue to listen, Dr. Haywood discovers that Roseline’s mother moved in with her, cooking Haitian meals I recognize as high on the glycemic index. Dr. Haywood effortlessly evolves their conversation to focus on these. Being Haitian herself, she knows some traditional dishes are healthier than others and advises Roseline to avoid those that might exacerbate her high blood sugar and blood pressure. Dr. Haywood also suggests Roseline incorporate exercise by bringing her baby on a walk through her neighborhood.

During my shadowing experience, I observed one of the core components of being a physician through several encounters like this one. By establishing a relationship with her patient where Roseline was comfortable sharing the details of new motherhood, Dr. Haywood was able to individualize her approach to lowering the patient’s A1C and hypertension. Inspired by her ability to treat the whole person , I began to adopt a similar practice as a tutor for elementary kids in underserved areas of D.C.

Shaniyah did not like Zoom, or math for that matter. When I first met her as a prospective tutee online, she preferred to keep her microphone muted and would claim she was finished with her math homework after barely attempting the first problem. Realizing that basing our sessions solely on math would be fruitless, I adapted my tutoring style to incorporate some of the things for which she had a natural affinity.

The first step was acknowledging the difficulties a virtual environment posed to effective communication, particularly the ease at which distractions might take over. After sharing this with Shaniyah, she immediately disclosed her struggles to share her work with me. With this information, I found an online platform that allowed us to visualize each other’s work.

This obstacle in communication overcome, Shaniyah felt more comfortable sharing details about herself that I utilized as her tutor. Her love of soccer gave me the idea to use the concept of goal scoring to help with addition, and soon Shaniyah’s math skills and enthusiasm began to improve. As our relationship grew, so did her successes, and I suspect the feelings I experienced as her tutor are the same as a physician’s when their patient responds well to prescribed treatment.

I believe this skill, caring for someone as a whole person , that I have learned and practiced through shadowing and tutoring is the central tenet of medicine that allows a doctor to successfully treat their patients.

Inspired by talking with patients who had received life-altering organ transplants during my shadowing experience, I created a club called D.C. Donors for Georgetown University students to encourage their peers to register as organ donors or donate blood. This experience taught me that to truly serve a person, you must involve your whole person, too.

In starting this club to help those in need of transplants, I had to dedicate my time and effort beyond just my physical interactions with these patients. For instance, this involved reaching out to D.C.’s organ procurement organization to inquire about a potential partnership with my club, to which they agreed. In addition, I organized tabling events on campus, which required significant planning and communication with both club members and my university.

Though exciting, starting a club was also a difficult process, especially given the limitations the pandemic imposed on in-person meetings and events. To adapt, I had to plan more engaging meetings, designing virtual activities to make members more comfortable contributing their ideas. In addition, planning a blood drive required extensive communication with my university to ensure the safety of the staff and participants during the pandemic.

Ultimately, I believe these behind-the-scenes actions were instrumental in addressing the need for organ and blood donors in the D.C. area.

From these experiences, I have grown to believe that good medicine not only necessitates the physician cares for her patient as a whole, but also that she fully commits her whole person to the care of the patient. Tutoring and starting D.C. Donors not only allowed me to develop these skills but also to experience such fulfilling emotions: the pride I had in Shaniyah when her math improved, the gratefulness I felt when she confided in me, the steadfast commitment I expressed to transplant patients, and the joy I had in collaborating with other passionate club members.

I envision a career as a physician to demand these skills of me and more, and I have confirmed my desire to become one after feeling so enriched by practicing them.

Here’s what makes this personal statement such a good example of what works:

• Desirable qualities: The student clearly demonstrates qualities any school would want in an applicant: teachability, adaptability, leadership, organization, and empathy, to name a few. This again uses the “show, don’t tell” method, allowing the readers to understand the student without hand-holding.
• Personalized storytelling: Many in the healthcare profession will connect with experiences like the ones expressed here, such as addressing patient concerns relationally or the lack of blood donors during the recent pandemic. The writer automatically makes a personal link between themselves and the admissions committees reading this statement.
• Extensive (but not too long): Without feeling too wordy, this personal statement uses nearly all of the 5,300 characters allowed on the AMCAS application. There’s no fluff left in the final draft, only what matters.

Avoid These Common Mistakes

You can learn a lot from those personal statements. They avoid the most common mistakes that med school applicants make when writing the medical school personal statement.

Here are some things you should avoid in your personal statement if you want to be a doctor:

• Name-dropping: Admissions counselors won’t be impressed when you brag about your highly regarded family members, associates, or mentors. You need to stand on your own feet — not someone else’s.
• Dishonesty: Lies and exaggerations can torpedo your application. And they’re bad habits for anyone entering the medical field. Don’t do it.
• Unedited AI content: Artificial intelligence can help you edit and improve your writing, but don’t let it do the work for you. Your statement needs to be authentic, which means in your voice! A chatbot can’t feel or adequately convey your own empathy, compassion, trauma, drive, or personality.
• Grammatical errors and typos: Have someone reliable proofread your essay and scour it for typos, misspellings, and punctuation errors. Even free grammar-checking apps can catch mistakes!
• Telling without showing: I’ll reiterate how important it is to prove your self-descriptive statements with real-life examples. Telling without showing won’t persuade readers.
• Too many examples: Have 3-4 solid personal stories at most; only include a few that are crucial for providing your points. The more experiences you share, the less impact they’ll make.
• Fluff and filler: Cut all fluff, filler words, and irrelevant points. There are many other places you can include information in your application, such as secondary essays on your clinical experience, volunteer work, and research projects . 

You can find more valuable do’s and don’ts in our in-depth guide to writing your best personal statement .

Need extra help? We’ve got you covered.

Schedule a meeting with medschoolcoach for expert support on writing and editing your personal statement. we’re here to help you impress medical school admissions committees .

Renee Marinelli, MD

Dr. Marinelli has practiced family medicine, served on the University of California Admissions Committee, and has helped hundreds of students get into medical school. She spearheads a team of physician advisors who guide MedSchoolCoach students.

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By submitting my email address. i certify that i am 13 years of age or older, agree to recieve marketing email messages from the princeton review, and agree to terms of use., 15 tips for your medical school personal statement.

Don't underestimate the power of the medical school personal statement to make a strong, positive impression on an admissions committee. Combined with your interview performance, your personal statement can account for 60% (or more) of your total admissions score!

Medical schools want to enroll bright, empathetic, communicative people. Here's how to write a compelling med school personal statement that shows schools who you are and what you're capable of.

Personal Statement Topics

Your medical school personal statement is a component of your primary application submitted via, TMDSAS (for Texas applications), or AACOMAS (NB: If you are applying to medical school in Canada, confirm the application process with your school, as not all application components may be submitted through AMCAS).

These applications offer broad topics to consider, and many essay approaches are acceptable. For example, you could write about:

• an experience that challenged or changed your perspective about medicine
• a relationship with a mentor or another inspiring individual
• a challenging personal experience
• unique hardships, challenges, or obstacles that may have influenced your educational pursuits
• your motivation to seek a career in medicine

You'll write an additional essay (or two) when you submit secondary applications to individual schools. These essays require you to respond to a specific question. Admissions committees will review your entire application, so choose subject matter that complements your original essay .

Read More: Strategies for Secondary Applications

How to Write a Personal Statement for Medical School

Follow these personal statement tips to help the admissions committee better understand you as a candidate.

1. Write, re-write, let it sit, and write again!

Allow yourself 6 months of writing and revision to get your essay in submission-ready shape. This gives you the time to take your first pass, set your draft aside (for a minimum of 24 hours), review what you’ve written, and re-work your draft.

2. Stay focused.

Your personal statement should highlight interesting aspects of your journey—not tell your entire life story. Choose a theme, stick to it, and support it with specific examples.

3. Back off the cliches.

Loving science and wanting to help people might be your sincere passions, but they are also what everyone else is writing about. Instead, be personal and specific.

4. Find your unique angle.

What can you say about yourself that no one else can? Remember, everyone has trials, successes and failures. What's important and unique is how you reacted to those incidents. Bring your own voice and perspective to your personal statement to give it a truly memorable flavor. 

5. Be interesting.

Start with a “catch” that will create intrigue before launching into the story of who you are. Make the admissions committee want to read on!

6. Show don't tell.

Instead of telling the admissions committee about your unique qualities (like compassion, empathy, and organization), show them through the stories you tell about yourself. Don’t just say it—actually prove it.

7. Embrace the 5-point essay format.

Here's a trusty format that you can make your own:

• 1st paragraph: These four or five sentences should "catch" the reader's attention.
• 3-4 body paragraphs: Use these paragraphs to reveal who you are. Ideally, one of these paragraphs will reflect clinical understanding and one will reflect service.
• Concluding paragraph: The strongest conclusion reflects the beginning of your essay, gives a brief summary of you are, and ends with a challenge for the future.

8. Good writing is simple writing.

Good medical students—and good doctors—use clear, direct language. Your essays should not be a struggle to comprehend.

9. Be thoughtful about transitions.

Be sure to vary your sentence structure. You don’t want your essay to be boring! Pay attention to how your paragraphs connect to each other.

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10. Stick to the rules.

Watch your word count. That’s 5,300 characters (including spaces) for AMCAS applications, 5,000 characters for TMDSAS, and 4,500 characters for AACOMAS.

11. Stay on topic.

Rambling not only uses up your precious character limit, but it also causes confusion! Think about the three to five “sound bytes” you want admissions committee to know and remember you by.

12. Don't overdo it.

Beware of being too self-congratulatory or too self-deprecating.

13. Seek multiple opinions.

Before you hit “submit,” ask several people you trust for feedback on your personal statement. The more time you have spent writing your statement, the less likely you are to spot any errors. A professor or friend whose judgment and writing skills you trust is invaluable.

Read More: 12 Smart Tips for Your AMCAS Application

14. Double-check the details.

Always check for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors. This goes for the rest of your application (like your activities list), too. A common oversight is referencing the wrong school in your statement! Give yourself (and your proofreaders) the time this task truly requires.

15. Consult the experts about your personal statement strategy.

Our med school admissions counselors can diagnose the “health” of your overall application, including your personal statement. Get expert help and guidance to write an effective personal statement that showcases not only your accomplishments, but your passion and your journey.

Want to get an edge over the crowd?

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What Are Secondary Applications?

The secondary application refers to a set of essays that each medical school wants you to write. Depending on the school, other aspects like the situational judgment tests might also be considered part of the secondary application. This guide will focus on the essay writing element of the secondary application.

Most schools will give you 2-5 prompts and a character count within which to answer the prompt. These prompts allow the school to ask you more targeted questions to better understand whether you are a good fit for their class. They want to only interview students who fit their mission, so secondary essays can play a role in deciding who to interview.

The most important thing to remember is to answer the specific question that is asked. This is true even if the question seems very generic. Answer the prompt as well as you can and use your research into the school to show how you fit the school’s mission.

Am I Screened Beforehand?

Some schools screen applicants before sending the secondary prompts, but most do not and send them to every applicant. The application process is already long and resource-intensive for schools. Prescreening applicants before sending secondary prompts would only intensify this, so the vast majority automatically send secondaries to all applicants. The majority of those who do prescreen applicants don’t publish their cutoffs.

When Do I Receive Secondary Prompts?

Medical schools don’t receive your application from AMCAS until mid-to-late June, so that is typically the earliest you will receive secondary applications. Some, though, will send them earlier than this, potentially before your application is verified. This is especially true for AACOMAS and TMDSAS. These application services transmit your application to schools more quickly than AMCAS, accelerating the entire process.

Once schools have begun receiving applications, you might receive your secondary prompts immediately after submitting your application. You might receive them before your application is verified. This speed is part of why it’s important to prewrite your responses.

Turnaround Time

You will receive many prompts at once and are expected to turn them around within two weeks. Because of this, it is a good idea to write your responses before officially receiving the prompt. Some may have specific deadlines requiring a shorter turn-around time than two weeks. Prioritize those first.

Most prompts don’t change yearly, so you can look at secondaryapps.com and begin answering them in advance. Most schools give multiple prompts, so the number of essays you need to write can pile up very quickly if you’re not careful to plan.

Common Secondary Application Prompts

Secondary applications are a chance for schools to find out if you are a good fit, so most prompts will be designed to understand who you are. Common prompts might include what drew you to the school, diversity, and your plans for the future. Others might ask you to talk in detail about specific aspects of your journey, like failure and interruptions in your education.

For more examples of common secondary prompts and samples of how other students have answered them, check out the secondary application section of The Premed Playbook Guide to the Medical School Application Process .

Prewrite Your Secondaries

Any work you can do on your secondaries ahead of time will help keep the process from becoming overwhelming and help you meet the expected two-week turnaround.

Double-Check Your Work

Some schools give character limits, and others provide word limits, so you need to double-check that. Be especially careful if you’re using one essay for multiple schools. Even if you change some things, the length may be wrong, and you want to give yourself sufficient time to make any needed edits.

While your secondary essays won’t require as much editing as your personal statement, you should still reread them to ensure you answered the question and check for typos or other mistakes.

More Resources

Secondary Essay Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

How to Answer Secondary Prompts About “Why Us”

Secondary Essay Database

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August 27, 2021

16 R’s for Medical School Essay Writing

Writing can be daunting for all of us. “What do I write about?” is the most common question that comes to mind when contemplating medical school personal statements or secondary essays. When writing these essays, organization is crucial. The thought of writing an essay up to 5300 characters long for AMCAS or several pages long for secondary essay prompts can feel like a Herculean task. Furthermore, these compositions can be the end of your application if not approached correctly. To help with organizing your essays, I have broken down the process into sixteen R’s.

OK. Let’s get started! 

• Relax : Writing is challenging enough, but when you are tense and stressed, it feels impossible. Listen to soothing music, do a favorite exercise before you sit down to write, or try a little yoga. Getting into a relaxed mindset can help you think about all the experiences that brought you to your decision to pursue medicine.
• Recreational : Make your essay writing recreationa l or fun. “Fun?” you may ask. How can essay writing be fun? Well, I think the beloved fictional character Mary Poppins was not too far off the mark when she said, “In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun.” Since you will be spending a significant amount of time writing your medical school essays , making them as fun as possible is indispensable. Pretending that you are a famous physician in an interview on the news or a celebrity looking back on your life and writing your memoirs can help bring your creative thoughts to mind. 

• Recite , Rehearse , and Record : “Where do I start?” is another common question. Describing your thoughts aloud and reciting and rehearsing them before you put them down on paper can help a great deal to get those “creative juices flowing.” You don’t need anything fancy to record your thoughts—your smartphone will work perfectly well. If it helps, have some soft, pensive music playing in the background as long as it is not distracting. And remember that how you express yourself doesn’t need to be perfect because the only person that will hear the recording is you. This is just an exercise to help you get those thoughts flowing before putting them down on paper. You’ll be surprised at how helpful listening to your recording is to jump-start your writing. 
• Readable : Your essay should capture the reader’s attention from the opening sentence and maintain that interest throughout the text. Try to make the reader feel as if they are there with you, experiencing what you felt. 
• Rich : You should use rich , descriptive language so that you take the reader on your “expedition.” Let the reader feel like they are “traveling” with you and experiencing what you experienced. 
• Retell : In addition, your essay should elaborate on critical details in your story; if your essay has not elaborated on these details, retell your story and expand upon the important events so that the reader has a perfect picture in their mind of what took place. By doing so, you will put the reader in your story and make it come alive for them.
• Rhythm : Your essay should have rhythm —it should be well organized both within and between paragraphs, and each section should be well connected to the others with smooth transitions. 
• Relevance : Given the character limits of your medical school essays, every word and sentence should be relevant . Don’t waste critical character space on sentences that are not pertinent to your story. In the case of secondary essays, make sure your answer is relevant to the question asked and the school you are applying to.
• Relate and Reply : For both the personal statement and each secondary essay, the experiences you write about in your body paragraphs should relate to each other in some way so that you have an over-arching theme for your essay. Find the common denominator between your experiences to help find your theme. For your secondary essays, you must reply to the specific question posed.
• Research : When writing your secondary essays, make sure you research the schools to ensure that your goals are a good match for their guiding principles.
• Reveal : Furthermore, your writing should reveal different qualities that will make you an outstanding physician . The best essays are heartfelt and evoke emotion. 
• Reflective : Perhaps, the most necessary characteristic of your essay is to be reflective . Your essay should reflect on the meaningful experiences that were pivotal in your decision to pursue medicine or apply to specific medical schools. Ask yourself why a particular experience made you feel as you did and how you will assimilate the spirit of what you learned from the experience into your future career. Why is it significant to you?
• Refine : Another essential step in your essay writing is to refine your language. For our first draft, don’t worry about style. But after you write that first draft, review it and aim for a tone and style that shows you’re already a professional. Write your essay with a professional writing style and avoid slang or colloquial sayings. This is not social media.
• Return , Refer , and Remind : Coming to the home stretch, you should return to the introduction in your essay’s conclusion and refer back to the introductory paragraph in some way to end your essay on a powerful note and remind the reader of the significance of the opening paragraph in your decision to become a physician.
• Review : The final step in writing your essay is to review your essay several times once you finish it. Review , review , review should become your essay writing slogan. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to review your essay multiple times for spelling, grammatical, and writing errors. For secondaries , make sure you have the correct school’s name everywhere. Finally, if at all possible, put a little time between your last revision and your proof. And make sure that you are alert when you check your essay if you really want to catch all errors.

If you follow the above steps, you are on your way to writing a truly remarkable essay. (Yes, remarkable is my final “R”.)

Best of luck and have fun writing!

Are you ready to apply the 16 R’s to your med school application essays? Accepted’s expert consultants know just how to help you highlight your strengths and craft an application that will help you get accepted to your top choice medical school. Check out our one-on-one admissions services so you can ace your application and GET ACCEPTED!

Related Resources:

• Medical School Sample Personal Statements
• 5 Fatal Flaws to Avoid in Your Medical School Application Essays
• 9 Secrets to Telling an Attention-Grabbing Story

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Do You Have To Write Essays In Medical School? (Explained Plus Tips!)

Because writing isn’t a huge part of being a doctor, you might be thinking it’s pretty low on the list of activities med students do.

We know you have to write essays for applications, but do you have to write essays in medical school?

Some med schools, specifically the top tier ones, expect students to write formal research essays in med school. Others might ask for essays as part of a final assessment for a specific course. Although essay writing isn’t as heavy as it can be in other majors, it is often required of med students.

In this article I’ll go into the question further. Here’s what we’ll cover:

• When you might need to write essays in med school
• What types of subjects/topics you could be asked to write about
• If you have to write a medical dissertation or research paper
• What tips you can use to improve your med school writing

Having written my fair share of med school essays myself (especially in subjects like biophysics, social medicine and even anatomy and physiology), I know how annoying a task it can sometimes be. And that’s as a former English major!

The truth is, for many of us, writing is a serious drag. Especially when we thought we’d escaped it by studying medicine…

So are you ready for the good and bad news? Let’s go!

When do I have to write essays in med school?

Depending on where you study medicine, the amount of writing you’ll need to do in med school can vary.

Some schools, like Yale, Harvard and NYU, require you to do a research thesis as part of your degree. In this case it’s not optional (opportunities to publish in these respective schools’ journals also exist).

But most other med schools almost always require some form of essay writing too.

Here are some circumstances that call for it:

• As a “final” exam component of a particular course/subject
• Detailed patient history or physical reports
• Group papers/presentations in classes/seminars

Of course the quantity and level of writing vary. Depending on where you go to school and what’s assigned, you might only ever need to do 1-2 pages of writing for a single course each semester. Others might only ever grade you based on oral examinations or question-based tests.

The different medical school curriculums also factor in. Practice based learning (PBL) schools have a reputation for a fair bit of writing.

Check out the specific curriculums (and grading criteria) for the med schools you’re interested in to get a sense of how much (or if) you’ll need to write. Or talk to existing students.

That’s the only way to know for sure.

What med school subjects involve the most writing?

Common med school subjects that can involve essay writing include:

• Medical ethics
• Clinical practice
• Psychology/psychiatry
• Biostatistics
• Public health and sociology

These are subjects that are a little more “esoteric” than the harder sciences. And ones where a thesis or case study goes well.

Other subjects might ask for essays too. As I mentioned before, I’ve had to write mini-essays for many subject finals (including anatomy, biochemistry, biology, physiology and more). Here’s how it usually works:

• The course syllabus lists all possible topics making up a subject (anatomy, in my case, had something like 350+)
• You draw a topic at random to write about for a set time (usually 30-60 minutes)
• You then present this essay to the professor and are asked questions about it
• Finally you’re awarded a grade based on your performance

Of course this is just my own experience as a student at MU Varna . Your med school might not operate this way, while the pandemic has also encouraged a shift away from the “essay-oral” format.

Related : A Rough Guide To European Medical School Exams

The bottom line is; you could be asked to write an essay on any syllabus topic for any subject in med school.

It depends on the subject’s department and how they like to format final and mid-term exams.

Do you have to write essays in medical school in the UK?

The UK is similar to both US and most European international med schools. Many of their schools expect med students to write essays. Oxbridge is a case in point. Here are a couple of students explaining exactly how this works…

Many other students at UK-based schools suggest the same.

Follow the same advice to know for sure; double check with existing students and the course curriculum (if publically available).

Are med students good at writing essays?

Obviously I write a blog about medical education (and healthcare work) so am no stranger to writing.

For most med students however the story can be quite different.

Not all students are confident writers. Or have a lot of experience.

Oftentimes the closest they’ve got to writing essays are in earlier studies (as pre-meds) or in their carefully put together med school applications. It’s not something you typically get a lot of practice with.

There’s obviously a lot of international students in medicine whose native language isn’t English either. For some, writing essays can seem even more anxiety-provoking.

How well are med students expected to write?

The good news is, at least in my experience, that the standard of writing (especially when it comes to the types of essays you do in final exams, midterms or class presentations), by no means has to be perfect.

The most that’s expected are factors like:

• Handwriting that’s not too difficult to read
• Good grasp of grammar and punctuation
• Solid understanding of the topic you’re asked to write about

Med school professors aren’t looking for well polished, proofread, near perfect essays for the most part.

Not unless they’re submitted as a research thesis (which you’re expected to have put serious time and effort into).

In that case they’re expected to be as professional as possible. For which you’ll usually have a thesis supervisor or research lead to help guide you.

Do medical doctors have to write a dissertation?

There’s no rule that says doctors have to write a dissertation (or even do published research). It’s possible to get into med school, graduate and find a job without ever having done any serious writing.

But it is rare.

To be competitive, especially when it comes to residency applications (and even admissions in some cases), medical dissertations or research papers can help. A lot.

General writing tips for med school essays

As for tips on how to approach your writing in med school, here are a few pointers that’ve helped me:

• Don’t aim for perfection : keep the language simple and the arguments easy to understand
• Define everything : your professor will be looking to see you understand what you’ve written about
• Break it up : use subheadings to divide the essay up and improve the flow (don’t throw it all out there in one chunk)
• Practice : sketch out essay outlines for the high yield topics (those likely to show up on exams) and attempt a couple

Getting comfortable with the process will help improve your confidence.

Med school essays aren’t anything to fear for the most part. For the more serious research or thesis-based essays, make sure you follow the guidance of the research lead or project coordinator.

Summary: Writing essays in med school

You might get lucky and never have to write an essay in med school but it’s unlikely. Writing is more central to a successful doctors career than you might think.

Being more confident with it (and learning how to do it better) can definitely help when it comes to reports, research, patient communication and everything else.

Writing is still a major skill you’ll want to focus on if you plan on a career in healthcare.

• https://medicine.yale.edu/education/research/mdthesis/

Born and raised in the UK, Will went into medicine late (31) after a career in journalism. He’s into football (soccer), learned Spanish after 5 years in Spain, and has had his work published all over the web. Read more .

How to Develop a Cohesive Narrative for Medical School Applications

• By Med School Insiders
• December 21, 2021
• Medical School Application , Residency Application

A narrative-based approach to your medical school application will entice admissions committees and make them want to learn more about who you are beyond your grades. We’re not only talking about your personal statement here—your entire application should tell a cohesive story about who you are and why you want to become a doctor.

Each piece of your medical school application cannot stand on its own; all elements of your application should complement one another, and they should all come together to tell your unique story.

This is no small feat, especially for those of you who have much more experience studying and passing tests than writing essays about yourself. In this post, we’ll cover 10 steps that will help you establish a clear and enticing narrative across your entire medical school application.

1 | Illustrate Your Journey Toward Becoming a Doctor

What steps and moments in your life led you to where you are today? What is YOUR story? It doesn’t matter if it’s filled with heartbreak and difficult times, hard work, or some other drive—it’s your story.

Admissions committees want to know what got you to where you are today. Providing a clear narrative is easier to digest than dry facts, and it does a much better job of illustrating your journey in a memorable way.

Take time to think about your past. What elements of your childhood, adolescence, and college life made you want to apply to medical school? What specific moments in your life made you want to pursue medicine and become a doctor?

View our database of personal statement examples , including personalized feedback.

2 | Don’t Tell, Demonstrate

Listing accomplishments means nothing. Admissions committees can already see your list of accomplishments and grades, so breaking that down again for them is a waste of their time. In your essays, they want to get to know you on a deeper level.

Don’t say, “I will make a good doctor because I’m dedicated, committed, and hardworking.” You may be all of those things, but you need to demonstrate those characteristics with examples and intriguing storytelling. Instead, share a story about how you were never any good at playing the piano, but when your mom got sick, you dedicated time every day to learning how to play so that you could play her favorite songs.

You need to illustrate your traits and positive characteristics by providing clear examples that tell your story. Don’t simply list what you’ve done or name a few positive adjectives you relate to; provide examples of how you’ve demonstrated those traits.

3 | Consider the Application as a Whole

It’s important to think of your application as a complete whole. Though there are many different individual pieces, they all need to join together to illustrate the same journey. What picture are you painting when all of the pieces come together?

Think beyond your primary application to your secondaries and interviews. What common threads do you want to weave? How can you develop a cohesive narrative that isn’t redundant or repetitive?

Your entire application is telling a story—your story. You need to think about the overall narrative you want to share. Each aspect of the application should compliment another, not repeat what you’ve already said before.

4 | Expand, Don’t Repeat Yourself

Admissions committees are viewing your entire application as a whole. They already know about your marks and MCAT score. They’ve seen your letters of recommendation. Don’t repeat yourself. Every essay is an opportunity to reveal a new layer of who you are and why you will make a good doctor—and it is essential to your success that you think of each application box this way.

Don’t think about how you can get each part done the fastest. Every aspect of the application is one more opportunity to convince the admissions committee that you are someone they should accept.

Don’t repeat a story that you shared in your personal statement in your work and activities section . Each part of your application should provide fresh, new insights into who you are. It’s okay to touch on some of the same points to create a common thread, but you need to add new insights and details, not repeat yourself.

5 | Stand Out With a Unique Story

Remember how many applications admissions committees read every year? Generic stories won’t make the cut, and simply stating the obvious, like the fact that you are a diligent student or get good grades, won’t be enough to win them over. Most of the thousands of students you’re applying with are also capable students with good grades.

When we say unique, we don’t mean you need to cite a life-changing epiphany that suddenly made you realize you had to become a doctor. That doesn’t happen to everyone—and that’s perfectly okay. Unique stories can still be simple. You want to stand out, but you can’t make something up.

Your unique narrative doesn’t have to be a straightforward path to why you chose medicine or became a doctor. Your story and what drove you to where you are today might be unrelated to medicine.

We’ve worked with students on many successful personal statements that draw from life experiences. For example, years of practicing violin might teach you important lessons about focus and dedication, which are desired skills for a future doctor. See how experience playing the violin was able to shape a Residency Personal Statement in sample #1: Personal Statement Examples .

Coming up with your unique narrative takes time. You need to sit down and truly contemplate your past and think about all of the moments in your life that got you to where you are today. It can take a while to come up with the right direction, so make sure you leave plenty of time, especially for your personal statement.

Here’s where to begin: How to Start the Medical School Personal Statement .

6 | It’s Okay to Not Be Perfect

Sharing a narrative doesn’t mean you need to paint yourself as the perfect person or some sort of hero. It’s okay if you didn’t save your family from a burning building or rescue a child from drowning. If that’s your journey—great! Share that, but if you had a different journey, that’s okay too.

Admissions committees are not looking for perfection. They want to get to know the real you. They know people aren’t perfect, and it’s the difficulties, struggles, and mistakes that sometimes make for the best stories.

If you made a mistake in your life, talk about that. What did you learn from that mistake? What changes have you made? If you applied to medical school before but didn’t get in, talk about that. What did you learn from that experience, and how have you grown since? Being vulnerable and showing growth goes a long way.

Human beings don’t learn without mistakes. Ensure your application demonstrates humility and a willingness to learn and grow.

7 | Never Make Up a Story

Never embellish or make up a story from your past. You may be able to present an exciting and enticing story in your personal statement, but admissions committees will be able to sniff out fishy stories.

Lies are difficult to keep track of. Even if a lie isn’t noticed during your initial application, it could be spotted in secondaries when your stories don’t line up. It will be especially noticeable once you get to interviews and you start being asked questions about a made-up story.

You don’t want to make it all the way to your interview only to fumble on questions about your made-up personal statement or extracurricular experiences. You have enough to keep track of already without adding made-up stories; plus, being accepted to medical school because of a lie is not a good way to begin your career as a doctor.

8 | Address Gaps or Problem Areas

Don’t try to hide behind gaps in your application or issues from your past. You are putting yourself out in the open in your application. There’s no point in hiding things—if it doesn’t come up in the primary application, it will surely show up later in secondaries or during interviews.

Admissions committees would rather you address mistakes or gaps in your application head-on. If you made a mistake in your past that will come up in the application, address it—but don’t give excuses. Instead, explain where you are today because of that mistake. What did you learn? How did you grow? How did your life change? How are you a better person today because of that experience?

For example, if you have a criminal record from participating in a protest or a similar experience, address that. Medical schools don’t live in a vacuum. They know about the social and political issues facing the country, and they will want to hear about these experiences.

9 | Be Authentic

Authenticity is a key trait in sharing your personal narrative. Admissions committees will know if you are being inauthentic.

So how do you be authentic? By telling the truth and by being honest about where you come from and what got you to where you are today.

If your decision to pursue medicine was made relatively late in your life, that’s fine—tell that story. What changed your mind? What made you decide to go into medicine after pursuing another career? If you knew you wanted to become a doctor since you were younger, that’s fine too. What key moments in your life led you to that unwavering decision?

The key is demonstrating who you are beneath the surface. Admissions committees want to get to know who you are beyond a simple list of your experiences and surface-level learnings.

10 | Make Time for Feedback

You might think you have the most enticing personal statement and the perfect secondary application tie-ins, but you can’t limit yourself to your own editing. You need feedback from others, and you need to leave time to consider and implement that feedback to improve your application.

What you thought was great could be an overdone story that admissions committees have heard time and time again. It is essential to your success that you seek feedback on your personal statement and all other written essays within your medical school application.

This means you need to start your application planning early so that you have enough time to ask for feedback and course correct if you need to. We can’t stress this enough: starting your application early is your best chance of acceptance.

Seek help from other students, professors, mentors, and people who have been through the process of applying to medical school successfully, as well as those who have worked on admissions committees. If you don’t have these types of connections, it’s best to seek professional help. Don’t leave your essay editing up to chance.

Is Medical School Admissions Consulting Worth It? There are many factors to consider. In some cases, you may already have the help you need from people and mentors in your life who have served on admissions committees. If, however, you don’t have reliable sources in your life to ensure you are on the right path, admissions consulting can provide you with the tough feedback you need.

Get the Help You Need

Applying to medical school is a complicated and draining process. Coming up with your own personal narrative, and knowing if it will stand out in a crowd of other similar applications, is a tough feat for anyone. Don’t leave your medical school application up to chance when you could be gathering feedback from professionals who have been through the process before.

Med School Insiders offers Comprehensive Medical School Admissions Packages as well as a premium Personal Statement Editing Service where real doctors with admissions committee experience provide feedback and edits on your essay. Each physician editor has passed a rigorous screening process to ensure you receive the experienced feedback you need to get into your top schools.

We also recommend heading over to our blog , which has a wealth of resources for applying to medical school, including comprehensive guides on personal statements , letters of recommendation , secondary applications , how to decide which medical schools to apply to , and much more.

Med School Insiders

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Advisor Corner: Preparing for Secondary Applications

New section.

Secondary applications are specific to each school and focus on their specific values and interests. We asked three prehealth advisors to offer their best advice for applicants on how to approach your secondary applications

Once you submit your AMCAS application and it has been processed and verified, the AAMC will send your application to your selected medical schools on your behalf. At that time, you will begin to receive requests directly from schools to complete secondary applications. Unlike the AMCAS application, secondary applications are specific to each school and focus on their specific values and interest. So it’s not surprising there are many questions about how to approach these supplemental essays. To help get you started, we asked three prehealth advisors for their best advice on how to approach secondary applications.

Celeste Crowe, Director, Health Professions Advising Office at Appalachian State University:

Before you apply, it is helpful to discuss or outline with your prehealth advisor the ways that you have developed skills and knowledge based upon the AAMC core competencies . Many schools will look for evidence of these competencies, so it’s important to incorporate them in your secondary essay responses. Here are examples of prompts we give to applicants to help them as they prepare for their secondary application:

To highlight the competency of Teamwork: 

• While leadership is an important aspect of becoming a health care provider, so is teamwork. Describe a time or situation where you were not the leader or could not be. What was your role within the team? What did you learn from that experience?

To highlight the competency of Cultural Competence

• Describe an experience or time interacting with people who are different from you or adhere to a different set of cultural norms. What did you learn about yourself from that experience?
• If you have had limited opportunity to experience different cultures or work/serve with diverse populations, discuss how you plan to develop skills and experiences to become a culturally competent health care provider. 

Mariella Mecozzi, Senior Assistant Director of Pre-Professional Services, University of Michigan:

• Be ready to receive secondaries as soon as you submit your primary application and beyond.   AMCAS immediately notifies the schools designated by an applicant about that individual's intention to apply there. Many medical schools send secondaries automatically to all applicants;  some  even send secondaries to applicants as soon as they receive this notification from AMCAS. This explains why some of you  may  receive secondary applications from certain schools even though your AMCAS application status indicates that your application is still queued for processing.
• Wait until you’re formally asked to submit your secondary application before you do so.  Some applicants find links and questions listed on online forums and submit secondaries early in an unwise attempt to push their application forward. Submitting a secondary before being invited is poor application etiquette, and such a practice is frowned upon by medical schools. This is the equivalent of showing up to a party uninvited. You do not want to be that person.
• Stay on top of all your correspondence, both mail and email.  Medical schools tend to send email messages to applicants in large batches, which may be interpreted by servers' email filters as spam.   It seems like a hassle, but while you are applying, we recommend getting in the habit of checking your spam folder periodically. Also, make sure that your mailbox does not reach its capacity limit, which causes email messages to bounce back.

Alex Tan, Director of the Post-Baccalaureate Premedical Program at Johns Hopkins University:

Because your primary application sends the same message to every school, it is inherently limited in its capacity to act as your envoy. In contrast, your secondary essays afford you the opportunity to send a tailored, unique ambassador to each and every school. Yes, this is more work. Yes, schools often ask deceptively similar questions. Nonetheless, you must resist the urge to take that similarity as an invitation to send the same answer.

Why send different answers to the same question? Imagine you go on a series of first dates. Your dates ask you similar questions. Would you answer each with a memorized answer you recite on cue? No, not if you want a second date. I am not suggesting that your answers should be completely different, but, while the meat of your answers remain the same, you should emphasize different details about the experience or give different examples entirely. For example, there are lots of things I like about my favorite book, and I could be completely honest while taking different approaches to talking about that book so that I am answering the questions AND actively engaging my companion in a meaningful way.

Similarly, meaningful experiences are meaningful for many reasons. One experience may help me cultivate teamwork skills, allow me to practice leadership, help me better understand how to create a meaningful patient-caregiver relationship, learn to advocate for those in my care, and problem-solve issues of access and limited resources. In writing about it, I can help schools understand how I fit with what the medical school values by emphasizing the aspects of my experience that best illustrate how my values, passions, and goals overlap with those of each individual school. More general questions, as with discussing a challenge I have faced, are even easier to tailor. I face challenges constantly, so I can easily pick whichever one best helps me communicate my perspective.

Unquestionably, this is more time-consuming than recycling your answers, but I’ve never heard a student who was unsuccessful report their gratefulness for saving all that time nor have I heard a successful one regret the time they dedicated to their success. 

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Yale medical school secondary essays: tips + samples.

Reviewed by:

Akhil Katakam

Third-Year Medical Student, Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University

Reviewed: 5/13/22

Is Yale your dream medical school? You’re in luck! Follow along to learn expert tips on how to create stand-out secondary essays for Yale medical school. 

The Yale University School of Medicine is one of the most prestigious medical schools in the world. On top of being part of the Ivy League, the school consistently ranks within the top 10 medical schools globally each year in both the US News and QS World rankings. 

Class-topping students from across the globe are consistently applying to Yale medical school - but how can they do so successfully when the competition is so fierce? One way is to zero in on the quality of your secondary essays. 

Essays are the biggest opportunity to differentiate yourself from other candidates because you can begin to present your personality.

Here we’ll go over how to write the Yale medical school secondary essays. We’ve included tips on how to create compelling pieces of writing from admissions experts, successful essay samples, and more here. 

If you’re looking for a partner to help you throughout your application journey, feel free to contact one of our admissions advisors at any time. We’re here to help!

Let’s get started.

Get The Ultimate Guide on Writing an Unforgettable Personal Statement

Yale Medical School Secondary Essay Prompts

To begin, we must first analyze the Yale medical school essay prompts. The following prompts are updated for 2022-2023. 

Essay Prompt #1

“ Yale School of Medicine values diversity in all its forms. How will your background and experiences contribute to this important focus of our institution and inform your future role as a physician? (500 words limit)”

How to answer: To give Yale a deeper understanding of who you are, use this  secondary essay as an opportunity to showcase your unique perspective. As this prompt is a " diversity essay ," consider the various aspects of your identity that make you stand out. This can include your ethnicity, culture, interests, background, and values. 

Reflect on experiences from your past that have shaped your identity and choose one to focus on in your essay. Be authentic in your writing and avoid cliches. Additionally, make sure to connect your background to how it will contribute to your future as a physician and conclude your essay by highlighting how it makes you a suitable fit for the role.

Required Essay #2: Select One Of the Following Prompts

“ MD applicants: Please answer either one of the following questions

MD/PhD applicants: Please answer question 2 as it pertains to your proposed PhD research.

• While there is great emphasis on the physician-patient relationship, Yale School of Medicine also emphasizes the importance of training future physicians to care for communities and populations. Describe how your experiences would contribute to this aspect of the mission of the Yale School of Medicine. (500 words limit)
• Research is essential to patient care, and all students at Yale School of Medicine complete a research thesis. Tell us how your research interests, skills, and experiences would contribute to scholarship at Yale School of Medicine. (500 words limit).”

How to Write the Yale Medical School Required Essay #2

First, choose the appropriate prompt.

How to answer prompt one: To respond to the first prompt, which asks you to connect your experiences to the value of treating communities and populations, consider a specific experience from your past that had a significant impact on you. 

Your topic could be a time when you volunteered, were part of an underserved community, or had a role as a representative. When selecting your topic, focus on a time when you learned something through a community experience that changed you. 

Share your story from a position of growth, highlighting any challenges or mistakes you encountered, but also how you learned and improved from them. Conclude by explaining how the experience has made you a better person and how it will contribute to your future as a physician.

‍ How to answer prompt two: Prompt two is targeted at MD/PhD applicants who are interested in medical research. 

Use this opportunity to elaborate on any experiences that have sparked your interest in the field of medicine. Whether it was encountering an incurable disease, facing obstacles in research, or other experiences, highlight your passion for uncovering answers and understanding. 

Keep in mind that you do not need to have specific experience in medical research to answer this prompt, think broadly about any experiences that have contributed to your growing passion for learning. Reflect on what answers you hope to uncover in the future and how your experiences and passions will make you an excellent doctor one day. 

Most importantly, be genuine in your response and avoid writing what you think Yale wants to hear. This is the chance for Yale to get to know you, your motivations, and why your experiences and passions will make you a great fit for the program.

Yale Medical School Secondary Essay Samples

Here are some examples of successful essays to reference when writing your own. Please do not copy our samples, as they are meant only for use as a writing guide. 

Essay Prompt #1 Example

Yale medical school’s first prompt asks the applicant to write a “diversity essay,” which intends to express how your unique point of view has shaped your current goals. Here’s an example of a successful medical school diversity essay .

“Being South Asian, I have firsthand knowledge of what it means not to access basic health care. As a child, my mother took me to Pakistan every year, where I spent summers with my grandfather, a top pediatrician in the nation. He had a free clinic attached to his home in Faisalabad, and his practice was so renowned and respected that people from all over the country would travel great distances to have my grandfather treat their children. Pakistan is a third-world country where a significant part of the population remains illiterate and uneducated due to the lack of resources and opportunities. This population is the most vulnerable, with extremely high numbers of infectious disease and mortality rates. Yet, it is entirely underserved. With the lack of hospitals, clinics, and doctor’s offices in rural Pakistan, parents of ailing children must travel great distances and wait in long lines to receive proper health care. Every summer at my grandfather’s clinic, from ages five to 17, my job was to open the doors to long lines of tired, hungry, and thirsty parents with their sick children. I would pass out bottled water and pieces of fruit. I would record names, where the patients came from, and the reasons for their visits. I would scurry back inside with the information for my grandfather to assess, and then he’d send me running back out again to let the next family inside. I learned in my formative years how to communicate with diverse patient populations with special needs and a lack of basic necessities. I learned to listen to every family’s unique reasons for their visit, and some of their desperation and pleading for the lives of their children will stay with me forever. When I get into medical school, I hope to share the story of how Gulzarah carried her dehydrated daughter for 12 miles in the Pakistani summer heat without rest (thanks to my grandfather, she later made a full recovery). I want to tell my peers that doctors like my grandfather are not only healers in biology but healers in the spirit by the way he made up heroic songs for the children and sang the fear out of their hearts. I want to show my peers that patients are unique individuals who have suffered and sacrificed to trust us with their health care, so we must honor their trust by providing quality treatment and empathy. My formative experiences in pediatrics contributed to my globally conscious mindset, and I look forward to sharing these diverse insights in my medical career.”

Why this essay works: The writer chose to focus mainly on their childhood experiences as their unique point of view. 

They successfully describe how they first became passionate about medicine with their compelling stories of their grandfather’s practice. In the end, they include how they would like to use their unique point of view to contribute to the field of healthcare.

This writer has a moving story, and although not everyone has such a drastic connection to medicine, it’s important to recognize the three main points in this essay:

•  The writer describes their unique perspective. 
• The writer presents how their unique perspective lends itself to their interest in medicine.
• The writer concludes by stating how their unique perspective will help them become a better physician.

When writing your essay you should include those three main points to connect your story regardless of your subject. 

Essay Prompt #2 Example

Here we’ve included an essay on serving different communities and populations in response to Yale’s first question in the second essay prompt. 

This essay focuses on underserved communities, though you should keep in mind that your own essay should concentrate on the area of medicine and the community or population you are most passionate about. 

“On Wednesdays, I was the only visitor for Jorge, an elderly patient in the AIDS and Tropical Disease Ward at Carlos III Hospital in Madrid. A native of Equatorial Guinea, Jorge had full blown AIDS and had been living in Spain illegally because, according to Jorge, his country lacked enough resources and trained doctors to provide an adequate level of treatment. Over several weeks I witnessed his losing battle, not only with a terminal illness but also with cultural incongruence and a continual feeling of unease, thousands of miles away from home. Talking with Jorge during my experience as a volunteer for the NGO Soldarios Para el Desarollo in the fall of 2001, led me to question the justice of health care discrepancies that make it so difficult for people like Jorge to get sufficient treatment in underdeveloped nations.  ‍ Jorge was a victim of health care inequality, a subject that has been at the forefront of my mind since enrolling in “Race and Medicine in America” during my sophomore year. The course revealed to me the historically poor distribution of quality medical attention and how treatment continually evades socio-economically disadvantaged communities. I came to understand how, in the US, a national shortage of physicians and unlikely prospects of financial gain have caused few doctors to take an interest in these communities, leaving a diminishing level of access to services and expertise. This unfortunate reality inspired me to take an interest in treating these populations, in hopes of helping to improve the care for our country’s poor and underserved. Jorge’s story broadened my perspective, as I further realized that this need is exponentially worse in developing nations.  ‍ The combination of my studies and real world experience strengthened my desire to practice medicine focused on treating underserved populations, nationally and abroad. In pursuit of my goal, I sought additional exposure to medical conditions in the developing world.  ‍ During the summer of 2002, I contributed to a public health research initiative in Ghana. My research on malaria infectivity in and around the capital city Accra sent me to shanty town communities with poor hygiene and chronic illness and gave me yet another perspective on the impact of economic disparity in health outcomes and treatment options. Exorbitant patient volume and endemic disease are but a few of the many obstacles to doctors serving these communities and trying to provide quality care.  ‍ Despite these difficulties, I witnessed skilled physicians in this setting performing complex procedures in substandard conditions. At the Komfo Ankye Teaching Hospital in 7 the urban village of Kumasi, I scrubbed-in during the removal of an osteosarcoma tumor from a man’s jaw and an ileostomy, where I saw a scalpel filling the role of an absent screwdriver and doctors working in a hot ward with minimal ventilation and only basic amenities.  ‍ These resourceful doctors were still able to perform, reaffirming my expectation that despite complications, the addition of well-trained doctors can make a marked difference. I began to understand how, by taking my medical school training to such environments, I could serve as an intermediary - bringing first world knowledge into a third-world context.  ‍ Since my time in Ghana, I have continued to participate in health care projects in poor communities. During the summer of 2003, I conducted research in an obstetrics ward of a public hospital in Sao Paulo, and the following fall participated in an infectious disease initiative that brought medical attention to impoverished suburbs of Lima, Peru.  ‍ Most recently, I worked at a bilingual health clinic in Chicago serving a primarily Latino immigrant community. With each experience, I gained a deeper understanding of the complementary skills necessary to make a real difference. I have learned that medical knowledge, cultural understanding, and political savvy are critical components to a holistic approach to community health care and development, and are skills possessed by the most effective contributors to positive change.  ‍ I continue to hone my language skills in anticipation of serving Spanish and Portuguese-speaking populations; and I am building an understanding of how to work in a complex funding environment and link medical treatment with public policy. I wish to pursue my medical training and a Master’s in Public Health, so that I can improve access to health care and serve as an effective physician. My desire to perform medical public service developed from concern and sympathy for people in need of medical care, most specifically those with the least access. I further recognize the importance such compassion plays in effective communication between doctors and their patients.  ‍ It was my childhood doctor’s ability to convey understanding and elicit trust that inspired my initial interest in the medical field. He combined calm and compassion with medical expertise in a thorough form of healing that I grew to expect, but have infrequently witnessed in poor communities. As I strive to bring better health care to underserved populations, I hope to do so with the same personal care and attention that comforted me in my youth.”

Why this essay works: In this example, the writer clearly highlights their passion for healthcare and how it all began. 

Importantly, they clearly emphasize the communities they are most passionate about helping through medical care. Whichever population or community you intend to care for later on should be clear in this essay, even if you change your mind later on. This is an opportunity to demonstrate your unique perspective and attributes to Yale.

FAQs: Yale Medical School Essays

Here are our answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about how to write the Yale medical school secondary essays.

1. How Many Secondary Essays Do You Need for Yale Medical School?

There are technically four essay prompts for Yale medical school, although only two are mandatory to write. The second prompt has two questions you can choose between, and the third prompt is an optional essay that you can choose to write if you want to explain an abnormal circumstance on your application. 

2. How Do I Write the Yale Medical School Essays?

When writing the Yale medical school essays, make sure to highlight your unique perspective. Consider the unique qualities you bring to the table and how your personal history has influenced your career choices. Remember, your essays are the perfect opportunity for Yale to get to know the person behind the numbers. It’s your time to shine! Also, utilizing an online plagiarism checker ensures the originality of your essays.

Final Thoughts

Writing Yale medical school essays is challenging for most aspiring med students simply because creative writing is not often their strong suit. However, if you can master the art of telling your story and providing your unique perspective on healthcare - you’ll be sure to wow the admissions committee. 

Good luck with your essays!

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You Won’t Believe the Amount of Pages You’ll Need to Write for Medical School

By: Ryan Kelly

“I want this to be perfect.”

Every year, we hear pre-med students say this about their medical school personal statements. And we don’t blame them. The personal statement is the largest essay of the primary application, and it certainly carries a lot of weight.

But consider this: did you know that medical schools will read your work and activities section first? Yep. That means three 1325-character most meaningful essays, along with up to 15 activity descriptions (700 characters each), all before they even glance at your personal statement. Let’s do some quick calculations, shall we?

PERSONAL STATEMENT

5300 characters with spaces500 words1.5 pages single spaced, most meaningful essays, 3975 characters with spaces (1325 x 3)375 words1.13 pages single spaced, activity descriptions, 10500 characters with spaces (700 x 15)991 words2.97 pages single spaced, total work and activities, 14475 characters with spaces1364 words4.1 pages single spaced.

Even if you only have, let’s say, eight 700-character descriptions (as opposed to the full 15), the work and activities section is still nearly twice as long as the personal statement.

So, your perfectionism and anxiety surrounding the personal statement can be detrimental if it stifles your progress on other essays. In a way, your personal statement is like the headliner at a music festival. Sure, it’s a big deal, but it also works in harmony with the many other musicians and performances throughout the festival. Don’t put all your effort into the grand finale if it means losing sight of the bigger picture.

Speaking of big picture, the primary application pales in comparison to the pages and pages of secondary essays you’ll need to write. Many students play the numbers game and apply to upwards of 40 schools, but let’s just say you only choose 25.

Every school’s secondary is created differently. A school like UC Riverside will ask about 10 250-word questions:

26500 characters with spaces2500 words (250 x 10)7.5 pages single spaced

On the shorter end of the spectrum, a school like Rosalind Franklin will only ask two 100-word questions:

2120 characters with spaces200 words (100 x 2)0.6 pages single spaced

So, roughly, we could average these two extremes and arrive at a typical amount of secondary writing:

14310 characters with spaces1350 words4.1 pages single spaced

If you multiply that by your 25 schools, you’ll have over 100 pages of secondary essays!

According to our data, the average medical school asks 3.56 essay questions, so for 25 applications, you’re looking at 89 essays. No wonder it takes 100 pages.

Yes, 100+ pages, which dwarfs the measly 5.5 of the primary application. It’s important to note that you can reuse material for different schools’ secondary prompts. This is helpful, no doubt, but it still often requires tweaking, cutting, repurposing, or adding to an existing essay, which can be cumbersome tasks in of themselves. This doesn’t include the pages of notes you’ll take while researching each school and compiling information that matches your background or interests.

So, what’s the point? Are we just trying to scare you into not applying? Of course not. There are two major lessons to be drawn from these statistics.

One is that the personal statement is not the end-all-be-all of the application process. You cannot afford to settle for junk, but you also cannot afford to dawdle on one part of the application in hopes of achieving perfection. More often than not, this quest for perfection results in a hyper-dissection of the essay, and before you know it, a once-solid draft is totally dismantled.

Rather than trying to cram everything into a “perfect” personal statement, shoot for quality writing throughout the whole application. Remember the harmony of the music festival! Yes, you want Coldplay as your headliner, but not if it means surrounding them with the Insane Clown Posse.

The second lesson is to never underestimate the secondary writing process . It’s long and grueling, and it will make the primary application seem like a cakewalk. It’s critical to work ahead on the primary, so that you can get a big head start on prewriting your secondaries. A good strategy is locate the secondary prompts from the previous year, since they usually don’t change that much from year to year.

Full List of Medical School Secondary Essays

This allows you to slowly fine-tune your drafts and strategize about how to use them across your schools. It also gives you more time to research schools, which can sometimes be a cryptic and overwhelming endeavor. And if schools do happen to change their prompts, you’ll be organized and calm enough to find or create appropriate material.

The numbers don’t lie. There is A LOT of writing for medical school applications, which extends far beyond that perfect personal statement of your dreams. Don’t be lax and shortsighted, or you’ll find yourself drowning in pages of unfinished drafts.

Tough love, kid. You’ve been warned.    

Do you have questions about the essay writing process? Want to know how many pages you should expect? Comment below and we’ll help you calculate your future journey.

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Everything You Need to Know About a Secondary Application for Medical School

Many students have trouble with medical school secondary applications. They are usually confused about what medical school secondary application is and how they should prepare for it. Before getting into details about a secondary application for medical school, it’s a good idea to clarify the purpose of secondary applications.

What Is A Secondary Application For Medical School?

The primary purpose of the secondary medical school application is to determine whether or not you are the right person who is in line with the mission, vision, and values of the institution you are applying to. In other words, will you be a good fit for that institution?

Secondary applications usually focus on evaluating your qualifications and characteristics as an individual. Secondary applications can vary depending on the school. Some medical schools will require you to write up to four additional essays, others require short answer responses, and some include simple yes or no questions. 

The quality of your secondary essays can significantly increase your chances of getting invitations for an interview. In addition, writing essays with given prompts can help you answer interview questions much more efficiently because you have already practiced. 

This article will review some of the most important keys to sending out killer secondary applications, including tips on successfully writing about the most common essay prompts for secondary applications that will catch the admission committee’s attention.

Who Receives a Secondary Application Package?

Schools usually do either one of two options. They either send secondary application offers to ALL of the students who have applied, or they will send a selected number of offers only to those students who have passed the initial screening process. 

The time you receive essay prompts for secondary application generally depends on how long it will take for AMCAS to process your application (which can take up to six weeks) and how long each school will take to consider your primary application. You can check the medical school application timeline to make sure about the general deadline for each stage of your application.

Writing secondary essays can be time-consuming and tedious, but here are two small pieces of good news: 

• Secondary essays are usually shorter than your personal statement.
• Some of the topics you have to work on have come up repeatedly during the previous rounds of invites, so there are numerous free sources to help you write your essays successfully.

Five Most Common Secondary Essay Prompts and How to Write Them

In your journey to medical school, time is precious. You need to work according to a plan so that you don’t lose opportunities due to a lack of time management. So it’s a good idea to do as much preparation as possible in the spare time you get after the primary applications are sent out, and you are waiting to hear back from schools. You can use a part of this time to prepare your secondary essays. These essays are your key to getting an interview invite. We suggest you take them seriously.

There is some preparatory work you can do to have enough time to polish your essays to perfection.

You can start by checking out the list of medical school secondary essay prompts and pulling out the common themes for the schools you want to apply to. 

Next, you should create an outline or rough draft for each theme. Although some schools change their prompts every year, planning ahead can reduce your anxiety about time pressure and allow you to focus on your writing. 

If you can re-write some parts of your secondary application essays, you can invest your time in crafting a well-thought piece of writing that meets all the requirements for each institution.

Now we will go over some of the most common prompts and how to write about them: 

Prompt #1: Why Our School?

The key to answering this question is conducting thorough research about your school. You should familiarize yourself with the school’s core values, mission statement, and vision. Information about the student body, curriculum, extra-curricular activities offered to students, their programs, and the requirements can help you develop a great understanding of the school and measure the information against your own personal set values, goals, and learning opportunities you are looking for. 

Doing your homework and being well-informed will show the admissions committee how interested you are in the program and give you enough material to show that you are a good fit for that school.

Prompt #2: Cultural Competency

Generally speaking, the questions about cultural competency want to see your ability to interact with people of different cultures and belief systems. They want to know if you can help people in a way aligned with their values and beliefs. It is also important to realize the vital role of effective communication in bridging cultural differences. In these essays, you should focus on how you have employed a strategy to help someone and overcame the communication barriers to be able to help someone despite all the differences finally. These prompts usually want your essay to focus on how you use your skills to help someone from a different socio-cultural background, or for example, how you can overcome the language barrier if need be, and communication strategies you can employ to help people.

Prompt #3: Overcoming Challenges

This prompt is a closer look at your resilience. In one way or another, you will face many difficulties and challenges in your training to become a doctor. Medical schools want to make sure that their candidates are up to it. They want candidates who can handle challenges and are mature enough to take the right approach in times of need. Using real-life examples can give you a good idea about how you should write your essay. Examples include a time when you had to overcome a setback, illness, injury, and death of a loved one. 

Make sure you keep your essay on the positive side of things. The committee wants to know how you handle a dire situation or a difficult challenge. They want to see how you dealt with the problem and not how it took over your life. End on a positive note and how you overcame the challenges in life and became a better person. 

Prompt #4: Future Goals

For many students, it might not be easy to talk about their future goals in detail. For example, you might not have decided what kind of a doctor you want to be yet. And that is okay. For this prompt, it’s best you focus on the part of your life experience that led to your decision to become a doctor. Go into the specifics about the experiences that made you want to become a doctor.

If you haven’t decided on what kind of doctor you want to be, you should focus on the general and broader direction you expect your career to take. You might change your mind after a while in medical school. So don’t forget to mention that you are always looking for new opportunities to explore.

Prompt #5: Academic Lapses or Breaks

If there are any lapses in your academic resume or you have taken any breaks, you might be asked to further explain this issue to the admissions committee. This is one of the prompts that you can pre-write in advance. You need to first explain clearly and briefly what led to the decision to take a break, how you overcame the situation, and what you learned from the experience.

DO’s and DON’Ts of Medical School Secondary Application

• DO be specific to the prompt.
• DO have as many people as possible proofread your essays.
• DON’T cut and paste different parts from different essays. Read it a couple of times to make sure you sound coherent.
• DON’T just repeat the information you have already shared on your primary application. The purpose of the medical school secondary application is for the admissions committee to get to know you more in-depth.

Five Tips for Managing Medical School Secondary Application Successfully

#1. be organized.

Various credible sources suggest you create a spreadsheet where you can keep all the necessary data and links in one place. We suggest the same. This way, you can easily access the information and track your progress with each application. You don’t want to miss out on a deadline after all the hard work you have done because you forgot. 

#2. Submit Early

Here we talk in detail about the golden rule of a medical school application; the sooner, the better . The same rule applied to secondary applications. A prompt application usually indicates how interested you are in a particular program. Two weeks is enough time to go by before you send your application. There is one exception to this rule, and that is when submitting early means sacrificing the quality.

#3. Stay Ahead of the Game

Some medical schools provide essay prompts on their website. If they are available, that means you can get a head start on your essay writing process. Keep in mind that saving time can help you a great deal during the application process.

#4. Set Your Priorities Straight

Writing medical school secondary application essays can be arduous, but they should be your top priority if becoming a doctor is your priority. When writing secondary essays, prioritize completing each essay based on the priority you have in mind for potential programs. Write the essay for the particular school you are interested in first. You should also complete your application for your safe option – a school or institution where you have higher chances of acceptance. 

#5. Read Sample Essays

In order to have a better understanding of what is asked of you to write about, you should put some time into reading essay samples. Reading sample essays can be beneficial in two aspects: first, to get a clear understanding of what you are supposed to write about, and second, to see how you employ different approaches to write about one topic. You will also learn not to use some of the overused clichés in these essays.

Final Words 

Medical school secondary applications will probably be one of the most time-consuming, stressful, and tedious parts of your journey toward becoming a doctor, but you’re almost at the finish line. 

Each of these stages is designed to test you differently. Your knowledge, patience, perseverance and resilience, and much more are all being tested. Staying focused, on schedule, and relaxed will help you immensely. 

When writing medical school secondary essays, keep in mind that you should not aim only to answer the question you are being asked but also you are providing an opportunity for your reader to get a more in-depth understanding of your character and qualities. Just keep your eyes on the final price, and don’t forget why you are doing this.

When in Doubt, Get Help

If you doubt your application and struggle with the process, the Jack Westin Admissions team is here to help. Whether you need assistance writing your Personal Statement Essay or you want professional editors taking a look at your secondary essays, we’re here to help. To get started with the Jack Westin team, Click here . 

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Choosing A Major for Med School

Premedical students should pick a major based on what they find interesting, which may not be science, experts say.

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Students should make sure they complete prerequisite courses, especially if they've decided not to be on a premed track.

Key Takeaways

• Don't choose a major because you think it will impress admissions officers.
• Remember to take the prerequisite science courses.
• Pay attention to application factors beyond your college major.

When it comes to choosing a college major, aspiring medical school students should follow their passion, not what they think will look good to an admissions committee.

“There’s no one right way to do it,” says Dr. LeeAnna Muzquiz, associate dean for admissions and a clinical professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine . “When people are trying to choose the path that’s best for getting into med school, I can’t emphasize enough, the question should be ‘what’s the best path for me,’ because it’s going to look different for everybody.”

For some, that means majoring in a science; for others, it may mean art history or philosophy. Whatever the field, Muzquiz advises prospective med school applicants that students typically succeed in fields that they are most excited about.

“If you’re slogging through a major that’s not interesting to you, that might not serve you all that well, and undergrad is a time to explore passions and figure out what’s right for you,” Muzquiz says.

Remember Premed Prerequisites 

While any major is acceptable to go to med school, aspiring doctors need to be aware that most medical schools have undergraduate prerequisites . Students should make sure they complete those courses, especially if they've decided not to be on a premed track.

According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, which administers the Medical College Admission Test – commonly known as the MCAT – nonscience majors should plan to complete at least a year of biology, organic chemistry, general chemistry and biochemistry. This is intended to give medical school admissions offices more data to predict how well an applicant with a nonscience major and only basic science courses may perform in med school compared with applicants who have a science major.

As long as a nonscience major understands how to meet those med school prerequisites, admissions experts say their major can be anything. Even students who decide late in college, or even post-graduation , that they want to attend medical school have the option of postbaccalaureate programs to catch up on needed science courses.

Undergrads who choose not to major in a traditional premed field will have their work cut out for them completing science prerequisites in addition to the requirements of their major. That can be a tall order and is one of the reasons Glenn Ratmeyer, a fourth-year medical student at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine , chose to study biology as an undergrad.

“For me, I felt like to reach those benchmarks, it was going to be a lot more logical to do a degree in biology because in order to apply to med school, you have to have some basic measure of science courses, and with other majors, you’d be doing a lot of extra work,” he says.

Ratmeyer also appreciated the training he received in his undergraduate science courses, which he says prepared him well for the challenge of med school.

“Once you get into med school, it can be difficult because the scientific rigor can be difficult for people who haven’t had the background of studying hard sciences for the prior three or four years of undergrad,” Ratmeyer says.

Applying to Medical School as a Nonscience Major 

While it might be harder, there are benefits for students applying to medical school with a nontraditional background.

“If you get interviews at a med school with a different major, they are going to ask you about that, and it can work to your advantage,” Ratmeyer says. “I know of people who are nontraditional majors, or took gap years , and that’s huge because it shows you’re not only capable of applying yourself in science and can get a good MCAT (score) , but you’re really invested in other areas.”

Lucas Maestas, also a fourth-year medical student at UNM, combined his interest in public policy with a major in political science alongside his premed studies. Maestas says his major helped him stand out during residency interviews and proved useful during his medical school studies.

“Delving into political science not only honed my writing skills but also cultivated a unique perspective on critical thinking,” Maestas wrote in an email. “While not directly related to medicine, these skills proved invaluable in navigating the complexities of medical school.”

Dr. Marianne Green, vice dean for education and professor of medical education at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine , says there is "no selection advantage for students who major in the sciences.”

“I think most medical schools are looking to recruit a diverse student body with a variety of perspectives," Green wrote in an email. "We love it when students bring knowledge from the humanities and social sciences to the discussions in medical school.”

Another way applicants can demonstrate interest in medical school is through a clinical experience , such as shadowing a doctor in a hospital, volunteering in a community health clinic or working as an EMT. Such experiences are valuable and can help students understand if they really want to become a doctor, experts say.

“We want you to be aware of how health care works, what does the system do, what do other members of a health team do, how do doctors interact with patients , and does that resonate with you, or does that scare you or seem boring,” Muzquiz says. “Explore that before you invest all the time and money that goes into applying to med school.”

Crafting Your Story 

Undergraduates should remember that their major is only one part of their medical school application. Besides major, GPA and MCAT scores, medical schools also look at characteristics like leadership , teamwork and compassion to see if students can be leaders in their chosen field and put the needs of their patients first.

It's also important for medical school applicants to show how personal and academic experiences connect to their future goals in medicine.

Green cites a creative writing major who applied to medical school and said he wanted to use his writing to explore themes of immigration, intergenerational memory and multicultural identity – crucial themes when it comes to connecting with patients from different backgrounds.

Muzquiz sees med school applicants from a wide range of backgrounds, including engineering and business. These students often make an effort to show the connection between their major and their interest in medicine, and how their major connects to patient care.

“It should all weave into the story of you,” Muzquiz says. “It doesn’t serve you to just check boxes without being able to articulate how it impacted you and how it prepared you to be a good medical student and eventually a physician.”

Medical School Application Mistakes

Tags: medical school , college majors , graduate schools , education , students

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How Dangerous is Dengue?

With global warming and world travel, the disease is spreading around the world.

Morgan Coulson

On March 25, Puerto Rico’s health secretary declared an epidemic after cases of dengue began to surge dramatically across the island. The U.S. territory, home to 3.2 million people, has reported at least 549 cases of the mosquito-borne infection so far this year, compared with a total of 1,293 cases for all of 2023. 

Anna Durbin , MD, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Immunization Research and professor in International Health , says she wasn’t surprised. “We're seeing outbreaks in all regions of the world. Dengue is very cyclical. Depending on where you are, we see a bad outbreak every three to four years.”

Dengue is endemic in over 127 countries, and almost half of the world’s population,  about 4 billion people , live in areas with a risk of infection. Last year, more than 5 million cases were reported worldwide, according to the WHO.

In this Q&A, Durbin explains the dynamics of dengue infection, who is at greatest risk, and whether it might reach the continental U.S.

What are the symptoms of dengue? 

About 75% of people who are infected with dengue have what we call subclinical symptoms, meaning they may have a fever for a day or so and feel achy, but not sick enough to seek medical care. But about 25% of people have much more severe symptoms. They have a high fever, no appetite, severe achiness, and a very low platelet count, which can result in bleeding. Around 5% of people infected with dengue have very severe illness that results in what we call plasma leakage, meaning they can't maintain their blood pressure, and can go into shock. Those are the cases we really worry about. 

Who is at the greatest risk of severe infection? 

The reason we see health care systems overrun during a dengue outbreak is that we can't predict who's going to develop that very severe form of dengue. We tend to hospitalize a lot of people, mostly to monitor them, and try to prevent them from going on to that stage.

We know that you're more likely to have a severe infection with your second dengue infection, but we also know that doesn't happen to everybody. It's still only a small percentage of those second infections that cause more severe disease.  

How many times can a person become infected with dengue?

There are four different kinds of dengue, and we think that when you've been infected with one type of dengue, you have very long-lived if not lifelong immunity to symptomatic or severe disease with that serotype. You can be infected with each of the four serotypes, but your chances of having more severe dengue with your third or fourth infection is quite low.

Can it be deadly?

  It can be, although physicians in dengue-endemic areas will tell you that with proper management, nobody should die from dengue if they present [for clinical care] in time. 

Fluid resuscitation—replacing lost bodily fluids—is what's key to preventing death, but it has to be done in a careful way. Your blood pressure starts to go down because the plasma in your veins has leaked out. We give fluids to help keep that blood pressure up. But just as fast as that plasma leakage happens, it can reverse. You need really experienced people who know how to treat dengue properly. And if treated properly, the mortality rate is very low, about 0.2%. 

I always say that if I got dengue, I wouldn't want to be in a U.S. hospital. I would want to be in Ho Chi Minh City or Bangkok. Because we don't see dengue the way people in Vietnam and Thailand do.

Is there a vaccine? 

There are two vaccines, Dengvaxia and Qdenga, but they aren't available to everyone. 

Dengvaxia is only approved in the U.S. for kids ages 6 to 16 who have already had dengue. It requires three injections to be given over the course of a year. You also must have a blood test to show that you already had dengue, which can increase the cost. 

The second vaccine, Qdenga, requires two doses, three months apart. Right now, the WHO is recommending that Qdenga be used in people ages 6 and older in places where there's a lot of dengue circulating. It won’t be available in the U.S. or Puerto Rico for the foreseeable future, because the company that developed the vaccine, Takeda, withdrew its application to the FDA.

There is another vaccine—a single-dose vaccine—that was developed by the NIH and that we tested at Hopkins. The NIH licensed that vaccine technology to many different manufacturers, including the Instituto Butantan in Brazil. They just published their efficacy results, which look very good. But again, it's not available in the U.S.  

Where is dengue most prevalent?

All tropical and subtropical regions of the world. With global warming and world travel we're seeing it spread all over the world. We're now seeing cases in areas where we hadn't seen them before, such as Southern France.

Are you anticipating any dengue outbreaks in the continental U.S.? If so, where would that happen?

I would expect to see it in Florida and Texas, predominantly. We regularly see cases along the Texas-Mexico border. But an outbreak is possible in any of the tropical areas of the U.S. I don't think we'll see huge outbreaks in the continental U.S. the way we've seen in other parts of the world. But we'll certainly see locally acquired cases every year.

We don't see dengue spread quite so much in the continental U.S. because we have so much air conditioning—people don't have windows open. If they do, they generally have screens on those windows which prevent the mosquitoes from entering the house.

What are some misconceptions about dengue?

One big misconception is that it can spread from person to person. It can't—you need a mosquito. If you're with someone who has dengue, that person can’t give it to you directly.

Number two is, if you've had dengue, you won't get it again. You can get it again, and it can be worse depending on how many infections you've had. 

Three is that you can only get it in underdeveloped countries. You can get it anywhere the mosquito lives and dengue is circulating. You should be aware—especially if you're traveling—that it's present in all the tropical and subtropical regions of the world.

The other thing to note is that it can take about two weeks to become symptomatic.

What are the treatments for dengue?

Generally, it's rest and fluids. You can also take Tylenol, but you want to be careful about how much you take, because dengue can sometimes have an effect on the liver, as can acetaminophen. We recommend that you do not take non-steroidal anti-inflammatories like ibuprofen or aspirin as they can affect platelet count.

How do I avoid contracting dengue?

It's hard to think about mosquito protection every time you go outside, but you should be protecting yourself using mosquito repellents containing DEET and wearing long sleeves and pants.

Morgan Coulson is an editorial associate in the Office of External Affairs at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

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South Korea's president vows not to back down in the face of doctors' strike

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea ’s president vowed Monday not to back down in the face of vehement protests by doctors seeking to derail his plan to drastically increase medical school admissions, as he called their walkouts “an illegal collective action” that poses “a grave threat to our society.”

About 12,000 medical interns and residents in South Korea have been on strike for six weeks, causing hundreds of canceled surgeries and other treatments at university hospitals. In support of their action, many senior doctors at their teaching schools have also submitted resignations though they haven’t stopped treating patients.

Officials say they want to raise the yearly medical school cap by 2,000 from the current 3,058 to create more doctors to deal with the country’s rapidly aging population. Doctors counter that schools can’t handle such an abrupt increase in students and that it would eventually hurt the country’s medical services. But critics say doctors, one of the best-paid professions in South Korea, are simply worried that the supply of more doctors would result in lower future incomes.

Public surveys show that a majority of South Koreans support the government’s push to create more doctors. But observers say many people are increasingly fed up with the protracted confrontation between the government and doctors, threatening to deal a blow to governing party candidates ahead of next week’s parliamentary elections.

In a nationally televised address, President Yoon Suk Yeol said adding 2,000 medical students is the minimum increase needed to address a shortage of physicians in rural areas, the military and essential but low-paying professions like pediatrics and emergency departments. Yoon said South Korea’s doctor-to-patient ratio — 2.1 physicians per 1,000 people — is far below the average of 3.7 in the developed world.

“Increasing the number of doctors is a state project that we can’t further delay,” Yoon said.

Yoon urged the striking doctors to return to work, saying they have a responsibility to protect people’s lives in line with the local medical law. He also said the government remains open to talks if doctors come up with a unified proposal that adequately explains why adding 2,000 more students is too steep of an increase.

“I can’t tolerate an attempt to carry through their thoughts by force without due logic and grounds,” Yoon said. “The illegal collective action by some doctors has become a grave threat to our society.”

Yoon said the recruitment plan won’t lead to lower earnings for doctors, citing what he called expected increases in national income and demand for medical services in the fast-aging society. He said the average income of South Korean doctors is the highest in the developed world.

Yoon’s speech is expected to draw an angry response from doctors, who have maintained they can have serious talks only when the government drops its increased enrollment plan. They deny opposing the plan over worries about future incomes.

Yoon said the government is taking final administrative steps to  suspend the licenses  of the strikers but added he doesn’t want to punish the young doctors. This implies that his government is willing to soften punitive measures on the strikers if they return to work soon.

Yoon recently ordered officials to pursue “a flexible measure” to resolve the dispute and seek constructive consultations with doctors at the request of governing party leader Han Dong-hoon.

The striking junior doctors represent a fraction of the total doctors in South Korea — estimated at 115,000 by Yoon and 140,000 by a doctors’ association. But in some major hospitals, they account for about 30% to 40% of doctors, assisting qualified doctors and department chiefs during surgeries and other treatments while training.

Doctors say the government enrollment plan lacks measures to resolve key medical issues such as how to increase the number of physicians in some key but unpopular professions. They say newly recruited students would also try to work in the capital region and in high-paying fields like plastic surgery and dermatology. They say the government plan would also most likely result in doctors performing unnecessary treatments due to increased competition.

The Associated Press

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Hundreds of Philippine schools suspend classes over heat danger

by Cecil MORELLA

Hundreds of schools in the Philippines, including dozens in the capital Manila, suspended in-person classes on Tuesday due to dangerous levels of heat, education officials said.

The country's heat index measures what a temperature feels like, taking into account humidity.

The index was expected to reach the "danger" level of 42 degrees Celsius in Manila on Tuesday and 43C on Wednesday, with similar levels in a dozen other areas of the country, the state weather forecaster said.

The actual highest recorded temperature for the metropolis on Tuesday was 35.7C, below the record of 38.6C reached on May 17, 1915.

Local officials across the main island of Luzon, the central islands, and the southern island of Mindanao suspended in-person classes or shortened school hours to avoid the hottest part of the day, education ministry officials said.

The Department of Education was unable to provide an exact number of schools affected.

March, April and May are typically the driest months of the year for swathes of the tropical country. This year conditions have been exacerbated by the El Niño weather phenomenon.

Primary and secondary schools in Quezon, the most populous part of the capital, were ordered to shut while schools in other areas were given the option by local officials to shift to remote learning.

Some schools in Manila also reduced class hours.

A heat index of 42-51C can cause heat cramps and exhaustion, with heat stroke "probable with continued exposure", the weather forecaster said in an advisory.

Heat cramps and heat exhaustion are also possible at 33-41C, according to the forecaster.

The orders affected hundreds of schools in the Mindanao provinces of Cotabato, South Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat, as well as the cities of Cotabato, General Santos and Koronadal, Zamboanga regional education ministry spokeswoman Rea Halique told AFP.

Five schools in Mindanao's Zamboanga region also shut schools for the day, though local officials in the area did not recommend the suspension of in-person classes in other schools, the ministry said.

"At the Pagadian City Pilot School one (kindergarten) student and two in the elementary school suffered nosebleeds," Zamboanga regional education ministry official Dahlia Paragas told AFP.

"All of them are back at home in stable condition and were advised to avoid exposure to the sunlight."

Cotabato city experienced the highest heat index in Mindanao, reaching 42C on Monday and Tuesday, the state forecaster reported.

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