9 Steps to Writing Stellar Medical School Secondary Applications 

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Get Organized  Secondary applications can be overwhelming since they arrive in quick succession. Each school will send a different secondary with unique essay questions. This means you will be faced with several, possibly dozens

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Prioritize Certain Schools: You will have to decide which secondary's to do in which order, as you will likely get several at a time. Using the spreadsheet you created, you will have the information needed to make the decision.

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Get Feedback : This last piece of advice connects closely with the prior point. Most applicants know that it is crucial to have their personal statements reviewed by others. It may be harder to do so for secondaries due to sheer volume

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Tailor Your Response to Each Medical School -  It is important to be specific in secondary applications. You have the opportunity to research the program and be informed about its strengths and weaknesses and how those pertain to your goals.

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Outline Prior to Writing  Create an outline prior to writing each essay. Secondary's contain multiple (sometimes several) essay questions each, so it’s important to plan and outline an answer to each question in an individual application before writing.

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Focus on Quality Over Speed  Do not prioritize speed over quality of content. You must have well-written essays with well-crafted answers. Make sure you answer the specific question being asked, as the prompts will often be less open-ended than the personal statement.

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DO NOT Repeat Your Primary Application - This is a crucial piece of advice and a common pitfall for applicants. The admissions committee already has all the information in your primary. This is your opportunity to show them something new.

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Be Careful Copying and Pasting  With so many essays prompts coming in, some will invariably overlap between schools. It is acceptable to carry over common answers to multiple applications, but be very careful when doing so.

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Take the Appropriate Amount of Time  One of my all-time favorite quotes is from legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden: “Be quick but don’t hurry.”This could not be more applicable here. It is certainly important to be timely with your responses to prevent falling behind in the rolling admissions process

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