Biweekly Secondaries Thread - Week of December 1, 2019
Hey guys! Since we've been having an extraordinary number of posts about secondaries for the past week or two, I've gotten multiple requests to do some sort of consolidated thread. We've been been getting the same questions over and over and over again every single day, and the common/easily answered or searched questions are getting pretty repetitive. These will join our biweekly posts, available on the sidebar/about section. Repetitive questions here will not be shamed. Repetitive quests outside this thread will be shamed.
##Ask about your secondary ideas here.
We have a subreddit chatroom for essays! You can find it here. ^(Reddit chat isn't actually that bad, I use it every day merp)
##Advisor Corner: Preparing for Secondary Applications, sponsored by AAMC
"When is the latest I should take my MCAT??"
We had a discussion post about this a while back, you can find it here.
- https://www.reddit.com/r/premed/comments/c3gie6/august_15th_mcat_late_for_this_cycle/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/premed/comments/c32z3u/should_i_take_the_mcat_next_week_or_push_it_back/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/premed/comments/c2zyom/is_an_early_august_mcat_too_late_help/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/premed/comments/c24c8l/too_late_to_apply_with_tmdsas/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/premed/comments/bzr1n0/what_to_do_in_between_mcat_and_score_release/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/premed/comments/bvfxvl/do_schools_look_at_your_applications_without_mcat/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/premed/comments/bukrh7/amcas_submission_timeline_sos/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/premed/comments/bu4fa9/is_it_better_to_apply_later_in_the_cycle_with_a/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/premed/comments/btn29w/how_to_apply_with_a_june_29_retake/
You will all be s m a c k e d if this pops up more than twice a week again.
When is the earliest that I can begin receiving secondaries??
There are short blurbs about this in the wiki here and here, as well as a link to someone's advice post on "How To Write "Why Our School" Essays" and a relevant excerpt from u/yallstvent's post here.
Where can I get the prompts to begin prewriting?
SDN has its School-Specific Threads where people update with each school's secondary prompts as they come in. You can also view the threads from previous years. For the most part, secondary prompts do not change.
"I don't want to click on links, what are the prompts?"
It varies from school to school, but almost all schools request essays that fall under a few general categories:
- How do you bring diversity to a class?
- Why this school? / How do your goals align with our school's mission?
- Tell us about a time that you failed
- Tell us about a challenge that you have faced, and how you dealt with it
- Probably teamwork or s/t, idk look it up lol
"When should I finish these by??"
You will not be complete at any specific school until you have finished your secondary. The generally recommended turnaround time is about 2 weeks, but as soon as you can is always better, whether that's earlier or later than 2 weeks.
"Should I assume people have read my app"
"Discussing specialty of interest?
"Okay but how much do I actually have to try"
- https://www.reddit.com/r/premed/comments/bu64y9/med_school_secondaries/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/premed/comments/byg67j/how_hardcore_to_go_for_prewriting_secondaries/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/premed/comments/byem65/how_indepth_am_i_supposed_to_go_with_basic/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/premed/comments/by16nw/are_secondaries_that_important/
"Mental illness controversial topic??"
- Okay I'm too lazy rn and will add this but search this and you'll get like a million hits
Posted Dec 1, 2019, 2:00 PM UTC