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What are secondary applications and why are they important?
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Your primary application (e.g., AMCAS, AACOMAS, TMDSAS) was broad and covered general information about your preparation and motivation for becoming a doctor, dentist, vet, etc. The information in the primary application will be received by all schools and they will determine how to use it. A supplemental or secondary application is specific and designed by each individual school to capture information that they, specifically, deem important in determining whether you’re a good fit for their school.
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When will I start receiving secondary applications?
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The bulk of your secondaries will likely arrive within two weeks of the first application release to schools (date varies by year, but typically late June), or two weeks after verification if you aren't verified by that release date.
AMCAS transmits some basic information to your schools before your application is verified. Since many schools don’t screen applicants and send secondaries to everyone, as soon as they see that you’ve applied, they’ll send a secondary. Some schools will wait until your application is verified, and others will do further screening of your verified application and then determine whether or not to send you a secondary.
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Some schools have an optional free response, where we can share anything else that we want to about ourselves. I feel like I've said everything I needed to say. What should I do with this space?
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If you haven't done so yet, this is a great place to spend some time talking about why you think you're a good fit for the school, based on its mission, curriculum, or other aspects of it. If you've already done that, reflect on how you've presented yourself and the school's mission, and think of something that you can expand on that speaks to the mission of the school.
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Should I answer every optional question on a secondary?
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If we had to generalize we'd say that medical schools might wonder why you didn't take the time to complete these 'optional' essays, and ultimately you might pass over an opportunity to present yourself in an even fuller light than you have already.
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How much time can I spend on a secondary? How quickly should I send it back?
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The rule of thumb is to send back within two weeks of receipt of a secondary. Schools date stamp everything in your file, and if you take longer than that, we have heard that it can cause concern that you’re either not that interested in the school, or that you’re managing your time poorly in the application cycle. Of course, better to take a little bit longer and feel satisfied in your answer, so do your best to balance timing and quality of responses.
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I’ve heard that I’ll be expected to write 100 essays in two weeks when I apply to medical school. How is that possible? How do people do that?
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Our applicants submit a primary application to an average of 25 schools. The primary includes your personal statement and up to 15 mini-essays that you’ll write to describe your experiences. After that, schools will send a secondary application, which can contain any number of additional essays of varying lengths. Most of those secondary applications will arrive in the week or two after your primary application is transmitted to schools (this year, that’s June 30), and the rule of thumb is to try to return them in a timely manner, since this can indicate your enthusiasm, professionalism, and organizational skills. So if you apply to 25 schools and they all have 3-4 secondary essays prompts, it’s true that you could be faced with 100 short essay responses.
Here are some strategies to manage this:- In the years before you apply, keep journaling and reflecting on your preparation, motivation, values, and experiences. Those insights can become the backbone of many secondaries.
- In the year that you’re applying:
- Survey last year’s secondary essay prompts as you create your school list (you’ll find many sources via google). This will give you an idea of what you’ll be asked to write about.
- Don’t burn yourself out on writing during your primary application. There is no “perfection” in a personal statement—once your readers seem to understand your thesis and feel like it’s solid, put it away and move on to secondaries.
- Submit your primary in early June, then start brainstorming and prewriting secondaries based on last year’s prompts. That will give you almost a month to get a head start.
