One of the biggest mistakes applicants make with secondaries is treating them like a to-do list — finishing them as they come in, school by school, in no particular order. That approach buries your best schools under fatigue and procrastination. Instead, before they start coming out (so… right now, while your application is being verified), batch strategically.

Batch before anything arrives

  • Rank your list honestly. Actually list out, in order, your preferred schools by fit and realistic competitiveness. Everyone would love to rank NYU, Hopkins, or Einstein #1 for the free tuition — but be honest about where you’re genuinely competitive. Your ranking should reflect both your desire to attend and your likelihood of admission.
  • Prewrite before anything arrives. Use prospectivedoctor.com to pull last year’s prompts for every school on your list. Write complete responses for your top five schools first. For schools six and beyond, brainstorm and outline — then, if you have time, write complete responses for those too.
  • Submit your top schools within 2–3 days of receipt. Yes, it’s scary. If you can’t do it within 2–3 days, prioritize quality over speed. For every school outside your top three, aim to submit within two weeks. Applications are reviewed in waves — being in an early wave at your top programs matters more than most applicants realize.
  • Work down the list iteratively. Submit your top schools first, then move down. This keeps your energy focused where it matters most while ensuring lower-priority schools don’t fall through the cracks.

The goal is to avoid the position where a secondary from your #1 school arrives and you’re staring at a blank page behind ten other secondaries.

Primaries are in. Secondaries are now.

This is the work of the moment. We edit secondaries fast — with a physician who knows what mission fit actually reads like.

See Secondary Editing

Pearls

  • Answer the question first, support after. Readers are processing hundreds of applications — front-load your answer, then give the anecdote or evidence.
  • Be specific in “Why This School?” responses. Pull from at least one element in each: general (location, mission, values, patient population), curriculum (problem-based? flipped? systems-based? clinical exposure timing? tracks?), clinical training (where will you actually learn — academic center, community hospitals, rural outreach, urban underserved clinics?), and extracurriculars (research groups, organizations, outreach you’d contribute to).
  • Use the “What else would you like us to know?” question wisely. If they haven’t asked “Why This School?” elsewhere, answer it here. If they’ve asked everything, it’s fine to leave it blank.
  • Ground your answers in specific vignettes. “I am passionate about underserved populations” might as well be invisible — add a two-sentence scene to make it memorable.

Pitfalls

  • Not answering the actual question. Read the prompt a few times before writing — committees notice when an answer is adjacent to the question rather than responsive to it.
  • Copy-pasting full responses between schools. Recycling language and ideas is fine; submitting a secondary to Penn with Columbia’s name in it is an immediate signal you don’t want to be there. It happens more than you’d think.
  • Spending more words on the hardship than the growth. Adversity essays are about who you are and what you learned — if the balance skews toward the hardship, rebalance.
  • Being general. “Strong research program,” “diverse patient population,” and “collaborative community” describe roughly every MD program. If your answer could apply to three other schools, it’s not ready.

Before / After: “Why This School?”

Here’s what a weak response looks like versus a strong one for the same prompt.

Prompt: Why do you want to attend the University of XYZ for your medical training?

✕ Before (weak)

“The University of XYZ is a world-class institution with an outstanding research program and a strong commitment to serving diverse patient populations. I am drawn to the collaborative culture and the opportunity to learn from faculty who are leaders in their fields. I believe XYZ’s curriculum would prepare me well for a career in medicine…”

This says nothing. Every sentence could be dropped into an application to any other school. There’s no evidence this applicant has spent ten minutes thinking about XYZ specifically.

✓ After (strong)

“My interest in health systems science brought me to XYZ’s Health Infrastructures and Learning Systems program. As one of the few medical school tracks specifically training physicians to think about care delivery at the systems level, XYZ offers a unique take on collaborative care. During my gap year working in hospital administration, I saw firsthand how clinical decisions can be overwhelmed by broken workflows, like inaccurate and overbearing electronic medical records systems. I want to be the physician who understands the correct clinical decisions and how to ensure patients actually benefit from them. Beyond curriculum, I’m eager to continue the work I started in undergrad with the student-run free clinic model — and XYZ’s Global REACH program represents the kind of structured, faculty-mentored community health infrastructure I haven’t found at other programs…”

This applicant has clearly done their homework. They name a specific track, connect it to a personal experience, and identify a student organization they’d contribute to.

Want this as a printable reference? Download our free Secondaries Writing Resource Guide.