Common Secondary Essay Topics: Key Attributes

This week on the blog we’re covering common secondary essay topics. Stay tuned for a new topic each day along with pointers on how to make the most of your response.

What are the most important attributes a physician should possess?

Which one do you embody? This question is self-explanatory, but again, don't just tell, show. Share a story (or, better yet, more than one instance) where you exemplified an attribute that means a lot to you.

Describe a time where you worked on a team.

Teamwork is a huge part of working in medicine, so make this example count. Choose the best anecdote from your Teamwork and Collaboration Bucket in your brainstorm. Be detailed: What was your team's goal? What problem did you solve together? If the team was small, include everyone's first name. (It shows that you valued these people as collaborators.) What did each of them bring to the table? How did you delegate tasks? When did you choose to lead and when did you choose to follow? Did a conflict arise? How did you solve it? If you didn't, is there anything you would do differently if faced with that situation today?

Common Secondary Essay Topics: Adversity and Failure

This week on the blog we’re covering common secondary essay topics. Stay tuned for a new topic each day along with pointers on how to make the most of your response.

Tell us about a time you faced adversity.

This prompt can be a trap because it tempts you to be very negative. Obviously, you don't have to be all sunshine and smiles in your essay about facing adversity. But be careful not to paint yourself as pitiable or overly criticize others, even those who deserve it—let their actions speak for themselves. Present the event in detail, but you want about 80% of your answer to focus on the actions you took, lessons you learned, and how you grew through facing adversity. How did this incident affect your long-term view of something? How will it affect your future actions? How will having navigated this experience make you a better healthcare provider?

The tone to strike and structure to follow applies to other common questions, such as, "Describe a conflict you've had. How did you resolve it?" and "Reflect on a time when you had to show resilience.”

Tell us about a time you failed.

Talking about a failure or weakness can make you feel vulnerable—good. To get a little Brené Brown: Vulnerability leads to bravery. When you share a failure, you want to spend about 20% of your answer explaining what happened and 80% on what you learned and what you've done since to improve. Lastly, how are you feeling now? Hit these beats: Situation. Action. Result. You don't need to seem ever-resilient and impervious to future failure, just like you've grown.

Common Secondary Essay Topics: Mission Alignment

This week on the blog we’re covering common secondary essay topics. Stay tuned for a new topic each day along with pointers on how to make the most of your response.

What disparities in health will you try to address as a medical student and physician?

A question about health disparities and inequity could be direct like this or the topics could come up in a question about your alignment with a program's mission statement. Many schools' statements tout their commitment to addressing these issues. There are plenty of health disparities to write about; explain why you're passionate about one or two and show your knowledge of them, preferably through previous experiences. Share the steps you have already taken regarding inequities and plot out the steps you plan on taking in the future.

We had a client who went to college where Black maternal healthcare was ranked the worst in the country. While this was attributable to multiple factors, physician bias certainly played a role, she wrote. After college, she participated in several unconscious bias trainings. Discussing implicit bias raised her awareness of how dangerous it is in a healthcare setting and caused her to pause and consider where beliefs she had originated. She's going to take that practice with her throughout her career. And on campus and in her future practice, she plans to organize implicit bias trainings.

What about our mission statement resonates with you? How do or will you embody it?

A version of this question might be phrased in several long-winded ways (you'll see what we mean), but this is what they are all asking. Mission alignment matters to schools. They want to know that you share their values and will be a proactive member of their community.

Schools often hit similar themes: innovation, collaboration, and servant leadership. Health equity and social justice also frequently appear in mission statements. (Some schools have a separate question related to those topics.) Even if you're not drafting this answer yet, think about experiences you've had that involve those themes and jot down some notes. Hit up your brainstorm and find the times where you utilized critical thinking. When were you a leader? How have you been involved in social justice or what's a critical topic that you are making an effort to learn more about?

If a question like this isn't in a school's Secondaries mix, you should be looking to reflect the mission statement back to the school in your other essay responses. For example, if a school especially values collegiality, you might include a story about how you collaborated on a class project in one of your answers. (This is another example of show don't tell.)

While you should be researching schools individually to learn other specifics, AAMC has a tremendously convenient document that rounds up all allopathic schools' mission statements in one place.

Common Secondary Essay Topics: Diversity

This week on the blog we’re covering common secondary essay topics. Stay tuned for a new topic each day along with pointers on how to make the most of your response.

How will you add to the diversity of our student population?

Your response doesn't have to be about race, sexuality, or religion. (Of course, it can be.) What unique experiences and perspectives can you share? And how have you thrived in and learned from diverse environments in the past?

We had one client write about how she chose to spend her gap years between graduating college and matriculating to med school in a corporate setting. Working at a consulting firm that advised biotech and pharmaceutical companies gave her a better understanding of disease etiology and product pipelines and insights into healthcare inequity. Part of her job involved speaking with doctors and researchers from around the world; between this and working in a hectic office environment, she improved her communication skills—vital to contributing to a medical school community, never mind in her career. And her atypical premed job meant she'd bring unique knowledge and experiences to her medical school class.