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How to Answer Adversity Secondary Essay Prompts for Medical School

Including successful essay examples.

Medical schools desire applicants that can effectively manage stress, overcome challenges, and navigate their way through life's curveballs. Successful applicants must prove they can endure the rigors of both medical school and a career as a physician. The secondary application adversity essay is a way for the admissions committee to evaluate your resilience as an applicant. Keep reading for everything you need to know about the adversity essay, including successful essay examples and strategies for how to answer this prompt type, even if you feel you haven't faced adversity.

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Article Contents 9 min read

What is an adversity essay for medical school.

In addition to writing a  diversity essay for medical school , an adversity essay for medical school is one you'll likely have to write when filling out your medical school secondary applications. Although the AMCAS work and activities  section includes up to 15 experiences, medical school secondary essays dive deeper into unique applicant characteristics that haven't already been covered. While most schools send out secondary applications to all applicants, some schools are choosier about who they send secondaries to, often screening using MCAT and GPA scores. While there are many medical school secondary essay examples , the adversity secondary essay is among the most common. Typically, in the essay prompt, you'll be asked to discuss a challenging time you experienced as well as how you overcame that challenge. 

Adversity prompts often come in the form of an "overcoming challenges" question. These questions ask the applicant about a difficult situation they were faced with, an obstacle they encountered, or a hurdle they had to push past in order to succeed. Check out our blog for a comprehensive list of medical school secondary essays which are sorted by school so you can see which prompts you'll likely receive depending on your chosen school. The following prompt examples fit into the adversity category:

1. Discuss a time in your life in which you have failed at something other than an academic experience. How did you confront the failure and what did you learn from it? Please describe how you typically approach challenges that you face in your life.

2. What has been your biggest challenge in pursuing medicine? What have you learned as a result?

3. The admissions committee is interested in gaining more insight into you as a person. Please describe a significant personal challenge you have faced, one which you feel has helped to shape you as a person. Examples may include a moral or ethical dilemma, a situation of personal adversity, or a hurdle in your life that you worked hard to overcome. Please include how you got through the experience and what you learned about yourself as a result.

4. Describe a major problem you have had to deal with at some time in your life. Include how you dealt with it and how it influenced your growth.

5. Please describe to the Admissions Committee a challenge you have overcome and what you learned about yourself from that experience.

First, you need to make sure you read the prompt thoroughly and understand what the prompt is asking. In some cases, the challenge the admissions committee wants you to discuss is a professional challenge, in other cases, they are looking for a personal challenge. If the med school adversity question should be answered using a particular type of example, it will be specified in the prompt. Secondly, check the word or character count and keep this in mind when structuring your answer. Some prompts may allow for 1000 words while others are limited to only 200 words. These limits must be strictly adhered to, any violation of the limit will be seen as a red flag and will exclude you from progressing further through the admissions process. When answering these prompt types, begin by reflecting on your past experiences, which you likely already did when you wrote your medical school personal statement. Think about a time when you faced a difficult situation. What happened? What were the steps you took to overcome the challenge? What did you learn from the experience? Often, you won't have a lot of available words or characters to answer the question, so you need to make sure your answer is direct and to the point.

Start your essay with a brief introduction to the situation or experience, notice the word brief here. The least important part of this essay is describing what happened and all the details surrounding the experience. Make sure you don't get lost in the story because you won't have any words left to describe the important aspects which are covered in the body paragraph. This includes how you felt, how you were affected, and what you learned. Discussing how you felt is particularly important as it helps the admissions committee understand your thought process when you're faced with adversity as well as how you cope in these situations. Tie everything together with a short conclusion that summarizes how the experience changed you. Have you become a stronger person because of the obstacle you faced? Have you learned to be more compassionate? Did you gain a better understanding of a complicated issue? Everyone's experience will be different, so it's important to reflect on your individual experience to determine how you gained something positive from it. 

Some students struggle with the "overcoming challenges" prompt because they feel truly fortunate in life and don't feel that they've faced adversity. So, if you haven't faced adversity, what should you write in this section? The truth is, everyone has faced adversity, the struggle that students face in answering this question is that they are categorizing the prompt incorrectly. Adversity simply means difficulty or misfortune, but students often take this term to the most extreme and feel that it only applies to a serious situation such as the loss of a loved one, a serious disability or a life-altering illness. While these are certainly hardships worth discussing, they are not the only hardships people face. Everyone has overcome a difficult situation, but if you're having a hard time identifying such a time in your life, read these questions below to help determine a hardship that affected you personally. If you answered yes to any of the below questions, you likely have a good topic for discussion, as long as you can expand the topic and think about how it affected you and what you learned moving forward.

Did you have to move because of issues at school?  Have you been bullied before?  Have you had a hard time making friends?  Did you face an obstacle while gaining shadowing or clinical experience?  Do you have a poor grade or a gap in your academic record? What do you think the main cause of this was?  Have you been the new person at school? "},{"number":"2","title":"Family Challenges","comment":" Have you lost a loved one?  Have you or a loved one faced injury or illness?  Has a loved one struggled with addiction?  Did your parents get divorced?  Do you or a loved one struggle with a physical, physiological, or developmental condition or disability?  Has your family lost their home?  Was your family forced to move? "},{"number":"3","title":"General Challenges","comment":" Can you think of a time when something didn't go the way you had hoped? For example, maybe you could have played professional basketball but an injury forced you to change plans.  Have you faced discrimination or prejudice of some kind?  Have you had to learn a new language?  Have you had to manage a financial hardship?  Have you fallen out with a best friend?  Have you made a mistake that had unfortunate consequences? "}]">

Check out our video for adversity essay examples:

1. Please describe any significant barriers or challenges you may have overcome in the pursuit of your personal/professional goals.

During my senior year of undergraduate studies I had struggled to cope with my diagnosis of vitiligo. It started off as a faint light spot near my eyes that I did not pay much attention to at first. Eventually, that spot became whiter and I noticed two other small spots forming near it and other around my lips. I became concerned at that point for my health.

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Can i write in my hardship that i didnot match last year

BeMo Academic Consulting

Hello Ambresha! Thank you very much for your question. You can absolutely include this obstacle in your essay. Do not forget to discuss what you learned and how you worked to overcome this hurdle.

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Medical School Secondary Essay Prompts: The Most Common Questions to Prepare For

Padya Paramita

June 12, 2019

You’ve uploaded your transcript, MCAT score, extracurricular information, personal statement, and finally clicked the submit button on the AMCAS . You might want to use the next couple of weeks to relax. I wouldn’t recommend it, considering your medical school secondary essays are right around the corner. Schools cut off a big portion of the application pool between the secondary and the interview stages, so don’t take the medical school secondary essay prompts lightly!

Although medical schools don’t typically begin sending out secondary applications until early July, you shouldn’t just sit around and start reading a 400-page novel for fun while you wait. Rather, prepare yourself to have common essay topics ready for the minute the prompts are sent out. Below, I’ve outlined the general timeline of secondaries, how to keep yourself organized in the process, the most common medical school secondary essay prompts and how to approach them, recent secondary questions at MD programs, and overall dos and don’ts when writing your medical school secondaries.

How to Prepare for Secondaries: The Basics

Secondary essay prompts are demanding and ask you questions that allow you to reflect on your experiences, career goals in medicine, and challenges that you have overcome. Medical schools want to know why you’re interested in their program and how they might be a good fit for you and vice versa. The number of applicants who receive secondaries varies from school to school. Most schools automatically send out secondaries upon submission of the primary to all applicants, while others ensure students have passed an initial screening and met the GPA and MCAT cutoffs (typically set at a 3.0 GPA and 500 MCAT score) before sending out secondary essays.

First and foremost, you should not put off submitting your secondaries, because your application is not considered complete without them. At most schools, your AMCAS will not even be read until you’ve submitted this portion as well, so don’t delay. Medical schools don’t usually state a deadline for the secondary essays but if they do, absolutely adhere to it, or all your hard work will go to waste.

Second, medical schools view the time you take to turn in your secondaries as a direct reflection of your interest in their program. If there’s no deadline, you should be looking to complete them and send them back within two weeks of receiving them. The two week turnaround time is long enough to be meticulous, but short enough to show eagerness. If you sit around and take over a month to send back your secondaries, don’t expect an interview. But if you take time to think about possible medical school secondary essay prompts and how you might prepare for them in advance, you won’t be scrambling at the last minute.

Secondaries Organization & Game Plan

In order to keep yourself organized and monitor the secondaries for each school, start a spreadsheet. It should detail whether you’ve received the prompt, whether you’ve paid the secondary application fee ($50 or $75, depending on the school), the method to submit, the essay topic(s), and whether you’ve submitted the essays or not. This way, you can keep track of your progress and what remains to be covered for each school, avoiding additional stress during this high pressure period.

The best way to prepare for your secondary essays is to simply start writing about yourself. While there’s no way to figure out the secondary essay prompts in advance for all your schools, you can generate tailored, well-written essays far more easily if you go ahead and tackle traditional essay topics. Medical school secondary essay prompts often follow a general pattern that you can readily get a sense of. The word or character limit for the secondary essays is set by each school, and could range anything from 2000 to 4000 characters.

The secondaries ask for essays about you , so keep in mind your most impressive qualifications, why you want to attend medical school, and how each school might be able to help you achieve your goals. You want to choose topics which bring out the best version of yourself. Remember, the people reading your applications are humans. You don’t want to bore them. You want to stand out as a unique individual in the process. It can come in handy to keep a separate document outlining your reasons for pursuing medicine and the unique opportunities at each medical school that resonate with your passions within the field. This can help you get the ball rolling so you’re ready to conquer medical school secondary essay prompts .

Examples of Common Medical School Secondary Essay Prompts

You should put approximately 25-30 medical schools on your list to stay on the safer side of the intensely competitive medical school admissions process. Schools often have a range of 2-9 secondary questions for you to answer. Take a moment to do the math. This means that you could end up answering over seventy medical school secondary essay prompts . You only had to write one personal statement in the primary, so the number of essays you have to write for the secondary stage can seem like a massive mountain to climb.

The good news is, there will be some overlap in the kinds of prompts among the schools. That said, you should expect each school’s essays to need quite a bit of tweaking to adjust to specific prompts. And don’t expect to be able to reuse every essay you write! But preparing for typical prompts is a strategic starting point. Listed below are a number of secondary essay prompts which are common among many medical schools:

• Explain why you wish to attend this particular medical school.
• What diverse or unique element will you bring to this medical school community?
• If you graduated before you applied, summarize your activities since you graduated.
• Describe a challenge you overcame or a time when you faced an ethical dilemma and how you learned and grew from that experience.
• Who is the most influential person in your life and why?
• Describe a meaningful leadership position.
• What are your goals as a physician?
• What research or independent academic work have you completed, and what did you accomplish or learn?
• What do you think is the role of a physician in a community?
• Describe a humbling experience and what you learned from it.
• Elaborate on an area of interest outside of medicine (e.g., hobbies).
• Describe the characteristics that make you who you are. How will they impact your success as a medical student and physician?
• From the list of activities and experiences listed in your AMCAS application, please select one that has most impacted your decision to enter medicine.
• Is there any other information you would like to share with the admissions committee?

Medical schools often send some combination of these prompts, or similar questions relating to your identity, meaningful experiences, or goals. So even if you don’t know exactly which medical school secondary essay prompts to expect, the list above should give you a clearer picture of what to prepare for.

How to Tackle the Most Common Prompts

Now that you’ve seen the classic questions medical schools ask for secondaries, it’s time to analyze how to answer them. Generally, if you look at the pattern of the prompts, admissions committees want to know who you are, why you’re motivated to pursue medicine, and how you would fit in at their school.

To further break down the ways schools specify what they’re looking for, let’s look at some questions based off of the common medical school secondary essay prompts :

“Why This School” Essays

Take a look at the following “why this school” prompts from three different medical schools in 2018, and the way they framed their questions:

• Georgetown University - Why have you chosen to apply to the Georgetown University School of Medicine and how do you think your education at Georgetown will prepare you to become a physician for the future? (1 page, formatted at your discretion)
• Mayo Clinic - Why are you specifically interested in pursuing your medical education at Mayo Clinic School of Medicine even if you gain acceptances to other highly ranked medical schools? (500 words or less)
• University of Toledo - Briefly describe why you wish to attend medical school at The University of Toledo College of Medicine and Life Sciences. As part of this essay, please discuss, if applicable, any personal connection you may have to The University of Toledo, the UT College of Medicine and Life Sciences/former Medical College of Ohio, the city of Toledo, or the region of Northwest Ohio. (300 words)

Success with these questions lies in actually taking the time to do research on your school list. Make sure you know exactly what the programs offer - you’ve applied to the school for a reason. What are the things you like the most about it and how will it help your goals? Emphasize your demonstrated interest in the school as specifically as possible - detail what about the program’s mission appeals to you the most and fits your personality and plans. Finally, make sure you carefully read the entire prompt and answer all parts. While the objective of the questions is the same (to find out why you have chosen the school), each school puts its own unique spin to the question.

In the past, Georgetown has wanted to know how your training as a physician would benefit from a Georgetown education. To tackle this prompt, jot down specialties only Georgetown offers - faculty, courses, research opportunities - which appeal to you. Don’t pick every single thing off the website. Select a special few details relevant to your interests within medicine and talk about how learning from a certain professor, for example, aligns with your goals.

Mayo’s prompt last year was similar, but asked why you would choose them despite acceptances to other top schools. You definitely need to be as specific as possible in your response. Admissions committee members obviously want accepted students to enroll. They want to know that you’re not applying just for the sake of trying to attend a highly ranked school. So this is the time to demonstrate your knowledge of the program and to feature the opportunities you can take advantage of only at Mayo

Toledo’s “why this school” prompt in 2018 wanted to know about personal connections to the school, the city of Toledo, or the entire region of northwestern Ohio. Public medical schools pay special attention to in-state applicants, and love to see candidates convey interest in the regional appeal of the school. Whether you’ve learned fun facts from a relative who’s an alum or you have a strong connection to the food in the area, expressing concrete details about what you love about the medical school’s environment can help admissions committee members gain an added perspective on you.

“How Will You Contribute to Our School” Essays

Check out a couple examples of medical school secondary essay prompts from last year which ask about how you will contribute to MD programs:

• New York University - The Admissions Committee uses a holistic approach to evaluate a wide range of student qualities and life experiences that are complementary to demonstrated academic excellence, strong interpersonal skills and leadership potential. What unique qualities or experiences do you possess that would contribute specifically to the NYU School of Medicine community (2500 characters max)?
• University of Nevada - Describe how your background and future goals will contribute to the mission of the University of Nevada School of Medicine.

To answer the “how will you contribute to our school prompts,” you need to think about the theme of your own application, and the theme of the institution itself.

Your essay could follow an application persona, or a recurrent theme throughout to help you stand out from other applicants. For example, your application persona could be that you are an aspiring surgeon who was motivated to be a doctor after helping victims of a natural disaster. Keeping your persona in mind can help you decide which of your qualifications and experiences to highlight in such an essay. What do you bring to the table that other applicants don’t? What are you passionate about? What parts of medicine excite you?

Admissions committees want to understand how they’ll specifically benefit from your unique contributions. Think about what each school is known for. How does its mission align with what you hope to achieve from an education in medicine? Don’t get carried away, just talk about your perspective.

“Describe a Challenge You’ve Faced” Essays

Often, medical schools want to know about how you respond to challenges, as shown in the prompts below:

• University of Chicago - Share with us a difficult or challenging situation you have encountered and how you dealt with it. In your response, identify both the coping skills you called upon to resolve the dilemma, and the support person(s) from whom you sought advice. We suggest that you limit your essay to about 550 words.
• Harvard University - If there is an important aspect of your personal background or identity, not addressed elsewhere in the application, that you would like to share with the Committee, we invite you to do so here. Many applicants will not need to answer this question. Examples might include significant challenges in access to education, unusual socioeconomic factors, identification with a minority culture, religion, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity. Briefly explain how such factors have influenced your motivation for a career in medicine. (4000 characters maximum)
• University of Kansas - Beyond academics (grades and MCATs), describe the most significant challenge you have faced and the steps you have taken to address this challenge.

When answering prompts that fall under the “challenge” umbrella, you should do a little bit of self-reflection. The applicants you’re going up against may have faced far greater adversity than you have - whether in the loss of their home or facing prejudice of some kind in society. This type of question may be optional, for example, in the case of Harvard’s 2018 secondaries. But, if the question is not optional, and you’re not sure that you’ve really faced many challenges, do not exaggerate your adversity . Grasping at straws for adversity will backfire and show that you lack perspective.

Medical schools want their classes to be comprised of exceptional individuals, each of whom should bring something different to the class. Instead of telling stories that aren’t yours, focus on challenges you might have faced in a unique passion or avocation. Try talking about an obstacle you faced in your clinical adventures or while leading a project for your work or internship.

Dos and Don’ts

Now that you’ve familiarized yourself with what you can expect out of your medical school secondary essay prompts , it’s time to go over some dos and don’ts to make sure you avoid common mistakes and stay on track to write standout secondaries.

Think About Your Primary Application

When answering medical school secondary essay prompts , it’s important that what you wrote in your primary application stays in the front of your mind. You definitely should not repeat experiences that you already outlined in your personal statement or activities list. But, if there’s something you didn’t get to talk about in depth - such as an important part of your cultural background or an impressive research internship, this is the place to write about it!

Ensure That You’ve Followed All Directions

A good place to start the secondary process is to read the prompts very carefully. Identify the task at hand and ask yourself: what is the question really asking? You can treat the task as a to-do list, and elaborate on each point on the list to form an outline of your essay. Look through the prompt guidelines - word limit, page limit, formatting requirements - and ensure you stick to them.

You might be reusing bits and pieces from one school’s essay for another. That’s okay. But make sure you’ve edited it to fully answer the latter school’s question and formatting requirements. If admissions committees see that you haven’t completed all parts of the prompt, or that you’ve crossed the limit or format guidelines, it’s an automatic red flag. You will not receive an interview if you fail to meet schools’ instructions. It might seem like a minor thing, but such mistakes definitely happen, especially when you’re writing so many applications.

Leave Yourself Plenty of Time to Edit

You must appear professional on your medical school application, and secondaries are an important part of that. Once you’ve finished writing your essays, edit them as much as possible. There will be a lot of essays to go through and you’ll be under a time crunch, but you need to read and reread them to ensure quality. Make sure you avoid run-on sentences and that you’ve made each word count. Careless errors such as grammatical or spelling mistakes will not reflect well on you.

Think Strategically

The medical school application process is notoriously cutthroat. You have to pick and choose your battles. When answering medical school secondary essay prompts , you should not answer all your reach schools first. You should focus on the schools you’re most likely to attend in order to demonstrate interest, but don’t be too ambitious. Check to see which of the schools on your list - especially schools you’re more likely to get into - have secondary prompts that can be easily answered with solid responses that you have already prepared. You definitely want to be smart in the balance of submitting secondaries both promptly and strategically.

Provide Mixed Messages

Remember, you need to keep your primary application in mind when filling out your secondaries. If some bit of information in your secondary application doesn’t match what you’ve already said in your primary application, admissions committees will notice. Don’t write something in your essays that contradicts what you’ve stated as a value or credential previously.

Writing about a topic you can’t speak in depth about might lead to trouble on multiple fronts. If you do so in your essay and you’re asked about it in an interview, you will be in trouble. In a similar vein, you shouldn’t highlight something that was a minimal experience. You will be competing against brilliant students who have versatile stories to tell. Talking about a minor burn you got three years ago might not be a great way to fill up the space allotted for your secondaries.

Write About a High School Experience  

You’re an adult now. You’ve gone through years of life experiences that have greatly impacted your motivation to become a doctor. Unless it was something extremely formative and absolutely integral for your medical school application, don’t waste your secondaries reliving your high school glory days.

Use Flowery Language

This is not a poetry competition and neither are you studying for the SAT. There’s no need to be pretentious and show off your vocabulary on your medical school secondaries. While it’s good to mix up your word usage and not repeat, don’t go all out with the metaphors or thesaurus.com. Admissions committees want to know more about you and what you’ll bring to their program. Don’t take the attention away from the story by adding too many long words that ultimately don’t make sense.

Medical school secondary essay prompts offer you the challenge of answering specific questions about yourself and your career interests within a short span of time. But, if you anticipate the kinds of questions headed your way and prepare in advance, with a stroke of luck, you might even have a few first drafts before the secondaries even come out. You’ve got a lot of writing coming up, so the sooner you start working on the common medical school secondary essay prompts , the better. And if you get an interview, and eventually accepted into medical school, the extra effort you put into working on your secondary essays will all be worth it.

General FAQ

Do all applicants get secondaries.

The number of applicants who receive secondaries varies from school to school. Most schools automatically send out secondaries upon submission of the primary to all applicants, while others ensure students have passed an initial screening and met the GPA and MCAT cutoffs.

When is the right time to turn in my secondary essays?

Medical schools view the time you take to turn in your secondaries as a direct reflection of your interest in their program. If there’s no deadline, you should be looking to complete them and send them back within two weeks of receiving them.

What are some common secondary essay prompts?

Some of the most common prompts include: “explain why you wish to attend this particular medical school,” “what diverse or unique element will you bring to this medical school community,” and “if you graduated before you applied, summarize your activities since you graduated.”

How many prompts do I have to answer per school?

Schools often have a range of 2-9 secondary questions for you to answer.

Tags : medical school essays , medical school secondary essay prompts , medical school secondary essays , medical school secondarys , applying to medical school

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Medical School Secondary Essays: Popular Prompts and Tips To Answer Them

• Cracking Med School Admissions Team

After your AMCAS primary application is transmitted, you will begin to receive medical school secondary essays. While most schools send secondaries to all applicants, certain med schools will screen applicants by academic metrics like GPA and MCAT score and/or content listed on your primary application before extending secondaries. Regardless, submission of your secondary is a prerequisite for interview invitation and subsequently acceptance to medical school, so it’s important for you to stand out in your essays!

In this blog post, we’ll answer all your questions about medical school secondary essays:

• Why this medical school?

Autobiography

• Meaningful extra-curricular activity
• Other prompts
• 7 Medical School Secondary Essay Tips
• Medical school secondary essay examples and resources
• Frequently Asked Questions

OUr Students Were Accepted at These Medical Schools the Past 2 Years!

What are medical school secondary application essays?

Secondary applications will typically ask for the following information:

• Payment (~$100)
• General questions (family information, demographics, disciplinary record)
• Course information (classes taken, prerequisites, etc.)
• Extracurriculars (like work and activities, but abbreviated)
• Logistics (special programs of interest, ID photo, technical standards)
• School-specific essay prompts (the bulk of your efforts will be spent here)

  Most medical schools use the same application portal for their secondaries. Some common portals are shown below . Additionally, read popular medical school secondary essay prompts below .

Popular Med School Secondary Essay Prompts

Our Cracking Med School Admissions team has organized the medical school secondary essay prompts into various categories:

• Why our medical school?
• Extra-curricular activity

Why Our Medical School?

Example “Why our medical school” essay prompts:

• Given the distinctive educational philosophy and integrated curriculum at FSM, describe how your personal characteristics and learning style would fit the institution, and how Feinberg School of Medicine will help you achieve your professional goals. – 200 words (Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine)
• Why have you chosen to apply to the Georgetown University School of Medicine and how do you think your education at Georgetown will prepare you to become a physician for the future? – 1 page, formatted at your discretion (Georgetown University School of Medicine)
• How will you take advantage of the Stanford Medicine Discovery Curriculum and scholarly concentration requirement to achieve your personal career goals? Please limit your answer to 1,000 characters including spaces. (Stanford University School of Medicine)

Tips to answer “Why Our School” medical school application secondary essays:

“Why our school” prompts will ask you to demonstrate your suitability for that specific medical school and/or an aspect of it (i.e. curriculum, mission). The best way to approach this is to research and highlight specific aspects of that school and connect it to your own background and experiences . Do you have a strong teaching background? Then maybe a peer-based learning curriculum would be suitable for you. Or maybe you have done lots of research in a certain field which is strong at that school. Be specific and name programs, physicians, and organizations which you believe would be a good fit for you . Remember: your essay should ultimately focus on who you are and why you would thrive at the school.

“Why our medical school” examples and additional tips:

• Why this Medical School? Secondary Essay Example

Example Diversity Prompts:

• The Committee on Admissions regards the diversity (broadly defined) of an entering class as an important factor in serving the educational mission of the school. The Committee on Admissions strongly encourages you to share unique, personally important, and/or challenging factors in your background, such as the quality of your early educational environment, socioeconomic status, culture, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and life or work experiences. Please discuss how factors have influenced your goals and preparation for a career in medicine. Please limit your answer to 2,000 characters including spaces. (Stanford University School of Medicine)
• Yale School of Medicine values diversity in all its forms. How will your background and experiences contribute to this important focus of our institution and inform your future role as a physician? – 500 Words (Yale School of Medicine)

Tips to answer “Diversity” medical school secondary application essays:

As a doctor, you will need to empathize and connect with patients from a wide range of backgrounds. Therefore, students with unique backgrounds, life experiences, and perspectives are highly sought after in building a diverse class. When approaching diversity essays, think broadly about what experiences and insights you have had that would positively contribute to a medical school class. Have you worked with a unique population of patients? Do you come from an underrepresented group in medicine? Have you faced any hardships or experiences that have given you a unique life perspective? Remember, diversity in not limited to racial and ethnic identity (although this can certainly be a strong focus of your diversity essay). As long as you can convincingly articulate a point of view that is specific to you and supported by relevant experiences then you will be able to craft a strong diversity essay!

“Diversity” essay examples and additional tips:

• Cracking Med School Admissions book: 50 Essays from Accepted Students

Example Autobiography Prompts:

• AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH This should be a true autobiographical statement. Topics to be included are family, childhood, primary and secondary school years, undergraduate years, and, if applicable, what you’ve done since completing your bachelor’s degree. You should also discuss the motivational factors which led you to a career in medicine including any disadvantages or obstacles which might put your accomplishments into context. A repeat of your AMCAS statement will not be acceptable. Please note: if you are applying to the MD/PhD program, please include why you are specifically interested in seeking MD/PhD training at UCSD. (UCSD School of Medicine)
• Write a brief autobiography. As completely and precisely as possible, give a picture of yourself, your family, and events you consider important to you. In doing so, identify the values that are of greatest importance to you. If you have completed your undergraduate education, please comment on what you have done or have been doing since graduation. – 1200 words (Vanderbilt University School of Medicine)

Tips to answer “Autobiography” medical school secondary application essays:

While the prospect of writing an autobiography for medical school may initially seem daunting, once you begin the process you will see that it can be one of the easier and more enjoyable types of secondaries to write (besides the length). One strategy to tackle to autobiography essay is to brainstorm relevant anecdotes from different stages of your life. For example, consider anecdotes from…

• Early childhood or your family: these may reflect your background or life experiences
• Your collegiate years: these should capture your values and beliefs
• Your clinical extracurriculars: these should reveal your skills and character traits, ultimately convincing the reader you are well suited for a medical career
• Your nonclinical extracurriculars: these demonstrate that you are compassionate, and care about serving others
• Any major life events: particularly formative events can reveal a lot about you

Afterwards, identify common themes or threads in the different anecdotes you have brainstormed and patch the pieces together. Ideally, these themes could tie into or predate the themes of your medical school application.

Finally, many autobiographical medical school secondary essays will include a section about future goals. This is a great place relate your past experiences to your future aspirations and provide a compelling argument for why you want to attend that medical school in particular. 

For more tips, read our entire blog post:  How To Write An Autobiography For Medical School

Example Challenge Prompts:

• Please describe a challenge you faced and how you addressed it. (Weill Cornell Medical College)
• Share with us a difficult or challenging situation you have encountered and how you dealt with it. In your response, identify both the coping skills you called upon to resolve the dilemma, and the support person(s) from whom you sought advice. We suggest that you limit your essay to about 550 words. (Pritzker School of Medicine)
• Challenge: Please discuss a challenging situation or obstacle you have faced in the past. Why was it challenging? How did you handle it? Knowing what you know now, would you do anything differently? What did you learn? – 500 words (Vanderbilt)
• Briefly describe a situation where you had to overcome adversity; include lessons learned and how you think it will affect your career as a future physician. (Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine)

Tips to answer “challenge” medical school secondary application essays:

Medical school is hard, so admissions committee members want to know that you are resilient and prepared to take on a challenge. Think back to your experiences in undergrad or afterwards. What situations were particularly difficult for you to overcome? When did you have to step outside of your comfort zone? Have you ever had to resolve a serious conflict or ethical dilemma? Make sure you can reflect on what you learned and how insights from the experience may benefit you in the future. Talk about why overcoming that challenge, or even failing to, has made you better having gone through the experience. Remember- medical schools do not expect you to be perfect! But they want to see that you are reflective and can grow from adversity.

One question we frequently hear from students is whether or not to write about mental health issues such as dealing with depression or anxiety in their challenge essay. Or, others write about a challenge in time management and prioritizing their tasks. It’s okay to write about these topics as long as it sounds like you will still thrive in medical school.

Meaningful Activity

Example “Activity” Prompts:

• If you wish to update or expand upon your activities, you may provide additional information below. – Word Count 500 (UCSF School of Medicine)
• Explain an activity that you have been involved in with for at least 6-12 months. What was it about that activity that kept you motivated to continue? What did you learn from that activity? – 1000 Characters (Wayne State University School of Medicine)
• Briefly describe your single, most rewarding experience. Feel free to refer to an experience previously described in your AMCAS application. (Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine)

Tips to answer “activity” medical school secondary application essays:

Take advantage of the open-ended nature of this prompt to expand on one or more of your activities to pique an admissions committee member’s interest in meeting you. It’s important that you don’t copy and paste your “most meaningful essays” in your AMCAS application. The activity you choose for this prompt might be the same as your “most meaningful” AMCAS activity, but you should convey a different.

Medical schools can learn the following from your response to this extracurricular activity secondary essay:

• In what do you invest your time?
• What’s important to you?
• Do you show leadership and potential?
• What impact did you have in your activity?
• Are you able to execute on a goal you have?
• What are the results that you produce?

Example “Gap Year” Prompts:

• If you have taken a gap year(s), please explain what you have been, or will be, doing since graduating from your undergrad institution. – 2000 characters (Baylor College of Medicine
• If you have already graduate, briefly (4000 characters max) summarize your activities since graduation (Harvard Medical School)
• Please use the space below to tell us what you have done since completing your undergraduate degree. – 350 words (University of California, San Francisco)

Tips to answer “gap year” medical school secondary application essays:

Gap year essays are open-ended questions which ask you to describe something you have been involved with either during your gap year. While these seem straightforward, it is important to not make the mistake of approaching these essays as you would a resume description. The bulk of your content should still focus on what you learned and how those insights have prepared you for a career in medicine. For example, if you scribed, you can talk about how working closely with your attending allowed you to gain insights into clinical decision making through a more involved role. Or if you worked in a research lab, you can connect your research interests with your future academic interests as a physician. Similar to the activities essay, take advantage of the open-nature of this prompt.

Optional Medical School Secondary Essays

Example “Optional” Prompts:

• Describe a time or situation where you have been unsuccessful or failed. (optional) – 3000 characters (Washington University School of Medicine)
• Do you wish to be considered for the Program in Medical Education for the Latino Community? (UC Irvine School of Medicine)
• If there is an important aspect of your personal background or identity, not addressed elsewhere in the application, that you would like to share with the Committee, we invite you to do so here. Many applicants will not need to answer this question. Examples might include significant challenges in access to education, unusual socioeconomic factors, identification with a minority culture, religion, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity. Briefly explain how such factors have influenced your motivation for a career in medicine. – 4000 character maximum (Harvard Medical School)
• Is there anything additional that you would like to address that is not already reflected in your application? – 250 words or less (University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine)

Tips to answer “Optional” medical school secondary application essays:

We recommend applicants maximize their chances for an interview by completing all secondary essays including optional ones (unless the prompt does not apply to you). Some optional prompts will be very specific, but most are very open ended. Think of these as an opportunity to showcase something you have not already talked about in your application. You do not necessarily have to write about a different activity; instead, you can approach an activity you have already written about from a different perspective. For example, if you talked about how your research experience shaped your future goals as an academic physician, you can instead highlight how research allowed you to hone your work ethic and think about research questions methodically. Ultimately, think of optional prompts as an opportunity to show medical schools another aspect of you . 

Cracking Med High Yield Tip: ALWAYS answer optional medical school secondary essays!

7 Medical School Essay Tips

Secondary essay tip #1: organize your secondaries.

It is extremely important to create an excel spreadsheet or a google sheet to stay organized! Medical school secondary essays are sent in quick succession after your primary application is received. You will literally get a floor of emails from medical schools you applied to with several essays to complete. Don’t panic! Amidst a growing number of essays to complete, it can be extremely helpful to have a system to organize secondary essays by school and date. We recommend making a spreadsheet or similar system to keep track of secondaries.

This same system can be used to keep track of interview invitations and application decisions. Ultimately, what you choose to include in this system is up to you!

A sample secondary organizer is below:

Secondary Essay Tip #2: Include your application themes

While your secondary application should not repeat elements included in your primary, it should be thematically consistent with common threads you highlighted in your work & activities and personal statement. Think of your application as a cohesive narrative—your secondary application should enrich and substantiate that narrative rather than deviating from it.

In doing so, ask yourself what you have not already covered in your primary? Are there any areas where you could expand on what you have written? Or look at an experience from a different perspective? Are there any areas where you feel additional explanation is required? For example, if your personal statement focused more on your volunteering experiences, you may choose to talk more about your research experiences in your secondaries. Your goal should be to cover new ground in a consistent manner with what you have already written.

Secondary Essay Tip #3: Be creative

With such a wide range of medical school secondary essay topics, most applicants will inevitably feel like they have run out of topics to write about. Many medical schools have several secondary essays. The first important things is to make sure you include Tip #2: the main threads and application themes conveyed in your primary application.

Then, our advice is to think creatively about each prompt and outside of the box. For example, one of our students wrote about instructor evaluations they received as a teaching assistant in response to a prompt asking about a significant honor or award. Other premeds we advise have written short stories or poems as part of their secondary essay responses. Your essay will make a positive impression if you can still answer the prompt while being more creative with your topic choice. 

Secondary Essay Tip #4: Re-purpose the same essays for multiple schools

Medical schools will commonly ask the same types of secondary essay prompts. As a result, something that most pre-meds do not realize until they apply is that you can re-purpose many your already written essays for other schools. Look out for wording that suggests you are dealing with the same “type” of secondary. For example, “diversity” essays commonly include phrasing such as “contribute to the coming class”, “unique background or life experiences”, and/or “differences”. Recognize that these all fundamentally fall within the same category of secondaries.

When re-purposing essays, we recommend going through all of your secondaries and grouping essays by type. From there, you can start with one prompt for each category that has the highest word/character limit for your first version of the essay. Then, you can shorten that first draft in order to fit the length limitations of subsequent schools.

For a full list of different types of medical school secondary essays, check out our other blog post:  Complete List: Medical School Secondary Essay Prompts 2020 – 2021

Secondary Essay Tip #5: Tailor your response to each school

Even if you re-purpose your secondary essays or use a template for a common essay, make sure you do not write generic responses for different schools! Even essays like your diversity/activity essays, which may be largely similar because your background/extracurriculars have not changed, can be specified for each school by relating elements of your response to opportunities/characteristics of that school. For example, if a school has a primary-care focus, you can tie in your background coming from a medically underserved region with your future career goal to serve your community.

Secondary Essay Tip #6: Carefully read over and edit your medical school secondary essays

While you will not have the same amount of time to work on your secondaries as your primary application, you still need to deliver a product of similar quality in writing, content, and insightfulness. As such, it is recommended that you get a few trusted readers to review your secondaries before submitting them. If you have other friends applying, it can be useful to form secondary reviewing groups so that you can share essays with one another and receive timely feedback. When having your secondaries reviewed, focus on grammar, clarity of writing, and content.

Secondary Essay Tip #7: Pre-write your medical school secondary application essays

At this point in the application cycle, with AMCAS yet to open and no secondaries sent out, the number one tip we have is for you to pre-write your secondary essays! This will give you a strong list of essays to work with once secondaries begin to come in, which can make a huge difference for the quality of your essays and their turnaround time. Secondary prompts rarely change from year to year and can be found online. Check out our blog post of secondary prompts from 2020-2021!

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FAQs - Med School Secondary Applications

When you submit your AMCAS application, the application fee is $170 for one medical school and then $41 for each additional medical school. Additionally, each medical school also has a secondary application fee. On average, each medical school application is $100.

When your AMCAS application officially transmitted to medical schools, then medical schools start sending their applicants an invitation for a medical school secondary application. It’s important to note that some medical schools send all applicants a secondary application, whereas other medical schools are selective with who they send secondary applications to.

Our Cracking Med School Admissions team tell our student advisees that medical school secondary essays are extremely important . We highly recommend submitting only “A” quality secondary applications. This is the standard we hold ourselves to and the standard we hold our students to. If you would like help with your medical school secondary essays, look at our secondary essay editing services here.

Medical schools look for different things:

• Your commitment to medicine
• Experiences that make you unique
• Specific interests or passions in healthcare
• Intellectual interests
• Unique talents

Medical school secondary applications vary greatly. On one extreme, there are still a handful of schools that have 0 additional required essays. On the other extreme, there are medical schools that have 10-12 secondary essays, including optional essays.

No. Some medical schools will read your primary application first and decide whether to send you its medical school secondary application. Other medical schools screen out students based on its GPA or MCAT cut-off.

We recommend using the full character or word limit on most of your secondaries. Why not take full advantage to increase your chances of success? If you have essays pre-written, you can even reduce this time to a couple of days! Remember, medical school admissions is a rolling process, so the earlier your application is marked complete the higher your chances of interview invitation and acceptance. But remember, you have to have “A” quality secondary essays so that you stand out!

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• Medical School Secondary Essays Examples

Be Memorable. Claim an interview spot. Get Accepted.

Our team of physician and medical student editors had the pleasure of helping students craft the following medical school secondary essays. 

“Why This School” Essay

Adversity essay, diversity essay, “how will you contribute to our school” essay, “future goals” essay, “academic lapses or breaks” essay, “why d.o.” essay, why are secondaries important, tell us about any specific reason(s) (personal, educational, etc.) why you see yourself here at the wake forest school of medicine..

The ending of the motto of the Moravian church, which has a strong historical connection with Winston-Salem, is “…in all things, love.” This concluding statement is an apt description of how I attempt to live my life. Wake Forest upholds such values of inclusion and love through the Lovefest tradition and programs such as the student-run DEAC Clinic. After working at free clinics in rural areas, I am committed to becoming a physician that will promote systems of care in the community. With my exposure to rural primary care, I want to use the Rural/Underserved Health experience offered to Wake Forest students through the North Carolina Academy of Family Physicians to further my understanding and training in this career path. Furthermore, as an extension of working in primary care, I am interested in being a geriatrician. Wake Forest, as one of the best geriatric hospitals in the country, has a curriculum that aligns with my interests. I am confident that through research, service, and patient care, Wake Forest will shape me into a leader of rural health care for the geriatric community.

Application Status: Accepted |School of choice: Wake Forest School of Medicine | Class of 2024

More Examples and Writing Tips for a Convincing  Medical School “Why Us” Essay | Click Here

Describe a significant challenge you have experienced in your life, share the strategies you employed to overcome the challenge, and what you learned from the experience.

One personal adversity I have overcome is my lack of self-confidence. I was always a quiet child who grew up with two older sisters doing most of the talking. As I aged, I came out my shell to an extent and became more outgoing. I have always struggled in one particular area: public speaking. My passion for medicine grew early as I observed my eldest sister work alongside physicians during her nursing training. However, my shy nature led me to select pre-nursing as my major, since nursing does not require the ability to speak publicly like being a physician often does. I did not truly consider a career as a doctor until my anatomy and physiology professor suggested I do so after recognizing my drive, aptitude, and passion. Even so, it took introspection and time to recognize that I held the potential to become a successful physician.

Over my undergraduate career, I have participated in many group presentations during classes without the benefit of being taught how to successfully prepare. On every occasion, I would become so nervous that I was unable to sleep the entire night prior. By the time I presented, I would be so distracted that I could not think straight, let alone get my point across clearly. This went on until I had the opportunity to participate in a class called Peer Instruction in Laboratory Occupational Training (PILOT), which was an extension of a class that I had succeeded in, Quantitative Biological Methods.

PILOT was designed to expose students to research articles and assist with laboratory techniques and homework. A large part of the grade for the class consisted of teaching a laboratory section of around 40 students for 15 minutes. I almost opted out of the class because of this requirement, but ultimately decided it was a great opportunity to work through my personal fear of public speaking and build my self-confidence.

I set a schedule six weeks ahead of the presentation to begin preparing. A few helpful peers offered advice, telling me that knowing what I wanted to say verbatim was a good way to improve confidence. Thus, I practiced daily until three weeks before the class. I found another tip online: practicing in the actual location of the presentation can help reduce nerves. Subsequently, I approached one of my laboratory teaching assistants and asked if he would let me practice in the laboratory. He was an excellent teaching assistant and took the time to watch me practice and provide feedback.

Ultimately, I felt that I was able to present eloquently and received an excellent grade. Life is full of challenges, and I learned that preparation is key to success. I planned and prepared early, pulled from available resources, and implemented advice from faculty and peers. This experience taught me that I do have the aptitude, strength, and drive to succeed in medical school and overcome any obstacle that I might face. I am eager to embrace more personal growth and realize my full potential as I continue on to medical school.

Application Status: Accepted |School of choice: Nova Southeastern University College Of Osteopathic Medicine | Class of 2024

More Examples and The 6 Steps for Writing the Medical School Adversity Essay | Click Here

“Do you consider yourself a person who would contribute to the diversity of the student body of Tufts University School of Medicine?” If yes, briefly explain why.

I am a Muslim, Saudi woman, but I am not the preconceived notions of being close minded, uncultured, or oppressed. I’m a passionate helper, an open-minded extrovert, and a curious explorer of the world. 

Though I grew up attending a school that taught me to be a leader and encouraged competition, and though travelling the world allowed me to explore new cultures, homogeneity was the ‘norm’ everywhere I went until I attended school in the US. George C. Marshall High School showed me how enriching diversity is. There, in a mixture of backgrounds and ethnicities, I was an ‘other’ among many ‘others’. The following year in Nebraska was different, and I experienced the damage of prejudice when I was the only ‘other’. My experiences drove me to work to bring different people together to give back. Years later, at NYU, this personal passion pushed me to create a volunteer tutoring nonprofit organization. 

I believe the ‘other’ in me, with the uncommon background, the unique experiences, and the interesting perspectives, will contribute to the diversity of the student body at Tufts.

Application Status: Accepted |School of choice: Albert Einstein College of Medicine | Class of 2024

Click here for More Examples and Steps on How to Write an Effective Medical School Diversity Essay

Explain how interactions with people who are different from you have shaped your worldview and relate how you would enrich the VTC community.

From my academic and work experiences, I have frequently worked with people who are different from myself. Working with students and professors from different backgrounds through college helped me appreciate different viewpoints, especially during my bioethics training.  Listening to my classmate, who was a Catholic hospice nurse, explain her differing stance on end-of-life care showed me to appreciate the legitimacy of different opinions. Likewise, I learned from sociology graduate students about the issue of the medicalization of mental illness, which I had not had to consider prior to speaking and working with them. These experiences will help me contribute to the community by enabling me to approach problems from multiple lenses and to listen to and value the input of experts in different fields.

My experiences engaging with different individuals will help me to enrich the community at Virginia Tech. As a tutor, I have been able to work with students of different ages and backgrounds with unique learning goals. For example, my student, Danny, was an adult student taking classes at a community college and had failed his statistics course three times before meeting with me. Even though I had excelled in math classes during school, I was able to listen to his frustrations and identify different ways to help him learn the content and be able to apply it for quizzes and exams. I helped him navigate through the material, and he ended up passing the course comfortably. By working with a wide variety of students like Danny, I have been able to understand the importance of listening actively to individuals’ struggles and unique experiences to learn about how to best help them and I am excited to apply this skill to help future individuals.

In addition to my experiences tutoring, I have been able to interact with individuals different from myself through volunteering. For example, at Judson Park, I volunteered by helping one resident, Ron, participate in art therapy. Ron had suffered two prior strokes and was wheelchair-bound and hemiplegic. I was able to help bring him down to the art room and organize supplies for him. Ron was unique in his needs, which was why he required individualized care to be able to participate in the art therapy. He also struggled with communicating verbally due to deficits from his prior strokes. I adapted by patiently waiting for him to respond at his own pace and looking for body language cues for what he needed at the moment. He was able to make incredible art creations, showing me the resilience of differently abled individuals.

These experiences have shown me the importance of valuing everyone’s unique perspectives and utilizing that consideration and compassion to help others. I can enrich the VTC community by providing this diverse perspective to help my peers and ultimately serve the greater community as a physician.

Application Status: Accepted |School of choice: University of Virginia School of Medicine | Class of 2024

Need help writing your secondary essays?

After residency, describe the community in which you see yourself practicing medicine.

Currently, I can see myself practicing medicine in a variety of clinical settings: a private specialty care system, a nonprofit medical facility, individual practice, or a different setting. I am open to all of the new experiences that medical school will bring, including exposure to a variety of clinical settings.

I have worked as a medical scribe at the largest non-profit health care provider in Seattle and have also volunteered for a private specialty hospital. Both of these experiences have exposed me to a different type of medical practice, and I have enjoyed both although in different ways. I loved the diversity of patients I encountered at the nonprofit and enjoyed experiencing different clinic visits whether for constipation or throat pain. At the specialty hospital, I was able to encounter unique and rare medical cases that I’ve only read about in books such as spina bifida or hydrocephalus. I was also able to witness the very specialized and personalized care. I am excited to explore the various clinical setting options in medical school and residency, and figure out which environment best suits my strengths and interests!

Application Status: Accepted |School of choice: Stanford School of Medicine | Class of 2024

Use this space if you’d like to address any identified deficiencies in your application.

When I suddenly lost my father to pancreatic cancer shortly before starting college, I was confused and frustrated about my loss. Although I had dreamt of becoming a doctor since I was a little girl, I was newly unsure of whether medicine was right for me. Because I lacked a tangible goal and motivation, my studies and grades suffered during my first years of college. However, once I began volunteering at the Children’s Hospital during my sophomore year, I developed a renewed sense of appreciation and passion for medicine. I started to care a lot more about school and enjoyed learning again. I began working extremely hard in my classes, and slowly but surely, my GPA rose.

Application Status: Accepted |School of choice: Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine   | Class of 2024

How do your professional ambitions align with osteopathic medicine?

My professional ambitions have always aligned with a medical career, ever since I observed my childhood hero and oldest sister, Brittany, work alongside physicians as a registered nurse. At the time, I was only eight years old and not yet privy to the nuances of allopathic versus osteopathic medicine.

Throughout my experiences with the medical profession as a patient and mother, I have found myself disappointed with some of the allopathic medical treatments. I have myself been treated pharmaceutically with medications and became non-compliant with my treatment due to side effects. Several years ago, I was diagnosed with herpetic neuralgia. My neurologist prescription Neurontin, which helped with the symptoms but left me in a fog. I found myself questioning whether there could be a better method.

As an undergraduate student, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to listen to a presentation by a doctor of osteopathy from Lake Eerie College of Medicine in Bradenton, FL. The speaker discussed osteopathic medicine, its principles, and manipulative medicine (OMM). He talked about a time when he bumped into an old friend who had been diagnosed with plantar fasciitis. His friend’s condition was so severe that he needed a cane to ambulate independently. The D.O. performed OMM for his friend and provided him with a set of exercises to perform daily at home. Ultimately, the friend did not require the surgery his allopathic physician had recommended.

After listening to his presentation, I felt as though I had a breakthrough. I realized that I wholeheartedly supported these principles as the better solution that I had been looking for. With osteopathic medicine, I could practice medicine in a traditional manner while wielding a valuable skill set that could spare patients from invasive surgeries and pharmaceutical therapeutics causing undesired side effects.

Furthermore, while studying for the MCAT a year ago, I developed a constant waxing and waning neck pain that would radiate to my right shoulder and down my arm. This worsened over a period of four weeks, and I took increasing amounts of ibuprofen to calm the symptoms. A good friend of mine is a physical therapist who manipulated my spine and sent me home with instructions for an exercise plan. She also taught me how to self-evaluate my posture, which has been valuable in preventing additional episodes. I was incredibly impressed with the outcome of the treatment that used my own body and its muscles to treat the pain without using pharmaceuticals or leaving me with residual deficits. As such, my personal trust in natural treatments has emphasized to me that osteopathic medicine is the path I am meant to follow. 

The more I learn about osteopathic medicine, the more excited I am to incorporate its principles into my future practice. I am thrilled to learn and practice medicine with a holistic approach to evaluate and treat patients. As a healthcare partner to my future patients, I feel inspired to encourage the implementation of prevention, maintenance, and natural remedies into their treatment plans.

Application Status: Accepted |School of choice: Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine   | Class of 2024

Why are secondary essays important?

• Schools ask these questions for a specific reason
• It’s your final chance to make a strong impression
• When they’re done right, you will lockdown an interview spot

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