How to Respond to Medical School Secondary Essays: Why are You Interested in Our Medical School?

Why are you interested in our medical school?
In this video, Dr. Rajani Katta, author of the MMI book and The Medical School Interview book, reviews how to craft a strong medical school secondary essay response to the question "Why our Medical School?"
This is a question that many medical school applicants dread seeing on their secondary essays and applications. One of our students recently said "The real answer would be 'I just want to get in somewhere, so please take me.'" While this may be your honest answer, it might not be the best one to write in your medical school secondary applications. So what is the best approach to your medical school secondaries? In this video Dr. Rajani Katta offers recommendations and strategies for crafting a strong essay response to this common secondary application question. The most important thing to remember is that you do not want to be generic. There are 4 steps to the process of crafting a strong memorable response to this question. The first step is to reflect on yourself and your activities. What motivated you to engage in these activities? What did you learn from them? The next step is to research the medical school. The method we recommend for this is the AEIOU strategy. A is the school's Aims: What are the aims of the school? What does the school describe as its mission? The E is excellence: What does the school describe as its areas of excellence? The I is the school's initiatives: What are the faculty or the leadership at the school working on/towards? The O is the school's opportunities: What could you do here that you could not do elsewhere? What are the unique opportunities offered by this school? U is the school's undergraduate medical education: What are some of the features of the curriculum that strike you as interesting? Are there any special tracks that the school offers? Once you have researched the school, the next step is to demonstrate your fit with the school. The last step is to picture your future. Where do you see yourself in your medical career and how can the school help you get there? Once you put all of this together, you can craft a unique and memorable answer to the medical school secondary essay question: Why are you interested in our medical school?
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Intro
1:01 - Don't be Generic
2:25 - 4 steps to make your case
4:52 - Step 1: Reflection
6:29 - Step 2: Research
9:49 - Step 3: Demonstrate fit
11:20 - Step 4: Picture your future
12:20 - Putting it all together
WORKSHEETS REFERENCED IN VIDEO:
www.thesuccessfulmatch.com/re...
Who we are: At MD2B, our admissions and interview expertise has helped thousands of medical students, IMGs, and premedical students achieve success in medicine. Dr. Samir Desai and Dr. Rajani Katta are the authors of multiple best-selling books, with over 250,000 copies sold. They are award-winning educators, medical school professors, and practicing physicians, and through their insider expertise, books, courses, podcast, and consulting services they have helped thousands of medical school and residency applicants achieve their goals.