Medical School Secondary Essay Prompts: MD & DO –

University of Alabama at Birmingham Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine

Program: MD and MD/PhD

State of Residence Questions

1. Non-Alabama Resident with ties to Alabama: If you are not a resident of Alabama, describe any ties or meaningful experiences you have had related to the state of Alabama or UAB Medical Center (1,500 characters)

2. All applicants: If the area you spent most of your life before college differs from where you currently consider your permanent address, please explain (1,500 characters)

Required Essay Prompts

3. Where do you see yourself in your medical career fifteen to twenty years from now? (750 characters)

4. Learning from others is enhanced in educational settings that include individuals from a variety of backgrounds and experiences. Please describe your personal characteristics or experiences that would add to the learning environment for your classmates. (750 characters)

5. Describe a patient interaction with the healthcare system. This could be a direct patient observation (in person or virtual) during a shadowing/clinical experience or a personal experience within the healthcare system. What did you learn from this experience? (750 characters)

6. Describe a fulfilling or challenging community service experience and how you grew personally from the experience. (750 characters)

7. UAB Medicine provides quality health care and compassionate service to every patient, every time, regardless of their individual differences or circumstances. Our academic medical center attracts patients from across the world who represent many cultures, religions, lifestyles, and economic backgrounds. Why are you specifically interested in beginning your medical education in this environment, and how do you feel that your previous experiences will prepare you for this unique learning environment? (750 characters)

Conditional Essay Prompt

8. Are you applying to the Primary Care Track?

If yes: Describe what experiences have led you to apply to the Primary Care Track. (1,500 characters)

Optional Essay Prompts

9. Describe your identity and how it has impacted the development of your values and attitudes toward individuals different from yourself and how this will impact your interactions with future colleagues and patients. (750 characters)

10. Please share any information you want us to know about you that is not included in your AMCAS application or in this secondary application. (750 characters)

Additional Experiences

11. You have a separate page to add any experiences that you did not have listed on your AMCAS application

Required for MD/PhD Applicants

1. List 3–5 key phrases that best describe your science/research interests. (No stated limit)

2. What factors prompted you to apply to UAB for MD/PhD training? (1,500 characters)

3. List 3 unique qualities that will contribute to you becoming a successful physician scientist. (No stated limit)

Optional Questions for MD/PhD Applicants

4. Please list any regional or national conferences you will be attending during this academic year. If you will be presenting your work, please list the title and authors of your presentation/poster (ABRCMS, ATS, EB, SFN, SACNAS, Biomed Eng Society, etc.). (750 characters)

5. If you have already graduated from college—or will graduate—please give a brief description of your activities following graduation. (1,500 characters)

Frederick P. Whiddon College of Medicine at the University of South Alabama

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. The Whiddon College of Medicine is dedicated to training resilient, adaptable physicians who provide exceptional, patient-centered care to individuals from all walks of life. Please share a significant life experience or aspect of your background that has shaped your ability to effectively communicate with, empathize with, and care for patients with varied healthcare needs, including those in underserved or rural communities.

2. Although interests may change, what areas of medicine are you primarily interested in at the current time? (No stated limit)

Alabama College of Osteopathic Medicine

Program: DO

Latest available prompts: 2024-2025

Required Essay Prompts

1. Describe how specific attributes of ACOM’s mission and core values align with your professional goals and personal attributes?

2. The Alabama College of Osteopathic Medicine promotes values and equity from various cultural, social, and economic backgrounds. Discuss the role that diversity played in your decision to become an osteopathic medical school applicant.

3. What are your personal attributes that demonstrate the osteopathic philosophy? (500 words or less) 

University of Arizona College of Medicine - Tucson

Program: MD

Latest available prompts: 2025-2026

Required Essay Prompts

1. Describe a time when you were part of a team working toward a common goal. This experience can be within or outside of the healthcare field. What was your role on the team, how did you contribute to its success collaboration with your peers? Reflect on what this experience taught you about collaboration and how it has prepared you for a career in medicine. (350 words)

2. Please describe a time in your life when you faced a significant personal challenge that wasn't related to academics. How did you handle this challenge, and how will the coping skills you've developed help you in medical school and beyond? (350 words)

3. "The mission of the University of Arizona College of Medicine of Admissions is to select a diverse cohort of students who will become the future leaders in advancing healthcare to the distinct communities that comprise Arizona and the United States. Consistent with the mission of the University of Arizona College of Medicine, selection of individuals with a demonstrated commitment to serve as care providers, physician scientists, clinical leaders and/or public health experts, including advocates for rural and urban underserved populations, is highly valued. Applicants seeking admission should exhibit qualities of altruism, academic excellence, leadership and dedication to becoming lifelong learners through research endeavors and academic development." Please describe the role(s) you can play in helping the College of Medicine to achieve its mission. (350 words)

4. As a healthcare provider, you will work with patients from a wide range of communities and varied lived experiences. Please describe your experience engaging with individuals from different perspectives and explain how you will apply the lessons learned from these experiences as a physician. (350 words)

Conditional Essay Prompt

5. Reapplicants: If you have applied to medical school before, please share what you have done since you last applied. (350 words)

University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix

Program: MD

Latest available prompts: 2025-2026

Required Essay Prompts

1. What about yourself are you most proud of? How will this shape the way you care for others and contribute to the well-being of the communities you serve? (1,000 characters)

2. Describe an experience that challenged the way you see the world. How did it influence your ability to understand others and meet them where they are? (1,000 characters)

3. Servant Leadership is a core value and attribute we deem essential for our students to possess. Share an example where you took initiative to support others while putting their needs ahead of your own. What personal values guided your actions, and how will those values shape the way you care for patients? (1,000 characters)

4. As you consider your future in medicine, what aspects of the UA College of Medicine – Phoenix mission, values, and community culture resonate most with you? How do you see these elements contributing to your development as a physician, and in what ways do you hope to add to and strengthen this community? (1,000 characters)

Conditional Essay Prompt

5. Have you previously applied to any medical school? Select yes if you submitted a primary or secondary application.

If yes: Please reflect upon your prior application. In what ways have you grown personally, academically, and professionally, and how do these changes make you a stronger applicant this cycle? (1,000 characters)

Optional Essay Prompts

6. One of the core missions of the UA College of Medicine – Phoenix is to train physicians who will serve the people and communities of Arizona. Please share your connection to the state—or, if you do not have one, what draws you to care for patients here. How do you envision contributing to the health and well-being of Arizona's communities as a future physician? (1,000 characters)

7. We understand that an application may not fully capture everything that makes a candidate unique. We invite you to use this space to share something not already addressed in your primary or secondary application that you believe would help the Admissions Committee better understand you as an applicant. This may include gaps in your education, personal or academic achievements, or challenges you have overcome. (1,000 characters)

Optional Application Question

8. As part of our commitment to evaluating and strengthening our outreach efforts, we ask applicants to share any involvement in formal pipeline or preparatory programs hosted by the UA College of Medicine – Phoenix. Participation in these programs is not required and will not impact your application review.

If you participated in any of the following—Summer Scrubs, Saturday Scrubs, Pre-Med Academy, Pre-Med Summer School, InstaMed, Cardiology Academy, or the Flinn Scholars program—please list each program and describe your role or level of involvement. (1,000 characters)

Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine - Arizona

Program: MD and MD/PhD

Required Essay Prompts

1. At Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine, we seek students whose values align with our mission to put the needs of the patient first. Please share why you would like to study medicine at our school, including specifically why at the top campus track you selected. (500 words)

2. Reflect on how your professional and lived experiences have shaped your identity. Tell us how these experiences will help you contribute to a collaborative learning environment, support your patients and colleagues, and advance Mayo Clinic's commitment to excellence. (500 words)

3. Mayo Clinic's Bold. Forward. strategy integrates digital innovation with a deeply humanistic approach to transform healthcare. What role do you see yourself playing in shaping this future? Describe the skills, experiences, or aspirations in artificial intelligence and innovation that prepare you to contribute meaningfully to this transformation. (500 words)

A.T. Still University School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona

Program: DO

Required Essay Prompts

1. What particular qualities do you feel that you can bring to ATSU SOMA? (500 words)

2. Discuss a situation in which you had to persevere despite facing obstacles or setbacks. How did you maintain your motivation and keep moving forward towards your goals? (500 words)

3. Tell us about a mistake you made that had consequences for yourself or others. How did you respond in the moment, what responsibility did you take, and what did you learn about accountability and from the experience? (500 words)

Optional Essay Prompt

4. Is there anything else you would like to share with the SOMA Admissions Committee about your application? (500 words)

Midwestern University Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine

Program: DO

Latest available prompts: 2025-2026

Required Essay Prompts

1. How did you become aware of Midwestern University/AZCOM? (1,500 words)

2. Why do you believe AZCOM would provide you with the type of osteopathic medical education you are seeking? (1,500 words) 

Arizona State University John Shufeldt School of Medicine and Medical Engineering

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Innovation in medicine is most powerful when it centers the human experience. Describe a time when you challenged an existing approach, such as clinical, educational, technological, or social, to better serve patients, communities, or learners. What motivated your approach, and what did you learn? (350 words)

2. Medicine often operates in uncertainty, ambiguity, and complexity. Describe a moment when no clear “right answer” existed. How did you navigate ambiguity, and how did that experience influence your approach to decision-making or care? (350 words)

3. The mission of the Arizona State University's John Shufeldt School of Medicine and Medical Engineering is to transform healthcare delivery, produce healthcare leaders, and address health challenges facing Arizona and beyond, by integrating medicine, engineering, technology, and the humanities. Please describe the role(s) you would like to play in helping ASU John Shufeldt School of Medicine and Medical Engineering to achieve its mission. (350 words)

Optional Essay Prompt

4. Please share any additional information that you wish the Admissions Committee to know. Essays can focus on your current activities if you are not currently pursuing a degree, your connection to ASU or the greater Phoenix area, any academic disruptions you would like to clarify, or other information that provides insight on your candidacy. (350 words)

University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Non-Arkansas residents who have strong ties to Arkansas are given preference over non-residents without strong ties to the state. Therefore, if you have strong ties to Arkansas (you have lived in Arkansas, you have a parent or close relative who resides in Arkansas, you attend(ed) an Arkansas college, etc.), you must describe your ties to Arkansas in a letter to be uploaded using the Upload Documents section of this application.

Arkansas College of Osteopathic Medicine

Program: DO

Required Essay Prompts

1. How do you plan to fulfill the ARCOM Mission in your practice as a physician?

2. What challenges do you expect to personally face most in the next 10 years as a healthcare professional?

3. How do you expect to overcome these challenges?

4. Describe an experience where you interacted with a person or people from a different background than you (ability, religion, gender, race, age, socioeconomic status, citizenship/nationality, sexual orientation).

5. How did that interaction impact your mindset of the role of a physician?

6. If you are in a difficult basic science class and feel you are not fully grasping the information given in lecture, how would you alter your study habits or techniques to better understand the material and complete the course successfully?

7. What is a recent book or movie you've read or watched that impacted the way you think about today's world?

8. Please explain how this book impacted the way you think about today's world. (No stated limit)

University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine

Program: DO

Required Essay Prompts

1. UCSF PRIDE values serve as a guiding light for institutional life and activities. Briefly describe how you will contribute to and support our PRIDE values consistent with your goals or life experience. (500 words)

Optional Essay Prompt

2. If you wish to update or expand upon your activities, you may provide additional information below. (500 words)

Conditional Essay Prompt

3. Applicants who graduated from college in 2025 or earlier: Please use the space below to tell us what you have done since completing your undergraduate degree. (350 words)

Stanford Medical School

Program: MD and MD/PhD

Required Essay Prompts

1. What do you see as the most likely practice scenario for your future medical career? Choose the single answer that best describes your career goals and clinical practice setting. Please describe your motivation for this practice scenario. Why do you feel you are particularly suited for this practice scenario? What knowledge, skills and attitudes have you developed that have prepared you for this career path? (1,000 characters including spaces)

2. How will you take advantage of the Stanford Medicine Discovery Curriculum and scholarly concentration requirement to achieve your personal career goals? (1,000 characters including spaces)

3. Describe in a short paragraph your educational and family background. (600 characters including spaces)

4. How have your life experiences shaped your perspective on medicine, health, or patient care, and how do you anticipate bringing that perspective into our learning community? (2,000 characters including spaces)

5. Please describe a significant contribution you’ve made to a community that matters to you. What role did you play, how did you influence others, and how did your actions create positive change? (1,000 characters including spaces)

6. What do you see as your greatest area for growth, and how will you address it? (1,000 characters including spaces)

7. Please describe a time you felt unfairly treated or judged and how you responded. (1,000 characters including spaces)

Optional Essay Prompt

8. Please include anything else that will help us understand better how you may uniquely contribute to Stanford Medicine. (1,000 characters including spaces)

Application Questions

9. Are there any current or pending disputes concerning your academic status?

If yes: Please explain. (300 characters including spaces)

10. Was your enrollment status ever interrupted during your undergraduate or graduate program, not including summer term?

If yes: Please explain. (150 characters including spaces)

Read some Stanford medical school secondary essay examples!

UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

Important note about prompts: You only have 15 days to submit your secondary essays; all late applications will not be accepted.

1. At the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, students are provided with curriculum and experiences enabling them to become an "Outstanding Physician, AND...," dedicating themselves to important societal missions. What missions do you want to embrace? What have you done toward your missions? (800 characters)

2. Respond to the following and indicate how these areas of experience have impacted your progress toward your future career goals in relation to becoming an "Outstanding Physician, AND...".

• A: Describe your most unique leadership, entrepreneurial, or creative activity. (800 characters)
•  B: Describe your most important volunteer work and why it was meaningful. (800 characters)
• C: Describe your most scholarly project (thesis, research or field of study in basic or clinical science or in the humanities) and provide the total number of hours, dates and advisor. (800 characters)

Conditional Essay Prompts

4. Did you experience or are you anticipating time between graduating from college and matriculating into medical school?

If yes: Describe the activities in which you participated or are planning to participate. Examples include additional schooling, employment, or caring for a loved one.

5. Do you identify as being part of a group that has been marginalized (examples include, but are not limited to, LGBTQIA, disabilities, federally recognized tribe) in terms of access to education or healthcare?

If yes: Describe how this inequity has impacted you or your community and how educational disparity, health disparity and/or marginalization has impacted you and your community. (800 characters)

6. Are you reapplying to DGSOM?

If yes: Describe what has changed since you last applied to DGSOM. Please be specific. (800 characters)

PRIME-LA Essay Prompts

1. What is the most important social issue confronting the health of marginalized and under-resourced communities? Describe the first steps you would take to address this issue. (2,000 characters)

2. In what way will graduating from PRIME-LA and obtaining a master's degree enhance your career in health care or health services for marginalized and under-resourced communities? (If you are considering a specific master’s degree (e.g., MPP, MPH, MBA, etc.), please incorporate your graduate degree plans or aspirations into your answer. (2,000 characters)

3. Describe how your experiences demonstrate your understanding of, and commitment to, marginalized and under-resourced communities. (2,000 characters)

4. What are your greatest strengths and your greatest challenges as you approach medical school? (2,000 characters)

5. Describe your most memorable experience as it relates to working with marginalized and under-resourced populations. (2,000 characters)

University of California, San Diego School of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. 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. (6,000 characters)

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.

2. On your AMCAS Application, you were asked to identify your three “most meaningful” experiences. These activities have been auto-filled in your secondary application. In addition to the information, you provided on the AMCAS application, we would like to know if there are any additional activities you would consider among your most meaningful. This may include activities that you’ve already completed but couldn’t include as you were limited to three selections on the AMCAS application, or it may include a new activity that began after your initial AMCAS application was submitted. Use the “Add” button below to enter a new activity.

We would also like to know if a letter of recommendation has been submitted on your behalf by somebody you worked with through this experience. If you do not have a letter from this experience, simply type N/A. This information allows Admissions Committee members reviewing your application to more readily match your letters to your experiences and thus facilitates the review of your application. DO NOT LIST ANY ACTIVITY MORE THAN ONCE. (100 characters per activity description you add)

3. Some medical school applicants are already focused on pursuing a particular career pathway in medicine. While many students will change from this pathway during medical school, knowing of your potential interests does help us to assign interviewers. Your choice below does not influence how the Admissions Committee selects students to interview.

Please select from one of career pathways listed below. In addition to this selection, please provide a brief description of your future career goals: (400 characters) 

• Academic Medicine (Working as a faculty member at a School of Medicine either as a clinician, a clinician-educator, or a clinician investigator. This could be in any field of medicine)
• Primary Care and/or work in underserved communities (Working as a general internist, a pediatrician, or a family medicine physician and/or spending the majority of your time working in a community currently underserved by the medical profession)
• Public Health, administrative leadership in medicine (Pursuing an MPH and/or working for a public health department or organization; working in health care policy; working as a hospital administrator)
• Specialist in private practice (Working in a private practice or managed care setting as a subspecialist. Examples include cardiologist, infectious disease specialist, obstetrician, orthopedic surgeon, general surgeon, anesthesiologist, radiologist)
• Other/undecided

Optional Essay Prompts

4. Please describe how educational disparity, health disparity and/or marginalization has impacted you and your community? (4,800 characters)

University of Southern California, Keck School of Medicine

Program: MD

Latest available prompts: 2025-2026

Required Essay Prompts

1. What is the most fun you’ve had lately? (65 words)

2. If you had to give yourself a nickname, what would it be? (65 words)

3. What are three things you don't care about at all? (65 words)

4. Describe a situation in which you didn’t get something you felt you deserved. (65 words)

Conditional Essay Prompts

5. Are you a member of a group that is under-represented in medicine?

 If yes: Which Group? How does under-representation affect your community? (200 words)

6. Have you previously applied to medical school (M.D., D.O., international)?

If yes: Upon reflection, what do you think went wrong? (200 words)

Optional Essay Prompts

7. Is there anything else you would like us to know? If yes, please answer the question in 200 words or less.

University of California, Davis School of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompt

1. Discuss any elements of your application that you feel might be concerning to the Admissions Committee. This could include explanation of metric trends, institutional actions, legal violations, etc. Please enter N/A if no concerns to report. (500 characters)

Conditional Essay Prompt

2. Do you have a connection to Northern or Central California?

If yes: Please explain.

Required Application Question

3. Please list the activities you would like to be considered in your application to UC Davis. The secondary activities may be used to highlight your experiences specifically relevant for UC Davis. You may use your most meaningful experiences listed in your initial AMCAS application or select or add others that may be relevant to UC Davis. Please only list three. The Admissions Committee will review all AMCAS application activities as well; this is an opportunity to highlight those most meaningful and/or relevant to UC Davis School of Medicine.

Please list only actual hours completed as of the date you submit the secondary application, not projected hours. (500 characters per activity; up to three activities)

University of California, Irvine School of Medicine

Program: MD & MD/PhD

Required Essay Prompts for MD program

1. What personal accomplishment are you most proud of and why? (1,500 characters)

2. Please describe to the Admissions Committee a challenge or disappointment you have overcome and what you learned about yourself from that experience. (1,500 characters)

Conditional Prompts for MD Program

3. If you already have an undergrad degree: Please clarify for the Admissions Committee your activities (school, work, and/or volunteer, travel, etc.) since receiving your undergraduate degree. You may list them in chronological order or you may incorporate them into an essay, stating why you chose particular activities. If you have just received or will receive your undergraduate degree this year, please discuss your plans for current year. (1,500 characters)

Optional Prompts for MD Program

4. Do you identify as being part of a marginalized group socioeconomically or in terms of access to quality education or healthcare? If so, please describe how this inequity has impacted you and your community. (1,500 characters)

Required Prompts for MD/PhD Program

1. What research accomplishment are you most proud of and why? (1,500 characters)

2. Please describe to the Admissions Committee a research challenge you have overcome and what you learned from that experience. (1,500 characters)

3. What does it mean, to you, to be an MD/PhD? (1,500 characters)

4. Please list all posters, manuscripts (published or planned) you would like the Admissions Committee to consider. (1,500 characters)

Curious about MD/PhD programs? Review our guide on for a more detailed breakdown.

University of California, Riverside School of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. The mission of the UCR School of Medicine is to improve the health of the people of California and, especially, to serve Inland Southern California by training a diverse workforce of physicians and by developing innovative research and health care delivery programs that will improve the health of the medically underserved in the region and become models to be emulated throughout the state and nation. What experiences, skills, and abilities will you bring to the class to fulfill this mission? (250 words)

2. The values of the UCR SOM are integrity, innovation, inclusion, excellence, accountability and respect. Please choose one of the values and tell us how you have personally experienced it or have seen it emulated in a clinical setting. (250 words)

3. In what type of healthcare setting do you see yourself practicing medicine? (250 words)

4. Tell us about a personal challenge you have faced in your life thus far and how you demonstrated resilience and grit to overcome it. (Please do not write about studying for or taking the MCAT) (250 words)

Conditional Essay Prompts

5. Only if you are non-California resident: If you answered Yes, please explain your connection to Inland Southern California and the mission of the UC Riverside School of Medicine (250 words)

Optional Essay Prompts

6. If there is anything you would like the committee to consider about your candidacy that is not explained elsewhere in your application, please use this space to tell us. (250 words)

California Northstate University College of Medicine

Program: MD

Latest available prompts: 2025-2026

Required Essay Prompts

1. Why have you chosen to apply to CNUCOM? (1,785 characters)

2. In the medical profession, you will be exposed to students, faculty, colleagues, and patients of various cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds. How has your involvement with diverse populations prepared you for potentially four years in Elk Grove, the greater Sacramento area, and the rest of the Central Valley? (1,785 characters)

3. Did you have a Pre-Health Advisor at your undergraduate institution? If so, please tell us about your experience. How did it help you in your journey to apply to medical school? If not, please let us know how you worked independently to find out more about applying to medical school and the path of your journey to apply? (1,785 characters)

4. In which direction would you like to see healthcare progress over the next decade? (1,785 characters)

Conditional Essay Prompts

5. If your education has not been continuous since high school, please explain why. Examples of discontinuities include time taken off while obtaining your undergraduate degree, in addition to gap years. (1,785 characters)

6. If you have previously applied to medical school, what have you accomplished since that time that would warrant your admission now? (1,785 characters)

Optional Essay Prompts

7. Is there anything you would like the Admissions Committee to know that is not reflected elsewhere in your application? (1,785 characters)

8. How do you feel about standardized tests? How did you prepare for the MCAT? What tools or preparatory courses/material did you use and how did you study? Do you feel like your score reflects how you will perform in medical school? From what you have learned, do you think it will help you in the way you will study or prepare for USMLE exams? (1,785 characters)

California University of Science and Medicine

Program: MD

Latest available prompts: 2025-2026

Required Essay Prompts

1. Diversity comes in many forms. How do you think you might contribute to the diversity of the class?

2. Describe the last time you were criticized by a peer or supervisor. How did you handle it?

3. Give an example of when you had to work with someone who was difficult to get along with. Why was this person difficult? How did you handle that person?

4. What would be the best example that shows you are a person of integrity?

5. If given the opportunity to attend medical school, where would you see yourself in ten years?

Conditional Essay Prompt

6. If you were enrolled in fewer than 12 units/credits for more than 1 semester/2 quarters during your undergraduate education, please provide a brief explanation below. (150 words)

Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science College of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. The university’s vision statement is “Excellent health and wellness for all in a world without health disparities”. Describe how you envision yourself contributing to the CDU vision statement. (1,200 characters)

2. Describe your commitment to transforming the health of diverse and underserved communities. (800 characters)

3. Detail the key motivational factors in your decision to apply to the CDU MD Program. (1,200 characters)

4. Please describe a personal experience in which you have encountered discrimination. (800 characters)

5. How will you utilize your medical knowledge and skills to contribute positively to your community after completing medical school? (800 characters)

Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine

Program: MD and MD/PhD

Required Essay Prompts

1. During your career as a physician, you will potentially encounter obstacles, and be required to overcome challenges. Please describe your experience with a situation that had an unfavorable outcome, including your reaction, how you might have responded differently, and what you learned about yourself. (250 words)

2. Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine is dedicated to graduating courageous leaders who lead change through inquiry and innovation in medical education, the profession, and the healthcare system. How do your values align with this mission? (250 words)

3. Lifelong learning is an essential process for continued professional development. This includes reflection and being open and responsive to constructive feedback. Please tell us about an area of intellectual exploration you’re passionate about, and your approach to exploring this area. (250 words)

4. Drawing from your lived experiences, how do you think knowledge of the social drivers of health can be leveraged to engage in community health advocacy? (250 words)

Conditional Essay Prompts

5. Have you previously applied to medical school?

If yes: Please describe your accomplishments since you last applied that would promote your acceptance. (250 words)

Optional Application Questions

6. Would you like to self-nominate for the KPSOM Impact Scholarship? (Yes/No)

7. Which components of your application best demonstrate your alignment with KPSOM’s mission? (No stated limit)

Additional Requirements for MD/PhD Applicants

1. Please list publications and papers submitted. Include one or two sentences describing your role on each publication. (No stated limit)

2. Please provide the names of faculty at Caltech with whom you would like to meet. Briefly state why you would like to meet with each person. (Up to 10 faculty members)

Loma Linda University School of Medicine

Program: MD and MD/PhD

Latest available prompts: 2025-2026

Required Essay Prompts

1. What makes LLUSM particularly attractive to you? (275 words)

2. Our medical curriculum integrates spiritual, ethical, and relational issues from the Christian perspective into the practice of medicine. Religion courses and weekly chapel services are part of this program. Please respond to the preceding statements as they relate to your personal educational and career goals. (275 words)

3. What personal attributes make you a desirable candidate for admission to LLUSM? (275 words)

4. Identify experiences in your life that illustrate your service to others. (275 words)

5. Discuss how your spiritual origins, development, and experiences have influenced and been integrated into your daily life. (275 words)

6. Please describe your current involvement (or reason for not being involved) with a church or religious group. (275 words)

Conditional Essay Prompt

7. If you have already graduated, briefly describe your activities since graduation and your planned activities prior to matriculation into medical school. (275 words)

Application Question

8. Behavioral Expectations: LLU has expectations which include respect for all persons and high standards of personal and professional conduct. This includes abstinence from alcohol, nicotine, cannabinoids, and illicit drugs/substances in all forms. Please describe any use of the above substances within the past year.

Touro University California College of Osteopathic Medicine

Program: DO

Required Essay Prompts

1. Please select one of the tenets of Osteopathic Medicine and explain how it might relate to one or more of your lived experiences.

2. Please describe your hobbies—or non-academic pursuits—and how they will influence your success as an Osteopathic medical student and/or Osteopathic physician in the future.

3. Please discuss how your life experiences and personal characteristics will contribute to your future success as an outstanding osteopathic physician.

4. When considering medical schools, what criteria are important to you and how does TUCOM align with those criteria?

Application Questions

5. Have you attended any TUCOM information sessions on campus, at another location, or virtually? If yes, please list the event(s) in which you participated.

Western University of Health Sciences College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific

Program: DO

Required Essay Prompt

1. What is your purpose of pursuing medical education, and why COMP Pomona?

Conditional Essay Prompts

2. Briefly discuss any extenuating circumstances which you feel are pertinent to your application, such as poor grades, course withdrawals or a lapse in your education.

3. If you have not taken any coursework for over three years, please explain why and what you have been doing during that period of time.

California Health Sciences University College of Osteopathic Medicine

Program: DO

Required Essay Prompts

1. CHSU values a student body that embraces our University's mission. Please explain how you would personally contribute to advancing CHSU's mission. (1,500 characters)

2. Please share why are you interested in Osteopathic Medicine and why you want to be trained as an osteopathic physician. (1,500 characters)

University of Colorado School of Medicine

Program: MD and MD/PhD

Required Essay Prompts

1. The pillars of our curriculum are Leadership, Curiosity, and Commitment. Tell us about how you have embodied one or more of these attributes in your path to medicine thus far. In which of these areas do you see the most opportunity for personal growth and why? (500 words)

2. Please describe how your background and/or your unique lived experiences contribute to our culture of inclusive excellence. (300 words)

Conditional Essay Prompts

3. Reapplicants: Please explain how you and your application has changed since your previous submission. (1,500 characters)

Regional Campus and Program Specific Essay Prompts

4. Fort Collins Regional Medical Campus: Please tell us why you are interested in being a part of the 4-year CUSOM at CSU (Fort Collins Branch campus)? With the background that FCB’s smaller class sizes and unique structure lead to a highly interactive curriculum, please tell us how this campus matches your learning style and personal philosophy. (1,500 characters)

5. Rural Program: What has led you to commit to a career in rural family medicine? Please describe any life experiences that have contributed to this commitment. As a rural family physician, describe the impact you will make on your community. (500 words)

6. Colorado Springs LIC Program: The CS LIC Program exists at the intersection of academic and community medicine. CS LIC students experience the myriad of academic, private, corporate, military, nonprofit, and public-service organizations that come together to care for a community. Clinical, didactic, and project-based learning emphasizes how physician leadership and community engagement can promote the health of communities.

Didactic education is based in Colorado Springs, with clinical sites spanning small cities along the Southern Front Range, including Pueblo, Cañon City, Monument and Woodland Park. Please describe how participation in the CS LIC would advance your career goals and how your life experiences align with an interest in our program. If applicable, you may also note any ties to Colorado Springs or the Southern Front Range. (1,500 characters)

7. Urban Primary Care Program: What has led you to commit to a career in urban primary care? Please describe any life experiences that have contributed to this commitment. As an urban primary care physician, describe the impact you will make on your community. (500 words)

8. Infectious Diseases and Public Health Program: What has led you to commit to a career in infectious diseases and public health? Please describe any life experiences that have contributed to this commitment. As an infectious diseases physician, describe the impact you will make on your community. (500 words)

9. Pediatrics Program: What has led you to commit to a career in pediatrics? Please describe any life experiences that have contributed to this commitment. As a pediatrician, describe the impact you will make on your community. (500 words)

10. MD-MS Aerospace Engineering Program: CUSOM has joined with the Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at CU Boulder to offer a combined MD-MS degree program. Describe your career path up to this point and how that has led to your interest in human spaceflight. What is your motivation for seeking a dual degree in Aerospace Engineering, and how does this fit into your vision for your career? (1,500 characters)

11. MD-MDA Program: What are your career aspirations and professional-development goals for your studies in the MBA program, and why is Leeds your choice? How will your background, values, academics and leadership skills enhance the experiences of your fellow MBA students during your studies? In what ways do your core values guide your approach to leadership? (750 words)

12. MD-MPH Program: Public health is both a science and a calling, requiring practitioners to bridge the gap between clinical medicine and population-level health improvement.

As a medical student applying to the Master of Public Health program, write a statement reflecting on the following: What inspired you to pursue an MPH degree in addition to your medical training? What public-health issue or field are you most passionate about? How does the chosen public-health field align with your personal and professional goals? (5,000 characters)

Rocky Vista University College of Osteopathic Medicine - Colorado Campus

Program: DO

Required Essay Prompt

1. What noteworthy characteristics, abilities, or skills do you possess that will help ensure RVU achieves new heights in medical education?

University of Northern Colorado College of Osteopathic Medicine

Program: DO

Latest available prompts: 2025–2026

Required Essay Prompt

1. Please respond to one of the following four prompts. (500 words)

A) Identity and Lived Experience: Reflect on a significant aspect of your identity or lived experience. How do you envision it shaping your practice as a future physician?

B) Commitment to Community and Health Equity: Describe a time when you worked to address a health or social need in a community. What did you learn from that experience, and how has it prepared you for medical school?

C) Collaboration: Reflect on a time when you engaged in a collaborative effort. What did the experience teach you, and how do you feel it will help you during medical training?

D) Osteopathic Principles and Practice: What specific experience or exposure have you had with osteopathic medicine? How has this influenced your decision to become an osteopathic physician?

Conditional Essay Prompts

2. Reapplicants: What have you done to strengthen your application? Please be brief and explicit. (250 words)

3. Nontraditional applicants: Please briefly describe your path to medicine. What motivated you to pursue medicine at this point in your life, and how will your experiences add to the quality of UNC COM’s entering class?

UNC COM considers applicants who are over 25 years old, three or more years post-graduation, or making a career change to be nontraditional. (250 words)

4. Applicants with relevant academic challenges: Please describe any academic obstacles or personal setbacks—such as the death of a family member, a low first-year GPA, repeated coursework or challenges in prerequisite coursework—that affected your education. What did you learn from the experience, and how have you grown as a result? How will this resilience support your success during medical training? (250 words)

Yale Medical School

Program: MD & MD/PhD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Yale asks applicants to explain how their experiences have prepared them to care for people across differences in background or viewpoint. (500 words)

Choose One of the Following

2. Community and population health: Describe how your experiences would contribute to Yale’s mission of preparing physicians to care for communities and populations. (500 words)

3. Research and scholarship: Explain how your research interests, abilities and experiences would contribute to scholarship at Yale, where medical students complete a research thesis. (500 words)

Conditional Application Question

4. Applicants who will not be enrolled in college or graduate school throughout the current academic year: Describe how you are spending your time, including current and planned activities before medical-school enrollment.

Optional Application Question

5. Provide updates concerning activities, achievements or distinctions since submitting AMCAS, or identify important accomplishments not previously reported. Do not repeat information already included in the AMCAS Experiences section.

Optional Essay Prompt

6. Share any important personal, academic or professional information relevant to your qualifications that has not been discussed elsewhere in the secondary application. (500 words)

 Read some Yale medical school secondary essay examples!

University of Connecticut School of Medicine

Program: MD and MD/PhD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Highlight your experiences in the health care field. What insights have you gained about potential problems you will face as a physician? (1,800 characters)

2. How will the University of Connecticut School of Medicine best serve your needs of becoming a physician or physician scientist? (1,800 characters) (1,800 characters)

3. The University of Connecticut School of Medicine realizes that each applicant brings a unique perspective from a broad range of experiences that have been influential in leading to a career in medicine. How will your own life experiences and unique identity enhance the UConn SoM classroom and community? (1,800 characters)

Application Question

4. Have you participated in outreach activities or summer programs at UConn Health? If not, explain how you learned about the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. List the relevant activities or exposure and the approximate period of engagement. (1,800 characters)

Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. If you will not be enrolled as a full-time student, how will you be spending/intend to spend your time during your application year? If you are a re-applicant, please address steps taken to improve your application for medical school. (200 words)

2. Describe how you currently envision your specialty interests and future medical career, recognizing that those interests may change. Explain why. (200 words)

3. Discuss experiences that you believe will help you provide better care to patients. (200 words)

4. Describe a situation in which you were asked to do something for which you felt unprepared. Explain how you handled the situation. (400 words)

5. Netter values service to classmates and the broader community. Describe efforts you have made to work with people from a different background and what you learned. (400 words)

Conditional Essay Prompt

6. If applicable, please address any withdrawals, repeated courses, leaves of absence or breaks in your undergraduate education that are not explained in your application. (250 words)

Georgetown University School of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. The Georgetown University School of Medicine strives to develop respectful physicians with cultural humility who care for the whole person. Drawing on Georgetown’s Jesuit values of Cura Personalis, being Men and Women for Others, and Unity in Community, describe how your perspectives, values and life experiences would contribute to these priorities. (1,000 characters)

2. Is there any further information you would like the Committee on Admissions to consider that you were unable to include elsewhere in the secondary or AMCAS application? (1,000 characters)

3. 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? (3,000 characters)

 Want to read some Georgetown medical school secondary essays?

Howard University College of Medicine

Program: MD

Latest available prompts: 2025–2026

Required Essay Prompts

1. Have you lived in communities which are medically underserved, or where the majority of the population is economically and/or educationally disadvantaged? (Please indicate, Yes or No and then explain/describe briefly in 250 words or less) (3,000 characters max)

2. Have you worked (volunteer or paid employment) with medically underserved, economically disadvantaged and/or educationally disadvantaged populations? (Please indicate, Yes or No and then explain/describe briefly in 250 words or less) (3,000 characters max)

3. After residency, do you plan to practice medicine in an underserved or disadvantaged community? (Please indicate, Yes or No and then explain/describe briefly in 250 words or less) (3,000 characters max)

4. Please provide below any additional information you believe is important in evaluating your application (e.g. additional coursework, problems with academic record; disadvantaged, etc.) (Please indicate, Yes or No and then explain/describe briefly in 250 words or less)

5. Did COVID-19 impact you preparing your AMCAS application for fall 2024? (i.e. volunteer/work experience, financially, course registration, MCAT testing, etc.) [Please respond Yes or No and then explain/describe briefly in 250 words or less, indicate N/A if not applicable]

6. Why Howard University College of Medicine? (2,500 characters)

George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. If you selected regional medical campus preferred or regional medical campus only, please explain in detail your interest in regional medical campus and how it will be a good fit for your clinical education? (1,750 characters)

2. Please provide the Admissions Committee with a brief summary of your activities, academics, employment or other occupations to account for full-time activity (approx. 30-40 hours/week) from the point of application through matriculation in 2026. (750 characters)

3. The MD Program includes substantial content in Clinical Public Health (population health, health systems science, health policy, and community health) to prepare GW graduates for an expanded scope of practice required to be successful 21st century physicians. What are your specific interests and experiences related to that aspect of the MD Program? (350 characters)

4. What makes you a unique individual? What challenges have you faced? What have you learned from your experiences? (750 characters)

5. What is your specific interest in the MD Program at GW? What opportunities would you take advantage of as a student here? Why? (1,750 characters)

Conditional Essay Prompt

6. Have you previously interacted directly with the MD Admissions Office through events, tours, fairs, webinars, or interviews? (Yes or No) If yes, please explain (250 chars). 

Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine at Florida Atlantic University

Program: MD

Latest available prompts: 2025–2026

Required Essay Prompts per Subtopic

Prerequisites

1. Use this area to justify and/or explain any academic hardships on your transcripts (any failed and/or repeated courses due to any reason) (1,600 characters)

2. Use this area to explain exceptions to these prerequisites at your institution. (1,600 characters)

About Self

3. Whether or not you will be a full-time student, please provide details of your activities/employment for the application year. (1,200 characters)

4. Describe why you would like to attend the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine at FAU. What values, skills, talents, and life experiences would you contribute to our community? (1,600 characters)

Experience

5. Describe your most meaningful community service experience that is unrelated to direct patient care. Why did you select this particular experience? In what way did you grow and learn from this experience? What did you enjoy most? (1,600 characters)

6. What traits do you feel you have developed through your experiences thus far (such as paid or unpaid work experiences) that will help prepare you to be successful in medical school and a future physician. Experience does not need to be related to patient care. (1,600 characters)

7. Leadership can be defined in many ways. One way of defining leadership is as a set of behaviors used to help people align their collective direction, or lead a group or an organization. Tell us about a time you executed your leadership skills. (1,600 characters)

8. Please describe a significant personal challenge you have faced, one which you feel has helped shape you as a person. Focus on what you learned about yourself and how it will help you during challenges you may face during medical school and as a future physician. Describe any support system and/or resources you had available and how you utilized them. (1,600 characters)

Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine

Program: MD

Specific questions about Primary Activity or Employment

1. Whether or not you will be a full-time student, please explain what you will be doing prior to your planned matriculation into medical school. (less than 1,000 characters)

2. If you have taken a gap year(s), please explain what you have been, or will be doing since graduating from your undergrad institution. (less than 1,000 characters)

Required Essay Prompts

1. Miami is a vibrant and multicultural, multilingual city. You will be exposed to cultures and languages different than your own while living and studying in this city. Please explain in detail an experience in which you collaborated, worked, or were exposed to diverse backgrounds. Please describe the impact the experience had on you. (1,200 characters)

2. Why did you choose to apply to FIU Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine? (1,200 characters)

3. Please describe a significant personal challenge you have faced, one which you feel has helped to shape you as a person. Focus on what you learned about yourself and how it will help you during the challenges you might face in medical school. Describe any support system you had at your disposal and how you utilized these resources. (1200 characters)

4. If you are accepted into medical school, how do you envision your lifestyle will change, and what challenges may await? Similarly, what do you think will be the most rewarding and difficult part of practicing medicine in the future? (1200 characters)

Optional Essay Prompts

5. Use this area to explain any exception to the prerequisites at your institution. (1,000 characters)

6. Is there any additional information about your academic record that you would like the Admissions Committee to know? Please include any academic difficulties or course withdrawals. (1,000 characters)

7.  COVID-19: Please share any disruptions and/or challenges you have experienced this application year as a direct result of COVID-19 that you would like the Admissions Committee to consider in conjunction with your application. The following are some examples of topics for consideration, but are not limited to: academic preparations; extracurricular activities and/or experiences; personal and/or professional opportunities; or lessons and insights gained as a result of COVID-19. (1,000 characters)

Residency-Based Essay Prompt

8. For those who are not Florida residents, the following prompt will appear: Please describe any connection to FIU, FIU HWCOM, or South Florida.

Florida State University College of Medicine

Program: MD

Latest available cycle: 2025-2026

Specific questions about Personal Background

Important note about these questions: Each question is optional.

1. Please provide a description of your family. (500 words)

2. Please provide a description of where you grew up (i.e. rural area, large city, etc.). (500 words)

3. Indicate what you do for fun and diversion (hobbies, special interests, etc.). (500 words)

4. What is a unique trait, experience, or interest that we would not normally learn about you? (500 words)

5. If there is an important aspect of your personal background or identity, not addressed elsewhere in the application, that you are comfortable voluntarily sharing 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.  (500 words)

Specific questions about Self Critical Analysis

Required Essay Prompts

1. Why are you choosing to apply to the FSU College of Medicine? Please be specific describing what is particularly attractive about FSU COM. (500 words)

Optional Essay Prompts

2. What do you feel are your personal and scholastic qualifications for the study of medicine?

3. If you have previously interviewed or applied to the College of Medicine, what steps have you taken to improve your application?

Additional Questions

Required Essay Prompts

1. In what field/specialty of medicine do you envision yourself working ten years from now? Please list no more than three (3) specialties. (500 words)

2. Write a short statement describing how you envision using the specialty/ties you listed above to advance our mission. (500 words)

Optional Essay Prompts

3. The Admissions Committee understands that the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted applicants in various ways. If you wish to inform the committee as to how these events have affected you and have not already done so elsewhere in your application, please use this space to do so. (500 words)

Specific questions about being a Florida Resident (200 characters)

1. The Florida State University College of Medicine accepts very few out-of-state applicants. Except under rare circumstances, out of state applicants are considered for admission only if their county of residence is geographically contiguous with the State of Florida, or if they can demonstrate significant ties to the State of Florida.

•  Is Florida currently your legal State of residence? (Yes/No)
• Has it ever been your legal state of residence? (Yes/No)

Conditional essay prompts based on residency statement above

A) If “yes,” please briefly explain (200 characters)

B) If you have never been a Florida resident or are not currently residing in Florida

(answered “no” to both questions above), please briefly describe any significant ties that you have to the State of Florida (Examples of significant ties include- but are not limited to- attending college within Florida; having strong family ties to Florida, owning property in Florida, etc.) (200 characters)

Specific questions related to Disclosures

Important note about these questions: Each question is optional.

1. Have you ever been charged with a violation of the law which resulted in, or is still pending could result in, probation, community service, a jail sentence, or the revocation or suspension of your driver's license (including traffic violations which resulted in a fine of $200 or more)? If "yes", please explain. (500 characters)

2. Have you ever been or are you now under investigation for any academic or legal/conduct problems at any undergraduate or graduate institution? If "yes", please explain. (500 characters)

University of Florida College of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. If you are not a full-time student during this application cycle, in particular at any time between July 2026 and July 2027, please detail your current and planned activities below. If your plans are not confirmed or if they change, please update us later in the cycle via the User Profile: Updates section. (250-500 words)

2. The medical profession is frequently described as being both a science and an art. One could summarize this by saying that patients must “be well cared for” (science) but they must also “feel well cared for” (art). We work to teach our students not only the scientific principles of medicine, but also the core values of medicine, often called “professionalism.” Toward this end, we keep patients at the center of our education and often reflect on their stories with our students.

In fact, the UFCOM version of the Hippocratic Oath includes the following affirmation. “I will remember with gratitude and humility those whose illness or injury provided examples from which I learned, and, in their honor, I will continue the pursuit of knowledge.”

At the UFCOM, we have many strategies to equip our students to preserve their own humanity and that of their patients. One of the most important is the ability to make connections with and get to know their patients. Frequently such connections become the student’s first taste of the joy of medical practice, a joy that can be a bulwark against burnout. As Dr. Fred Griffin has observed:

“It is physicians’ good fortune to spend their lifework engaged in a profession where—hand in hand with developing proficiency in helping others—they may deepen self-understanding, increase their own humanity, and learn how to grapple with the dilemmas that they too must face in life…When physicians are willing to engage in this process, they are much more likely to find their work meaningful; they are less likely to become “burned out” by the daily impact of the suffering of their patients and of the emotional demands placed on them. This statement is only apparently paradoxical.” -Fred Griffin: Literature and Medicine vol 23 No2 pp280-303

Students at UFCOM regularly write about and discuss encounters with patients that shape their professional identity and help them become better physicians and human beings. Please download here two such reflections from our third-year students, each describing interactions where they grew and learned while they were caring for patients. Read and reflect on both and then choose one and describe how the writer, in the words of Dr. Griffin, deepened self-understanding and increased their humanity. (525 words max)

3. What does it mean to be present for the patient?

Advances in medical science and technology have generated astoundingly effective treatments for once-incurable illnesses. Options we take for granted such as operating room techniques, advanced computational support and an array of new drugs and biologics would have seemed miraculous to earlier generations. These tools have restored countless patients to health, and we are appropriately grateful for the science of medicine.

Yet the modern healthcare system has become a vast bureaucracy that, while claiming to serve patients, prioritizes efficiency and revenue, leaving both patients and physicians feeling like little more than cogs in the machine.

To preserve medicine’s human dimension, we must purposefully be attentive to each patient for whom we have the privilege to care. French philosopher Simone Weil observed that, “attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” In striving to be genuinely present with our patients, we have the chance to make this generosity abundant rather than rare.

Most doctors enter the field of medicine with a spirit of service and dedication to the patient, grounded in the principles of the Hippocratic Oath. This perspective places the individual patient at the center of learning and growth throughout medical school, residency training and medical practice. In taking the UFCOM Hippocratic Oath, future physicians commit to “practice medicine with conscience and humility, and…act with enduring respect for the dignity of human life. Foremost in my mind will be compassion, respect, and impartial care for my patients.”

Central to this commitment is the idea of being fully present with each patient. Dr. Francis W. Peabody in “The Care of the Patient” wrote: “The good physician knows his patients through and through, and his knowledge is bought dearly. Time, sympathy and understanding must be lavishly dispensed, but the reward is to be found in that personal bond which forms the greatest satisfaction of the practice of medicine.”

Modern medicine presents real world obstacles to this mission. Pressure to see more patients in less time from behind a computer screen detracts from what matters most to patients – a physician who sees, hears and understands them in the moment. An important question emerges: how do we free ourselves from the distractions imposed by the healthcare system so we can fix our attention on the patient in front of us?

Describe an interaction you’ve witnessed in which the physician or other health care professional was fully (or not fully) present for the patient. How has this shaped your understanding of what it means to care for another person in medicine? (525 words max)

Optional Essay Prompts

4. Reflect upon your life experiences, values and/or personal background. Do any or all of these helps frame how you envision your future contributions to the health and wellbeing of others as a physician and if so, how? (250 words)

5. If you think there is any additional information that would help the admissions committee in its review of your application, please use the space below. (5,000 characters)

Conditional Essay Prompts

6. Non-Florida residents, please describe your association with the state of Florida if you selected Other above. For all other selections, feel free to expand your answer here as well.

7. If you are a reapplicant to UF COM, please briefly describe your approach to preparing for a new application and specific changes from your previous application. (500 words)

USF Health Morsani College of Medicine

Program: MD

Latest available cycle: 2025-2026

Required Essay Prompts

1. Do you believe the competitiveness (i.e. course requirements, experiences, academic performance, etc.) of your application for medical school has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic? If yes, please provide specifics as to how your competitiveness was impacted. If no, type “N/A”. (1,500 Characters)

2. What do you see as the most likely practice scenario for your future medical career?

(Private Practice, Academic Medicine, Public Health, Health Care Administration, Health Policy, Other). Describe the knowledge, skills, and attributes you have developed in preparation for the career path you have chosen in the previous question. (1,500 characters)

3. The USF Morsani College of Medicine’s Scholarly Concentrations program aims to support the educational development of medical students by providing opportunities for academic endeavors in areas of special interest. This program facilitates self-directed learning, enhances interactions between students and fosters relationships between students and faculty. Scholarly concentrations provide a forum where diversity of ideas and perspectives are valued. Each concentration includes elements of course work, practical application and scholarly presentation. Please review our Scholarly Concentrations website to determine which concentration would be of interest to you and answer the following question: (Scholarly Concentrations Program | USF Health)

A) How would the USF Morsani College of Medicine’s Scholarly Concentrations Program help your personal career goals? (1,500 characters)

4. The USF Morsani College of Medicine strives to educate a very diverse set of students who bring a variety of strengths and interests to the field of medicine. The definition of diversity is broad and includes (but is not limited to) lifestyle, race/ethnicity, geography, socioeconomic status and distance traveled through life. The definition of strength is also broad and includes (but is not limited to) humanism, scholarship, intellectual curiosity, research, and leadership. How do you feel your particular experiences, interests, and passions will add to the strength and diversity of the USF class and ultimately to the field of medicine? (2,000 characters)

5. If you have experienced academic difficulties, please explain the situation and how it was resolved. (Please explain all grades less than a "B", including B-, or any "withdrawal" on your transcripts). (2,000 characters)

6. If you have chosen the SELECT program or BOTH, please explain how your experiences and career goals match with the mission of the SELECT program. (MD SELECT Program | USF Health) (1,500 characters)

University of Central Florida College of Medicine

Program: MD

Latest available cycle: 2023-2024

Required Essay Prompts

1. If you are NOT a Florida resident, please describe any connection to UCF COM, UCF, or Florida. (500 characters)

2. If you do not expect to spend the academic year enrolled in an academic program, please explain how you will use this time. (500 characters)

3. In this space, provide brief details regarding academic difficulties, grades below "B minus," or course withdrawals. (500 characters)

4. What breakthrough in clinical or research medicine would you like to see occur within the span of your career in medicine? Why? (750 characters)

5. The complexity of healthcare delivery increasingly requires interdisciplinary teamwork. What lessons have you learned from sports, music, business or other experiences have prepared you to succeed in this environment? (750 characters)

6. We often hear that students want to pursue medicine to help people. Why did you choose medicine and not some other field where you can help others, such as nursing, physical therapy, pharmacology, psychology, education, or social work? (750 characters)

7. Please share with the Admissions Committee why you are specifically interested in UCF COM. (750 characters)

8. Please provide a short essay to help us understand who you are. This essay should be different from your AMCAS Personal Statement. UCF COM places great value on the broad diversity of our students within the classroom. We believe the diverse characteristics of each individual in the class are important factors in serving the educational missions of this school and of our community. Please discuss any unique, personally important and/or challenging experiences in your background that have influenced your goals and preparation for a career in medicine and service to others. These may include experiences such as the quality of your early educational environment, socioeconomic status, cultural background, or other significant events or circumstances that you feel have shaped your character and defined you as an individual. We are also interested on your thoughts about what you can contribute to your class and the medical profession in general. (4,000 characters)

University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompt

1. Why are you applying to the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine? Explain how its program would enhance your education or training, what you would contribute to its learning community and which features prompted you to apply. (5,000 characters)

Conditional Essay Prompts

2. Reapplicants: Provide information about your previous Miller application, including the cycle, outcome and ways you strengthened your candidacy. (1,000 characters)

3. Applicants with a Miller family affiliation: Describe the family member’s relationship with a Miller educational or residency program or their faculty or staff position, and how that connection influenced your career or decision to apply. (1,000 characters)

Nova Southeastern University Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Allopathic Medicine

Program: MD

Latest available prompts: 2023-2024

Required Essay Prompts

1. Please provide an example that indicates your ability to function effectively as a productive member of a team working toward a common objective. Elaborate on leadership roles you held in this capacity and how you solved problems that arose. Indicate highlights learned from this experience. (4,000 characters)

2. Please share some personal examples of problem solving in a team environment and/or leadership experience that would lead to your success in a Problem Based Learning environment. (4,000 characters)

3. At NSU M.D., we value the unique perspective that each applicant brings. Identify any traits, life experiences, or interests that a professor or advisor would not normally know about you. ( 4,000 characters)

4. How has your academic work beyond the “traditional” pre-medical school requirements (i.e., introductory biology, general chemistry, organic chemistry, and introductory physics) prepared you for medical school and for a career in medicine? Please highlight any service-learning activities that align with humanism in medicine. (4,000 characters)

Conditional Essay Prompts

5. Is there a time gap between earning your last degree (baccalaureate or other) and the expected time of your medical school matriculation? If yes, please explain. (Maximum 4000 characters)

6. Were you employed full-time (or part-time) during your undergraduate or graduate years? If yes, please explain. (4,000 characters)

7. Do you believe that you are a member of a group that is under-represented in medicine? If yes, please explain. (4,000 characters)

8. Please explain any gaps or inconsistencies in either academic or standardized test performances throughout your undergraduate, graduate, or post-graduate career. (No word limit)

Nova Southeastern University Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Osteopathic Medicine

Program: DO

Latest available prompts: 2024–2025

Required Essay Prompts

1. How did you learn about osteopathic medicine? (1,000 characters)

2. List and briefly describe your significant health care-related volunteer activities since graduation from high school. (2,000 characters)

Conditional Essay Prompts

3. If you have ever matriculated into an M.D. or a D.O. program, please explain the reason(s) for leaving. Please use the following format: date, institution, status. If non applicable, please type "none" (1,000 characters)

4. If you were employed during the regular school year (excluding summers) while in undergraduate or graduate school, please list dates of employment beginning with your current position along with title or job description, level of responsibility, and number of hours per week. (2,000 characters)

Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine—Florida Locations

Program: DO

No written secondary essays reported for 2026–2027

Orlando College of Osteopathic Medicine

Program: DO

Latest available prompt: 2025–2026

Conditional Essay Prompt

1. Is there any additional information about your academic record that you would like the Admissions Committee to know? Include any academic difficulties or course withdrawals. (No stated limit)

Emory University School of Medicine

Program: MD and MD/PhD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Describe your academic, employment or other plans for the coming application year. (200 words)

2. Briefly describe your health-related experiences. Be sure to include important experiences that are in your AMCAS application, as well as any recent experiences. (200 words)

3. Briefly describe your interest in Emory and the Emory degree program you have selected. (200 words)

4. Emory School of Medicine is committed to recruiting and educating medical students who will help deliver quality health care and will promote the health of our patients. In our community, this includes learning about and addressing the health care needs of our most under-served populations. Please describe any of your activities that have been in service to under-served communities. (200 words)

Optional Essay Prompt

5. If you have any updates or new information to report since you have submitted your AMCAS primary application, please briefly describe below. (200 words)

Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University

Program: MD and MD/PhD

Latest available prompts: 2025–2026

Required Essay Prompts

1. Please discuss your primary interest in attending the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University. (300 words)

2. Please describe your motivation for becoming a physician. What contributions do you feel that you could make to the medical profession in the future? (300 words)

3. Please list any additional clinical experiences that are not included on your AMCAS application. Please include the physician’s name OR type of experience (i.e., Nursing, PA, EMT, E.R. Scribe, etc.) in the description column below along with the location, dates and total number of hours. If no additional experiences have occurred, please select "N/A."

4. The Admissions Committee regards the diversity of an entering class as an important factor in serving the educational mission of MCG and meeting the healthcare needs of a diverse patient population. Please describe how your own personal attributes, background, or life experiences, would contribute to the diversity of the class. (300 words)

5. The art of medicine requires resilience on the part of its practitioners. There can be perceived failure even when the medical team has done everything right. Please describe a time when you were a part of something that failed. What did you learn from this experience? (300 words)

6. Please describe the geographical area in which you would most likely practice medicine and why. Please include the country, region, state, city and/or town in your response. (300 words)

7. Please discuss any disruptions to your medical school application as a result of COVID-19. This may include but is not limited to academic performance, clinical, volunteer, research and extracurricular activities. (300 words)

Conditional Essay Prompts

8. Please explain any inconsistencies in your academic record. This may include below average course performance, grade trends, MCAT scores, etc. Please enter N/A if not applicable. (300 words)

9. If applicable, indicate any special experiences, unusual factors, or other information you have not already addressed in your application. Please enter N/A if not applicable. (300 words)

Morehouse School of Medicine 

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Give an example of when you demonstrated resilience and explain how you would overcome academic adversity if you encountered it in medical school.

2. In what ways do you plan to contribute to the Morehouse School of Medicine community, both while you are a student and after graduation?

3. Imagine that you are a healthcare provider at a community clinic with limited resources. You have one glucose monitor and two patients who qualify. One patient is highly engaged and consistently follows care instructions. The other faces low literacy, language barriers and unstable housing and frequently misses appointments. Who would receive the monitor, and why? Explain how you would approach the decision in a way that reflects a commitment to health equity.

Mercer University School of Medicine

Program: MD

Latest available prompts: 2025–2026

Required Essay Prompts

1. Please provide below an alternate e-mail address (different from the one listed on the Primary AMCAS Application) to which we can send you correspondence related to your application.

2. Please address any institutional action, including honor code or conduct code violations, from your time as an undergraduate and graduate student.

3. What is your understanding of the practice of rural medicine?

4. Do you consider yourself to have been raised or to be residing in an area that is medically underserved or in a county that consists of medically underserved populations? By medically underserved we mean populations vulnerable to poor health due to difficulties accessing adequate health care services. This may be due to factors including but not limited to: education level; poverty; being uninsured or underinsured; lack of a usual source of care other than the emergency department; belonging to a socially marginalized group with poorer health outcomes; cultural or language barriers to receiving quality medical care; distance or lack of transportation to needed medical care. Please explain.

5. The mission of Mercer University School of Medicine (MUSM) is to educate physicians and health professionals to meet the health care needs of medically underserved and rural areas of Georgia. Summarize your work and learning experiences that you believe reflect congruence with this mission. Based on your understanding of our mission, where and what do you envision yourself doing after completion of medical school and residency?

6. Describe your experiences in service to others and your community and how they have helped prepare you to be a physician.

Optional Essay Prompts

7. If you wish to discuss your perceptions of your academic readiness for the rigors of a medical school curriculum or explain poor grades in college coursework or MCAT scores to the Admissions Committee, please do so below.

8. If you wish to, please briefly explain to the Admissions Committee experiences, attributes, or qualifications you believe are unique to you that will strengthen the educational environment at MUSM.

9. Please explain to the Admissions Committee factors that you could not highlight above that would help the Admissions Committee better understand your unique circumstances. If you would like to briefly highlight any substantial updates with regard to your application (example, volunteer experiences) that have occurred after you submitted the Primary AMCAS Application, please summarize them below.

Conditional Application Question

10. Please address any institutional action, including honor code or conduct code violations, from your time as an undergraduate and graduate student.

Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine — PCOM Georgia

Program: DO

No separate secondary application required

Applicants respond to PCOM’s written questions within the AACOMAS Program Materials section rather than through a separate supplemental application.

Required for Georgia Campus Applicants

1. What one aspect of the PCOM Georgia campus mission and/or community resonates with your personality and values? (2,000 characters)

Campus Application Question

2. Indicate whether you wish to be considered for PCOM Georgia, PCOM South Georgia or another eligible PCOM location.

University of Georgia School of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. What draws you to the University of Georgia School of Medicine, and how have your experiences prepared you to contribute to and serve communities across Georgia? (300 words)

2. Imagine that you have reached the end of a fulfilling and impactful career. A trusted colleague or mentee is delivering a speech in your honor. What would you want that person to say about your work, values, relationships and legacy? (300 words)

3. Describe the decisions and experiences that have defined your academic journey. Provide context for any part of your academic history that would help the committee understand your persistence, development and growth. (300 words)

4. What core values guide you? Describe a time those values were challenged by circumstances or by another person and explain how the experience will influence your contribution to the school and the medical profession.  (300 words)

Conditional Essay Prompt

5. Reapplicants: Highlight aspects of your application that have changed since your previous application. (300 words)

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa John A. Burns School of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Reflect on a recent instance where you were given personal feedback that was unfavorable or difficult to receive. How did you respond? Elaborate on how this experience has shaped the way in which you interact with others. (600 words)

2. How are you currently serving your community? Describe the impact that you are making and how this has improved your community. (500 words)

3. Professionalism in medicine often requires balancing personal beliefs with the duty of care, or navigating conflicts within a healthcare team. Describe a specific instance where your professional integrity or boundaries were challenged. How did you handle it, what was the outcome and how did this experience shape your definition of what it means to be a professional physician? (500 words)

4. Describe why you have chosen to apply to JABSOM and if you have any personal connections to the school, Hawaii or the Pacific Basin. If you do not have a personal connection, elaborate on your motivations for applying to JABSOM. (500 words)

Conditional Essay Prompt

5. If you are a re-applicant to JABSOM, please complete the following additional essay. Describe what efforts you have made to further improve your application to the MD Program. (600 words)

Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine (ICOM)

Program: DO

Latest available prompts: 2025-2026

Required Essay Prompts

1. What characteristics of ICOM will help you become a successful osteopathic physician? (No character limit)

2. What does Osteopathic Principles and Practices mean to you and how will you integrate these into your future practice? (No character limit)

Conditional Essay Prompt

3. If this is not your first time applying to medical school, how have you improved your application? (Please type N/A if not applicable) (No character limit)

Carle Illinois College of Medicine

Program: MD

Latest available prompts: 2025–2026

Required Portfolio Components

Important note about these prompts: The show us aspects of the portfolio relate to visual artifacts whereas the tell us components are very short essays.

Carle Illinois is looking for everything most other medical schools are looking for – and something more. If you are completing our secondary application, you have already passed the threshold for our competency checklist. Well done. Now we want to find out more about you.

Our secondary application is unique. We are looking for physician-innovators. Does that describe you? Our secondary application is your chance to demonstrate that you have the compassion, curiosity and creativity we believe a physician-innovator needs. We are asking you to complete a portfolio comprised of three artifacts and three very short essays (100 words each).

The portfolio provides an opportunity to SHOW US and TELL US how compassion, curiosity, and creativity have played out in your life through visual artifacts and short essays. How do you exemplify these values? How have you grown in these areas? Show us and tell us the connections between these values and your experience. The artifacts should be somewhat reflective in nature so share your thoughts and insights.

For example, if you did or are still doing work in a research lab, we are less interested in a detailed description of the science and more interested in learning what you actually did, how YOU contributed, and if you were able to be innovative. Was the activity you are presenting part of a class for credit or something you did on your own? Was this part of a team? If so, what was YOUR role? Show us and tell us who you are, and why you are a strong applicant for our program.

Each artifact should be uploaded as a PDF (one page for each value, formatted no larger than 8.5" x 11"). No hyperlinks or embedded videos are allowed. We encourage you to make your artifacts image focused. Your artifacts will be most powerful if you include multiple activities for each and clearly indicate the quality and depth of your experience, but only include that which is meaningful for the value. You may repeat experiences listed on your AMCAS application and/or include new ones.

Please do not include activities from high school or earlier unless they are of very high quality or impact (an example would be achieving Eagle Scout rank). Family interactions/relationships ("spending time with family") are unlikely to score well unless you can show how they are noteworthy or significant (an example would be full-time caregiver for a family member for a period). As you are completing your portfolio, please keep in mind that our screeners will evaluate your portfolio independently BEFORE they evaluate your AMCAS application so do not assume the screeners are aware of any of the information in your AMCAS.

Captions or other brief notes can be included on the artifact to help the screener understand your images. Don't provide an essay in place of a visual artifact unless you are an extraordinarily skilled writer! In addition to any notes included on your artifact, each artifact will be accompanied by a very brief essay (maximum 100 words) to give context to your artifact. While the content of your portfolio is of primary importance, our reviewers are also evaluating your presentation. This does not mean you have to be "artistic", but it is valuable to show an innovative approach.

Required Visual Artifacts and Essay Prompts per Core Value

Compassion

We believe in creating physicians who, in addition to solving healthcare's most complex problems, are also tender, kind, and warm. From day one, you will be working with patients.

Show Us - How have you changed the lives of others? What have you experienced that has fostered a deep sense of compassion? For example, have you had a moving volunteer experience? Have you learned through adversity and shared those lessons with others in need? Share with us the ways you’ve impacted a larger population and help us see how you will be the type of physician we would entrust with our most beloved community members.

Tell Us - In 100 words or less, explain how this artifact reflects Carle Illinois College of Medicine's value of Compassion.

Curiosity

Carle Illinois College of Medicine values lifelong learners. We want to see your passion for learning and growing!

Show Us - How have you explored new interests, cultures, or people? Have you identified a need and taken the initiative to respond to that need? For example, is there a research project or work experience you’d like to share? Has your curiosity fostered a deeper sense of vulnerability, resilience, or life-long learning? If so, how? Let us see where your curiosity has taken you.

Tell Us - In 100 words or less, explain how this artifact reflects Carle Illinois College of Medicine's value of Curiosity.

Creativity

The dictionary tells us that innovation is a new method, idea, or product. Often there is an outcome, a clearly defined result, or a new thing is discovered. The introduction of something new requires dynamic thinking and creative solutions. Creativity is key to innovation. Help us see your creativity!

Show Us - What are the ways you demonstrate you have an active mind? What are you really proud of? For example, have you used technology in novel or distinct ways? What innovative solutions have you employed in your work, healthcare, or hobbies? Have you taken a risk to respond to a problem, to express yourself, or to achieve your goals? Describe how you live and lead a creative life.

Tell Us - In 100 words or less, explain how your artifact reflects Carle Illinois College of Medicine’s value of Creativity.

Chicago Rosalind Franklin Medical School

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Chicago Medical School values service, interprofessional collaboration and community engagement. Describe an experience reflecting one or more of these values and how you hope to continue this work in medical school. (150 words)

2. Which specific programs, opportunities or aspects of Chicago Medical School motivated you to apply, and how do they align with your career goals? (150 words)

3. What interests you about training in the Chicago and North Chicago region, and how might this environment shape your education and career? (150 words)

4. How would you contribute to the school’s learning environment through initiatives, organizations or areas of involvement that interest you? (150 words)

5. Describe a time you received difficult or unexpected feedback about your academic performance or behavior. How did you respond, and what changes did you make? (150 words)

Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. As you consider Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine, please tell us what resonates with you regarding our mission as a Jesuit, Catholic medical school? Consider also what you may be curious about regarding our institutional mission and identity. (500 words)

2. Considering all that you could do with your life, how have you discerned your decision to become a physician? What is particular to the practice of medicine and the vocation of a physician that draws you to apply to medical school versus another helping/caring profession? What experiences, conversations, and encounters have informed your decision to apply? (500 words)

3. Social justice, in the Jesuit tradition, justice due to each person’s inherent human dignity, is an essential dimension of education at SSOM. Describe an impactful experience working with and for under-resourced communities. Explain what you have learned about yourself through this service and/or what has hindered your efforts to serve others in these environments. (500 words)

4. Describe a time you received feedback about your performance and disagreed with the feedback. What did you disagree with? How did you handle it? (500 words)

5. Medical education is characterized by long hours of study, a steady cadence of course exams, subjective and objective assessment of performance, licensing exams, and sometimes demanding and stressful educational contexts in the clinical environment. How has your chosen undergraduate course of study prepared you for the rigor and demands of the medical school curriculum? What additional skills have you learned as a pre-med student to help you balance your educational and personal responsibilities, including managing your time and relieving stress? (500 words)

Application Question

6. Have you or any of your relatives attended or been employed by Loyola University Chicago or the Stritch School of Medicine? (Yes/No)

Optional Essay Prompts

7. Please indicate additional grades earned, amendments to your proposed coursework or graduation date, address changes, additions to your list of experiences, and anything else you feel we should know.

8. Please explain in more detail (in less than 1500 characters) anything that would help us understand any gaps or delays in your education, academic missteps, or personal challenges not listed elsewhere.

Conditional Essay Prompts

9. If you have not been enrolled in coursework for over two years, please let us know what you have been doing since your coursework ended.

10. Have you applied to SSOM prior to this application? If so, please list the years of your previous application submissions to SSOM and tell us how your application has improved since your previous submission.

11. Are you currently, or have you been, enrolled in any of the following programs?

• Applicant Boot Camp or Health Equity and Advocacy Leaders (ASPIRE)
• Early Assurance Program (EAP)
• Health Professionals Recruitment and Exposure Program (HPREP)
• Loyola University Chicago undergraduate (LUC)
• Loyola MA in Medical Sciences (LUC MAMS)
• Loyola MS in Medical Physiology (LUC MSMP)
• Loyola Masters in Infectious Disease and Immunology (INDIRI)
• Proviso United with Loyola for Educational Enrichment (PULSE)
• Medical Minority Applicant Registry (MED-MAR)

12. Have you ever been convicted of a crime other than a minor traffic or parking violation? If the answer is yes, please explain below.

Conditional Applicant Questions

13. If you did not submit an advisor or committee letter, please tell us why.

14. Have you ever been convicted of a crime other than a minor traffic or parking violation? If yes, please explain.

Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

Program: MD and MD/PhD

Required Essay Prompts for MD Applicants

1. Feinberg’s mission is to train future leaders who will serve their patients, communities and society. Explain which aspects of Feinberg will support your future goals in medicine and how FSM, located in Chicago, will help you achieve these professional aspirations. (200 words)

2. Describe a favorite book, movie, album, or other work of art you would like to share with your future classmates and why. (200 words)

3. The Feinberg School of Medicine values the totality of our students’ experiences. As everyone has their own narrative, please describe how your experiences have shaped your interests, preparation for medicine, or perspective on patient care, and how they may contribute to your development with the Northwestern community. (200 words)

Conditional Essay Prompts for MD Applicants

4. Applicants with one year or more between college graduation and medical school matriculation: Describe both your completed activities and anticipated plans, including the extent of your involvement. (200 words)

5. Reapplicants: Please address steps taken to enhance your application. (200 words)

Conditional Application Question for MD Applicants

6. Do you or an immediate family member have an existing relationship with the Feinberg School of Medicine? (Yes/No)

If yes: Provide details. (50 words)

Required Essay Prompts MSTP Applicants

1. Why did you choose your undergraduate major? How does the subject appeal to you? (200 words)

2. Name a scientific paper that you have read recently that had a strong impact on you and describe what impact it had. (200 words)

3. Discuss a current unanswered question in biomedical research that you find particularly interesting and what research you would like to see done to address it. (200 words)

4. What is the most gratifying research experience you have had to date and why? What was the greatest obstacle you had to overcome in research and how did you overcome it? (200 words)

5. Please provide a brief statement explaining why you are specifically applying to the Northwestern University Medical Scientist Training Program. We encourage you to comment on relevant research, clinical and/or educational opportunities of interest to you. (200 words)

6. The Feinberg School of Medicine values the totality of our students’ experiences. As everyone has their own narrative, please provide more detail about how your unique experiences would enrich the Northwestern community. (200 words)

Conditional Essay Prompts

7. Applicants with one year or more between college graduation and medical school matriculation: Describe your activities and/or plans. (200 words)

8. Reapplicants: Address steps taken to enhance your application. Applicants who are not reapplying enter “N/A.” (200 words)

Application Question

9. Do you or an immediate family member have an existing relationship with Feinberg School of Medicine? (Yes/No)

Rush Medical College of Rush University Medical Center

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Rush Medical College is located on Chicago’s west side and serves a diverse patient population. We seek to train physicians who can connect with diverse patient populations with whom they may not share a similar background. Tell us about a life experience that has broadened your own world view or enhanced your ability to understand those unlike yourself and what you learned from this experience. (1,000 characters)

2. As an anchor institution, Rush is embedded in its strategies to improve the societal and structural determinants of health which improve the economic vitality of Chicago’s west side neighborhoods and help residents achieve better health. Using your own experiences, describe how you have impacted and/or changed a person or community. (1,000 characters)

3. Some commitments grow deeper the longer we remain involved. Tell us about an experience that required sustained engagement with others. What drew you to it initially, what kept you engaged, and how did it influence the way you think about caring for others, serving communities, social responsibility, or contributing to something larger than yourself?

4. Advancing knowledge often begins with curiosity, persistence, and a willingness to question what is already known. Tell us about an experience, project, or question that demanded sustained inquiry from you. Where did it lead, and how did it shape the way you think about discovery, innovation, or lifelong learning?

5. Describe an experience that required you to persist, adapt, or rethink your approach in order to create meaningful progress. What kept you engaged, and how did the experience influence the way you approach leadership, accountability, or future challenges?

Southern Illinois University School of Medicine

Program: MD

Latest available prompts: 2025–2026

Program Context

The mission of SIU School of Medicine is to assist the people of central and southern Illinois in meeting their health care needs through education, patient care, research and service to the community.

• Preference is given to established residents of central and southern Illinois who intend to practice medicine in the state.
•  Applicants should have a good foundation in the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities.
• Applicants are expected to demonstrate facility in writing and speaking the English language.
• Preference is given to applicants who will have earned a baccalaureate degree by the time of matriculation.
• Preference is given to applicants who have had sufficient recent academic activity to demonstrate potential for successful completion of medical school.

Although the Admissions Committee establishes no quotas, active efforts are made to recruit qualified applicants from groups who have been under-represented in the medical profession.

Required Essay Prompts

1. SIU School of Medicine uses a holistic approach to identify students who best fulfill its mission: to assist the people of central and southern Illinois in meeting their health care needs through education, patient care, research and service to the community. In what ways do you believe you would contribute to SIU’s mission and what barriers have you overcome in your life’s circumstances to reach this point in applying to medical school? Please limit your response to 300 words or less.

2. Tell us about your lived experiences that will make you a better physician? Please limit your response to 300 words or less.

3. To be successful as a student at SIU School of Medicine and as a practicing physician, you must be flexible and committed to cultivating and employing critical interactive and learning skills. Describe your experiences that demonstrate: contribution in a teamwork setting; engagement in self-directed and life-long learning (taking personal initiative to identify and address your learning goals and needs); and exposure to the small group tutorial process used in a problem-based learning environment. Please limit your answer to 500 words or less.

Conditional Essay Prompts

4. If you have previously applied to SIU School of Medicine, please describe how you feel you have strengthened your credentials since that application. Please limit your answer to 300 words or less.

Conditional Applications Questions

5. Have you ever been convicted of a felony? Have you ever been convicted with a misdemeanor other than a minor traffic offense? Have you ever been charged with a felony or a misdemeanor other than a minor traffic offense, or with misconduct on any college campus? If you answered 'YES' to any of the three preceding questions, please explain the relevant circumstances. (No character limit given)

University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Describe the personal and professional experiences that have prepared you to train in UChicago Medicine’s clinical environment, which serves communities experiencing significant economic and health disparities and includes student-led community initiatives and free clinics. (450 words)

2. Required for MD-only applicants: Describe your research interests and explain how Pritzker’s longitudinal Scholarship & Discovery program would help you advance your career goals. (450 words)

3. Describe a difficult or challenging situation, how you managed it, the coping skills you used and the people you approached for support. The 2026–2027 version now introduces this question through the importance of humility and resilience in medical education. (450 words)

Optional Essay Prompt

4. Share any additional information you would like the Admissions Committee to consider. Pritzker specifically notes that applicants who are not completing a degree may use this space to explain their current or planned activities for the application cycle. (Approximately 300 words suggested)

Conditional Application Question

5. If your institution offers a premedical committee or advisor letter and you chose not to use that service, explain your decision. (Approximately 200 words suggested)

University of Illinois College of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. What characteristics, qualities, or attributes do you possess that have helped you to deal with conflict and change?

2. Which characteristics, qualities, or attributes of UICOM attracted you to apply for medical school here?

3. An important part of UICOM’s identity is the concept of “one college, three campuses.” The curriculum is identical on each campus; however, each campus has unique characteristics. Please describe what you have learned about at least two of our three campuses.

4. What are some of the causes and consequences of prejudice and injustice? What does an individual’s response to prejudice and injustice reveal about their character? What is the role of a bystander who witnesses prejudice or injustice?

5. UICOM values a wide range of perspectives. Describe an aspect of your own perspective, value system, or lived experience that is important to you and how it would contribute to the diverse and collaborative community at UICOM.

Conditional Application Questions

6. Have you applied for admission to medical school previously? Yes or No. If you are reapplying this year, please describe what you have done during the past year.

7. Have you ever matriculated into and not completed a professional/graduate program? Yes or No. Please describe the circumstances of why you did not complete the program of study.

Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine of Midwestern University

Program: DO

No separate written secondary essays required

Current-cycle reporting indicates that CCOM’s written application questions are completed through AACOMAS rather than in a separate secondary application. Applicants should confirm all current questions and document requirements in AACOMAS and the school portal.

Illinois College of Osteopathic Medicine at The Chicago School

Program: DO

Required Essay Prompts

1. Diversity, Lived Experience, and Osteopathic Care: Reflect on an experience from your background that shaped your understanding of how identity and culture influence healthcare. Discuss how this perspective will guide your contributions to IllinoisCOM and the principles of osteopathic medicine.

2. Contributing to a New Institution: As a developing institution, IllinoisCOM asks how you envision contributing to the college's evolving identity and culture. Explain what this opportunity represents to you and how you will help shape the future of the school.

Indiana University School of Medicine

Program: MD

No traditional secondary essays required

Marian University College of Osteopathic Medicine

Program: DO

Required Essay Prompts                                                                                               

1. In Indiana, 53 of 92 counties are designated Health Professional Shortage Areas. What experiences have you had working with these types of communities, and how has this shaped your perspective on healthcare? (300 words)

2. What personal experiences or values have motivated you to consider an osteopathic medical education? (300 words)

3. Explain your interest in attending MU-WCOM. (300 words)

Required Application Questions

4. Are you a current or former student in Marian University’s Biomedical Sciences graduate program? (Yes/No)

5. Have you had the opportunity to connect with someone from MU-WCOM? (Yes/No)

6. Do you have research experience? (Yes/No)

7. Do you have connections to the state of Indiana?

8. Do or did you have an undergraduate premedical or health-professions advisor? (Yes/No)

9. Are you eligible for an AACOMAS fee waiver and requesting one from MU-WCOM? (Yes/No)

10. Explain how you first learned about MU-WCOM.

Required Update Field

11. Indicate any information, changes or additions not included in your AACOMAS application, including education, employment, extracurricular activities, research, military service, academic warnings, conduct violations or convictions. (300 words)

University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine

Program: MD and MD/PhD

Required Essay Prompts

1. We understand you may be applying to multiple medical schools. Please explain your reasons for applying to the Carver College of Medicine. (1,500 characters)

2. Describe a personal characteristic, challenge, or experience that makes you unique. How will this influence your contribution to a dynamic healthcare system that advocates for all peoples? (1,500 characters)

Required Application Question

3. Please list and briefly describe all medically related experiences (paid/volunteer) you have completed during the past 5 years. Do NOT forecast future hours. Please include experiences listed on your AMCAS and also provide any additional experiences NOT listed on your AMCAS. You may list up to 15 entries, 175 characters to describe EACH.

Conditional Essay Prompts

4. If you are a reapplicant to the Carver College of Medicine, how have you strengthened your application? (1,500 characters)

5. If you are not currently in a degree-seeking program, please indicate what you will be doing from the time you complete this secondary application to the start of medical school. (1,500 characters)

University of Kansas School of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Describe your health care experiences that involved direct exposure to physicians' clinical duties and how they have shaped your desire to apply to medical school. (1,000 characters)

2. Describe examples of leadership experience in which you have significantly influenced others, helped resolve disputes, or contributed to group efforts over time. (1,000 characters)

3. Describe examples of leadership in which you significantly influenced others, helped resolve disputes or contributed to group efforts over time.

4. Beyond academics (grades and MCATs), describe the most significant challenge you have faced and the steps you have taken to address this challenge. (1,000 characters)

5. Give an example of what you have done to make your community a better place to live. (1,000 characters)

6. Patients come from various backgrounds. Please describe how you will engage with patients whose backgrounds may differ from yours. (1,000 characters)

Conditional Essay Prompts

7. Non-Kansas residents: If you are not a Kansas resident, what is your specific interest in applying to the University of Kansas School of Medicine? (1,000 characters)

8. Academic discrepancies: If there are academic discrepancies in your application that have not been explained in your application, use this space to clarify. Examples may include unexplained gaps in time, multiple undergraduate institutions attended, multiple course withdrawals, inconsistent academic performance, inconsistency between academic performance and MCAT scores. (1,000 characters)

9. Enrollment status: If you are currently enrolled, or plan to be enrolled during the next academic year in a graduate or professional degree program, please describe your status within the program and your intention to complete the program. You must also request a letter from your graduate program advisor or from the dean of your professional school. This letter must include acknowledgement of your application to medical school and a description of your status in the program. Students in the MD program are considered and expected to participate full-time in MD program requirements and accompanying activities (e.g., service, research, etc.). Our experience over multiple decades has informed the SOM that participation in outside activities (e.g., employment, other degree programs, etc.) is not conducive to successfully navigating our curriculum and overall school requirements. Failing to meet program expectations can place the student at risk for administrative action, including dismissal. (1,000 characters)

10. Change in full-time status: If you are no longer a full-time student, briefly describe your current employment, community, medical, and/or educational activities. (1,000 characters)

11. For repeat applicants only: Since your last application, note any relevant academic, employment, and personal experiences that enhance your ability to be a better physician. (1,000 characters)

MD/PhD Application Question

12. Do you also wish to be considered for MD-only admission? (Yes/No)

University of Kentucky College of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Why have you chosen to apply to the University of Kentucky College of Medicine?

2. The University of Kentucky College of Medicine's (UKCOM) mission statement promotes a diverse and inclusive environment that provides excellence in education, equitable health care, and transformative research to improve the health and wellness of Kentuckians and beyond. Please describe how your past experiences or future plans contribute to enriching and enhancing the learning environment at UKCOM.

3. Your combination of life experiences makes you uniquely you. Discuss one such experience and how it has helped prepare you to be a physician.

4. Describe an experience or situation that made you feel grateful.

5. Please share unique, personally important and/or challenging facts in your life or work experiences. Discuss how such factors have influenced your goals and preparation for a career in medicine.

6. Describe a situation in which you were not in the majority.

Conditional Essay Prompt

7. Non-Kentucky residents: Elaborate on your Kentucky ties, if applicable.

Campus Application Question

8. Explain why your selected UK College of Medicine campus is your preferred campus.

University of Louisville School of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Why have you chosen to apply to the University of Louisville School of Medicine? (150 words)

2. Describe any additional experiences, interests, hobbies or skills not included elsewhere in your application, or completed since submitting AMCAS. (150 words)

3. What has been your most significant contribution to your community through service or volunteerism? What was its impact on the community and on you? (150 words)

4. The University of Louisville School of Medicine’s mission includes caring for underserved areas of Kentucky. Describe how your experiences and attributes equip you to care for underserved communities. (150 words)

5. Which areas of medical practice interest you during residency? How do you see yourself practicing after residency, including location? (150 words)

6. Is there any context from your undergraduate years that would help the committee understand your academic performance? (150 words)

Conditional Essay Prompt

7. Reapplicants: What has changed from your previous application or your approach to this admissions cycle? (150 words)

University of Pikeville - Kentucky College of Osteopathic Medicine

Program: DO

Latest available prompt: 2025–2026

Required Essay Prompts

1. Have you previously applied?

2. Please describe your experience with osteopathic medicine, such as your care and treatment from a DO and your shadowing experience with a DO (including number of hours). Please describe how your experience has influenced your decision to apply to an osteopathic medical school.

Louisiana State University School of Medicine in New Orleans

Program: MD

No general secondary essays reported

The secondary application primarily contains forms and application questions.

Optional Scholarship Essay

1. Applicants seeking consideration for the Means for Medicine scholarship may submit an optional essay. (500 words)

Louisiana State University of School of Medicine in Shreveport

Program: MD

Latest available prompts: 2025–2026

Required Essay Prompt

1. Explain the principal factors motivating your application to LSU Health Shreveport and provide any other information relevant to the committee’s review. (500 characters)

Conditional Essay Prompts

2. Reapplicants:  Describe the academic, employment, volunteer or other progress you have made since your previous application. (2,000 characters)

Tulane University School of Medicine

Program: MD

Latest available prompts: 2025–2026

Required Essay Prompts

1. Tulane University School of Medicine’s mission statement states: We improve human health and foster healthy communities through discovery and translation of the best science into clinical practice and education; to deliver the highest quality patient care and prepare the next generation of distinguished clinical and scientific leaders. Briefly describe the reasons for your interest in Tulane University School of Medicine. (150 words)

2. What disparities in health do you believe are pertinent to the New Orleans patient population? How would you attempt to address them as a medical student at Tulane? You may support your answer by using past involvement working in a similar patient population to compare and/or describe your interest in any student activities offered at Tulane or in New Orleans. (150 words)

3. Who knows you best and how would they describe you? (150 words)

4. Please list any leadership positions (clubs, organizations, paid work) you may have held. (100 words)

5. Please list your hobbies and major non-academic interests. (150 words)

Optional Essay Prompts

Important note about optional essay prompts: The following questions are optional. Declining to answer a question will not negatively impact your application in any way.

6. Tulane University School of Medicine values the diversity of its patients, faculty, staff, and students. Do you identify with a particular group that you believe is underrepresented among medical professionals? These include groups oriented around, but not limited to: ethnicity, race, sexuality, religion, disability, and economic background. (60 words)

7. In what ways did the COVID-19 pandemic alter/interrupt your medical school application? (No word limit)

Check out some Tulane medical school secondary essay examples!

Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine—Louisiana Campus

Program: DO

Latest available prompts: 2025–2026

Required Essay Prompts

1. A significant challenge, the strategies used to overcome it and lessons learned. (500 words)

2. Alignment between the applicant’s professional ambitions and osteopathic medicine, including why they chose VCOM. (500 words)

Conditional Essay Prompts

3. VCOM reapplicants: Improvements made since the previous application. (500 words)

4. Applicants with incomplete prerequisites: Plans to complete all required coursework with a grade of C or better before matriculation. (500 words)

Important note: VCOM uses one secondary application for its Virginia, Carolinas, Auburn and Louisiana campuses. Applicants indicate campus preferences within that secondary.

University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine

Program: DO

Latest available prompts: 2025-2026

Required Essay Prompt

1. UNE COM’s curriculum is built on a foundation of collaborative team-based education. Give an example of when you worked in an effective academic or professional group. Explain why a team-based approach is the right model for your medical education. (2,000 characters)

Conditional Essay Prompt

2. Have you previously applied to the University of New England (undergraduate, graduate, or professional)? (2,000 characters)

3. Are you related to any alumni of UNE COM? (2,000 characters)

Application Questions

4. Answer the applicable portion:

A) If you previously only applied to Allopathic medical schools, why are you now applying to Osteopathic Medical schools? Please be concise and specific.

B) If this is more than your first round of application to medical schools, what have you done to enhance your preparedness? Please be concise and specific.

Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Program: MD and MD/PhD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Briefly describe a specific challenge you faced and how you overcame it. What was your approach, what did you learn from the process, and how do you see those skills translating to a career in medicine? (250 words)

2. Describe an interaction that required you to understand or engage with a perspective different from your own. How did you respond and what was the outcome? (250 words)

3. Please review the Johns Hopkins Medicine website. Is there an area of medicine or a particular medical specialty at Johns Hopkins that interests you and why? (250 words)

4. Every future physician has a story. What’s yours? Share the experience, insight, or connection that first made you see yourself in medicine—and how it continues to shape your path. (300 words)

5. What draws you to Johns Hopkins School of Medicine? Reflect on how our mission, culture, and academic community align with your values, experiences, and aspirations as a future physician. In your response, please highlight specific aspects of both the Hopkins community—academic, research and/or extracurricular opportunities—and the Baltimore community, particularly the patients and families that we serve. Elaborate on how you intend to actively engage with and contribute to both communities as you pursue your medical education. (300 words)

Conditional Essay Prompt

6. Applicants who have graduated: Please describe what you have been doing since graduation and your plans for the upcoming year. (300 words)

Optional Essay Prompts

7. Would you like to share any additional information with the Admissions Committee about yourself that cannot be found elsewhere in your application? This space may also be used to address extenuating circumstances, such as gaps in work experience, choice of recommenders, inconsistent academic performance or other areas of weakness. (300 words)

Read our John Hopkins medical school secondary essay examples!

University of Maryland School of Medicine

Program: MD & MD/PhD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Describe here the reason why you are specifically interested in attending the University of Maryland School of Medicine. (1,000 characters)

2. Briefly describe your most meaningful exposure to clinical medicine. (1,500 characters)

3. Briefly describe your most satisfying experience related to community service. (1,500 characters)

4. Without limiting the discussion to your own identity, please describe how you envision contributing to the values of equity and inclusivity at our School of Medicine, and in the medical profession. (1,500 characters)

5. How does our School of Medicine mission, vision and values align with your vision for your future career as a physician? (1,500 characters)

6. What does it mean to you to enter into a profession? (1,500 characters)

Conditional Essay Prompt

7. If you experienced academic challenges while in college and/or graduate or professional school, please describe and explain them below. Include withdrawals, incompletes, poor grades or other relevant circumstances. (1,000 characters)

Optional Essay Prompt

8. Please share any relevant characteristic about your background and/or experiences not already described in AMCAS that you feel may positively affect how you practice medicine in the future. (400 characters)

Additional Requirements for MD/PhD Applicants

The University of Maryland states that applicants who indicate interest in the MD/PhD program receive additional questions.

Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine

Program: MD and MD/PhD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Medicine and Officership are time-honored professions that unite at “America’s Medical School” in rewarding and challenging ways. What are your thoughts and impressions about serving as a uniformed medical corps officer, and why do you want to pursue this career path? (1,500 characters)

2. The Uniformed Services University features a unique curriculum that prepares students to care for those in harm’s way. Please describe what in your research about our school and its values attracts you to our institution’s mission and approach. (1,500 characters)

3. Military physicians often navigate uncertain and complex environments. Describe a significant experience where your knowledge or skills were insufficient to address a challenge. What was your approach to the problem? What lessons did you learn? (1,500 characters)

Harvard Medical School

Program: MD

Conditional Essay Prompt

1. Applicants who have already graduated: Briefly summarize your activities since graduation. (4,000 characters)

Optional Essay Prompt

2. If there is an important aspect of your experience not addressed elsewhere in the application that may illuminate how you could contribute to the medical school and that you would like to share with the Committee, use this space to provide that information. Examples may include significant challenges in access to education, unusual socioeconomic circumstances or other aspects of your personal or family background that place your academic achievements in context, explain your motivation for medicine or clarify the perspective you would bring to the medical school community. (4,000 characters)

Optional Application Question

3. Indicate any significant restriction of three or more weeks on your availability during the virtual interview season. If none applies, leave this section blank. (1,000 characters)

Program-Specific Required Essay Prompt

4. Required for HST applicants: The HST MD program draws on the combined resources of Harvard and MIT to provide a distinct preclinical education tailored to preparing students for careers as transformative physicians who will shape the future practice of medicine. Its students come from biological, physical, engineering and social science backgrounds. HST classes are small, commonly include graduate students and emphasize quantitative and analytic approaches. The curriculum also focuses on disease mechanisms and solving unmet needs in medicine and health care, including novel diagnostics, therapeutics, big data and systems engineering.

Explain how your interests, experiences and aspirations have prepared you for HST. Focus on your preparation for the program rather than identifying specific HST faculty members or research opportunities. (4,000 characters)

Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompt

1. Explain why BU’s safety-net hospital environment is a strong fit and how previous experiences have prepared you to learn in it. (300 words)

Conditional Essay Prompt

2. Applicants not entering medical school directly after undergraduate study: Describe post-baccalaureate education, employment, travel or other gap-time activities. (300 words)

Optional Essay Prompts

3. Describe notable aspects of your educational journey not covered elsewhere. (300 words)

4. Provide additional information needed for a comprehensive understanding of your candidacy. (300 words)

5. Reapplicants: Highlight changes since the prior application. (300 words)

Tufts University School of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Please briefly describe your plans for the coming year. Include whether you will be studying, working, conducting research, volunteering or participating in other activities. (1,000 characters)

2. Please tell us about your journey to medical school and how your background and experiences will positively affect your future as a medical student and physician. If you have experienced personal circumstances or hardships that helped you develop qualities that will allow you to better serve future patients and the medical community, please share those experiences. (1,000 characters)

Optional Essay Prompt

3. Do you wish to include any comments for the Tufts University School of Medicine Admissions Committee in addition to those already provided in your AMCAS application? (1,000 characters)

Conditional Essay Prompt

4. Tufts values a commitment to social responsibility: serving and advocating for all people, especially underserved and vulnerable patients and populations, by addressing social determinants of health, health equity, social justice and stewardship of social resources.

Have you completed substantial work or volunteer service in such communities? If yes: Describe the experience and how it may shape your desire to practice with vulnerable populations in the future. (1,000 characters)

Required Application Questions

Important note: 1,000 characters each where an explanation is requested

5. Do you have any withdrawals or repeated coursework listed on your transcript(s)? (Yes or No)

6. Did you take any leaves of absence or significant breaks from your undergraduate education? Do not include time off after graduation. (Yes or No) ( Do not include time off after graduation)

7. Because your academics will not be shared with interviewers until after you complete your interview, we encourage you to use this space to elaborate on any academic challenges you have overcome. We understand that many applicants encounter academic hardships along the way. Please comment on any academic difficulties that you have encountered since completing high school (grades and MCAT scores). We believe that such difficulties offer an opportunity for growth and would appreciate learning how your experiences have affected your approach to academics. If you have not encountered any academic difficulties: Enter “No.”

8. Have you ever been convicted of, or pleaded guilty or no contest to, a Misdemeanor crime, excluding 1) any offense for which you were adjudicated as a juvenile 2) any convictions which have been expunged or sealed by a court, or 3) any misdemeanor convictions for which any probation has been completed and the case dismissed by the court (in states where applicable)?

UMass Chan Medical School T.H. Chan School of Medicine

Program: MD & MD/PhD

Response Requirements

MD applicants must answer questions 1, 2, 4 and 6 while MD/PhD applicants must also answer question 7 in addition to 1,2, 4 and 6. Questions 3 and 5 are options but should be answered if you participated in a UMass Chan Medical/Baystate sponsored program and if you are taking/took gap time respectively.

Required Essay Prompts for MD and MD/PhD Applicants

Question 1: We would like to learn how you developed and demonstrated core professionalism competencies that are required of entering medical students. Please respond to the first prompt (#1; Diversity). Then select three of the other six prompts (#2-#7). Each response should be 150-200 words. Use the text box below for your answer. Separate each of your four responses by writing the competency above/before your response (example: Teamwork - All teams have their struggles, but they can be overcome...).

1. Diversity: UMass Chan Medical School strives to be a diverse academic community mindful of the fact that diversity makes our community stronger and benefits the patients we serve. Share your definition of diversity. Describe an example where you contributed to the diversity of a group, team or class. Connect this to how you will contribute to the diversity of the UMass Chan Medical School community.

2. Leadership competency: Describe a time when you have made a decision that was not popular and how you handled this.

3. Teamwork: Describe a time when you were on a team that was dysfunctional in some regard. How did you address the situation?

4. Empathy/Compassion: Describe a meaningful interaction you have had with a person whom you have helped at work, school or another activity.

5. Communication: Have you ever been in the middle of a situation where there was poor communication? What did you do to improve it?

6. Inquiry: Describe a time when you have "thought outside the box" to solve a problem.

7. Persistence/Grit: Describe a time when you suffered a setback. How did you respond to this challenge?

Question 2: Please discuss any part of your application that you feel requires further explanation. For example, discuss grades or MCAT scores that do not reflect your true ability, and/or a gap in time that is not explained elsewhere in your application. Discuss any impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on your academic, service, extracurricular or employment experiences. If you are reapplying to T.H. Chan SOM, highlight how you have strengthened your application. (250 words)

Question 3: If you have participated in T.H. Chan SOM or UMass Memorial Health Care, or UMass Chan Medical-Baystate sponsored programs (SEP, Summer Research Program, Worcester Pipeline Collaborative, AHEC, BaccMD, HSPP, Academic Internships, BSEP, Summer Scholars) please describe how these programs helped you decide to apply to T.H. Chan SOM. (200 words)

Question 4: Why did you apply to T.H. Chan SOM? (200 words)

Question 5: If you are currently taking a gap year, in what activities are you engaged? (200 words)

Question 6: Please describe an example of your personal and/or professional experience with and understanding of systemic inequity, exclusion, or lack of representation in health care in the United States. How did you arrive at this understanding? (200 words)

Question 7: This question will be sent out to eligible applicants later, so it was not publicly available at the time of writing.

Required Essay Prompts for MD Tracks and Specializations

Question 8 for PURCH (Population Urban and Rural Community Health) track: Please describe how a focus on population health and healthcare disparities will benefit you in your training and/or career. Please limit your response to less than or equal to 500 words.

Question 9 for LEAD@Lahey track: Based on your interests and life experiences, please describe how you might be a good fit for the LEAD@Lahey Pathway at UMass Chan Medical School. What unique experiences and perspectives might you bring to the class? Please limit your response to 250 words or less. 

Roseman University College of Medicine

Program: MD

Latest available prompts: 2025–2026

Required Essay Prompts

1. Obstacles encountered during the journey to medicine and how they were overcome. (500–1,000 words)

2. How the applicant would address social determinants of health in future medical practice, including those affecting Nevada. (500–1,000 words)

3. An interaction with someone from a different cultural background or life experience and what the applicant learned. (500–1,000 words)

Conditional Essay Prompt

4. Applicants who took time between completing their bachelor’s degree and applying: Explain the reason for that time. (250 words)

Optional Essay Prompt

5. Provide application updates, information not addressed elsewhere or additional context concerning the applicant’s academic journey. (250–1,000 words)

Covenant HealthCare College of Medicine at Central Michigan University

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompt

1. Describe your motivation for applying to the Covenant HealthCare College of Medicine at Central Michigan University and your future career in medicine. Explain how your preparation and background will contribute to the mission of the College of Medicine. (1,000 words)

Conditional Application Questions

2. If you indicated an affiliation with a Michigan county, briefly describe that affiliation.

3. Applicants who have completed their degree: Describe the activities in which you have engaged since completing your degree.

4. Reapplicants: Explain what you have done since your previous medical-school application to prepare for a career in medicine. Applicants who have not previously applied enter “N/A.”

Michigan State University College of Human Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. How have your most meaningful experiences shaped what you envision doing in medicine 15 years from now? Describe one specific future accomplishment that would define your career’s success at that point. (400 words)

2. How have your personal experiences with, or observations of, systemic inequities shaped your perspective? Describe how this perspective will influence your approach to patient care and your role in addressing health disparities. (400 words)

3. Beyond what is included in your primary application, what should the Admissions Committee know about your fit for MSU CHM’s community-based mission? Out-of-state applicants are encouraged to address their interest in training and potentially practicing in Michigan. (400 words)

Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Describe a significant sacrifice you made for someone else. How did you respond, what help-seeking behaviors did you use and how did the experience shape your resilience, self-awareness or growth? (400 words)

2. Describe a time you stepped outside your comfort zone to engage with people, communities, patient populations or environments unfamiliar to you. What challenges did you encounter, and what did you learn? (400 words)

3. Describe a team conflict you worked through. What did you learn about communication, collaboration and professionalism? (400 words)

Optional Essay Prompts

4. Share new information about your qualifications that is not represented elsewhere in your application. This may include activities since graduation. (400 words)

5.  Reapplicants: Describe improvements made since your previous application.

Optional for MD/MPH Applicants

6. Explain your interest in public health and how MPH training would complement your medical education and career goals. (400 words)

University of Michigan Medical School

Program: MD and MD/PhD

Latest available cycle: 2025-2026

Required Essay Prompts

1. How the applicant hopes to affect medicine and patient care, and why a medical degree is necessary. (1,500 characters)

2. How identity and experiences influenced the applicant’s development and may affect their medical career. (1,500 characters)

3. Experiences involving empowerment and advocacy for others that would advance Michigan’s mission. (1,500 characters)

4. An interest or area of curiosity outside medicine that the applicant has chosen to explore. (1,500 characters)

Required for MSTP Applicants

1. Describe why you are applying to the University of Michigan MSTP. If you are interested in a specific department, program, area of research or faculty mentor for your PhD, please provide a brief explanation. We recognize that your interests may change. If relevant, please describe your gap/growth year plans. (1,500 characters)

Try reading some University of Michigan medical school secondary essay examples!

Wayne State University School of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. When reflecting on the roles and responsibilities of a physician, discuss what appeals and does not appeal to you. (1,250 characters)

2. What healthcare challenges do under-resourced communities in the United States face? Why do these challenges exist, and how would you address them? (1,250 characters)

3. Which of your experiences and activities align with the Wayne State University School of Medicine mission? Explain how they align. (1,250 characters)

4.  How would you advance belonging and contribute to the educational experience of your fellow medical students? (1,250 characters)

Conditional Essay Prompt

5. Applicants with a gap or growth year: Describe the activities in which you participated or plan to participate during the period between undergraduate education and medical school. Explain how those activities relate to your future career in medicine.

Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Explain why you chose to apply to WMed and how you will use the distinctive features of its mission, vision and curriculum to achieve your career goals. (2,000 characters)

2. What values, skills, talents or life experiences will you bring to WMed and the practice of medicine? (2,000 characters)

Conditional Essay Prompt

3. WMed re-applicants: Describe changes to your application since previous cycles, including academic, experiential or personal developments. (2,000 characters)

Optional Essay Prompts

4. Explain any connection you have to Southwest Michigan. (2,000 characters)

5. Share any additional information not included elsewhere that you would like the Admissions Committee to consider. (2,000 characters)

Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine

Program: DO

Latest available prompts: 2025–2026

Required Essay Prompts

1. The MSUCOM curriculum stresses the importance of intrapersonal competencies, including personal responsibility and adaptability. Please tell us a time when you were faced with a challenge in these areas and how that challenge impacted your professional growth. (300 words)

2. What does professionalism mean to you as a future physician? (300 words)

Optional Essay Prompts

3. Provide information not stated elsewhere that may help the committee better understand your candidacy. This may include achievements, interests, work experience or explanations of academic or nonacademic discrepancies. Enter “N/A” if you have nothing to add. (500 words)

4. Describe intentional efforts you have made to learn about osteopathic medicine, including interactions with DOs, experiences that shaped your understanding of osteopathic philosophy or reasons for your interest in the profession. Enter “N/A” if not applicable. (500 words)

University of Minnesota Medical School

Program: MD

Latest available  prompts: 2025–2026

Required Essay Prompts

1. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are core values of the University of Minnesota Medical School. Explain how a learning environment that embodies these values is crucial to the education of tomorrow's physicians. Reflect on how you might contribute to this learning environment.

2. How have your individual experiences and identity shaped who you are and who you will be as a physician?

3. Describe a time when you used critical thinking to solve a problem that you encountered in any realm where you asked questions, gathered information, thought through possible solutions and their alternatives, and evaluated what you did critically. Please include in your discussion what you learned from this experience.

Optional Essay Prompt

4. Any other pertinent information would you like to bring to the attention of the Admissions Committee? This is an opportunity for you to discuss an aspect of your journey to medicine that you have not already presented in your application. You may also update us with any current experiences that were not included in your AMCAS application.

Campus-Specific Optional Essay Prompts

Duluth Campus Mission Note: The primary mission of the UMN Medical School, Duluth Campus is to educate physicians dedicated to serving rural Minnesota or Native American communities. Only complete the Rural and/or Indigenous Health questions if your application presents a strong commitment to these communities. Most candidates accepted within the context of the Duluth Campus mission will be placed on that campus.

5. Rural Health: The University of Minnesota Medical School is dedicated to educating future physicians who have demonstrated an interest in serving patients and families in rural Minnesota. Reflect on what "rural Minnesota community" means to you. Describe your experience in and ties to rural Minnesota areas. What do you view as the greatest healthcare practice needs in rural Minnesota, and how will your future practice help fill these needs?

6. Indigenous Health: The University of Minnesota Medical School is dedicated to educating future physicians who have demonstrated an interest in serving Indigenous communities. Describe your experience in and ties to Indigenous communities. What do you view as the greatest healthcare needs in Indigenous communities, and how will your future practice help fill these needs?

Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine

Program: MD and MD/PhD

Required Essay Prompts

1. At Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine, we seek students whose values align with our mission to put the needs of the patient first. Please share why you would like to study medicine at our school, including specifically why at the top campus track you selected. (500 words)

2. Reflect on how your professional and lived experiences have shaped your identity. Explain how these experiences will help you contribute to a collaborative learning environment, support patients and colleagues and advance Mayo Clinic’s commitment to excellence. (500 words)

3. Mayo Clinic’s Bold. Forward. strategy integrates digital innovation with a deeply humanistic approach to transform healthcare. What role do you see yourself playing in shaping this future? Describe the skills, experiences or aspirations in artificial intelligence and innovation that prepare you to contribute meaningfully. (500 words)

Required for MD/PHD applicants

3. In the space below, write a brief paragraph explaining why you are specifically applying to the Mayo Clinic MD-PhD Program. (500 characters)

Application Note: If you opt for MD-only consideration if rejected from the MSTP, then the application adds the MD prompts that you previously did not have to do.

University of Mississippi School of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Please discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic affected your academic preparation for medical school or extracurricular opportunities. Please also discuss any other impact of the pandemic that you would like the admissions committee to know. (2,500 characters)

2. Please outline your motivation for pursuing the medical degree. (3,000 characters)

William Carey University College of Osteopathic Medicine

Program: DO

Latest available prompts: 2025–2026

Required Essay Prompt

1. The Mission of the William Carey University College of Osteopathic Medicine (WCUCOM) is to prepare men and women to become osteopathic physicians through an emphasis on primary care, lifelong learning, research and scholarly activities, and service, including osteopathic clinical service, and graduate medical education.

Using a community-based training model, the COM will educate and train graduates who are committed to serving the healthcare needs of all individuals, with special attention directed to the medically underserved and diverse populations of the state, region, nation and across the globe.

In the space below, please explain how your ambitions and career plans will help WCUCOM fulfill this mission. (500 words)

Washington University School of Medicine in St.Louis

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompt

1. Describe a time or situation where you have been unsuccessful or failed. (3,000 characters)

Conditional Essay Prompt

2. Applicants who have completed college, experienced an interruption in their education or will not be enrolled full-time: Describe your activities chronologically during the periods when you were not a full-time student. (2,000 characters)

Optional Essay Prompt

3. Is there anything else you would like to share with the Committee on Admissions? Applicants may use this space to discuss experiences, obstacles or challenges not addressed elsewhere. (3,000 characters)

Saint Louis University School of Medicine

Program: MD and MD/PhD

Latest available prompts: 2025–2026

Required Essay Prompt

1. Tell us about a time when you were “the other.” (1,000 characters)

Conditional Essay Prompt

2. Applicants who have taken or will take gap time equal to at least one semester: Describe your past and/or planned gap-time activities. (1,000 characters)

Optional Essay Prompt

3. Provide any comments you would like the Saint Louis University School of Medicine Admissions Committee to consider, such as why you applied to SLU or relevant extenuating circumstances. (1,000 characters)

Conditional Application Question

4. If you have been subject to dismissal, disqualification, suspension or another institutional action for academic performance or conduct, provide a complete explanation.

Additional Requirements for MD/PhD Applicants

5. Do you have a premedical advisor? If yes: How often do you meet?

University of Missouri-Columbia School of Medicine

Program: MD and MD/PhD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Why are you interested in attending the University of Missouri School of Medicine? (3,000 characters)

Optional Essay Prompt

2. Is there anything that was not fully addressed in your application and/or any additional updates since submitting the AMCAS application? (3,000 characters)

Application Question

3. Have you previously applied to the University of Missouri School of Medicine? (Yes/No)

University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine

Program: MD

Latest available prompts: 2025–2026

Required Essay Prompts

1. UMKC educates physicians and healthcare providers to care for individuals with varied identities, backgrounds, experiences and perspectives. Describe the interests, abilities or experiences that prepare you to participate in and contribute to this learning environment. (1,000 words)

Conditional Essay Prompt

2. Applicants strongly preferring the Saint Joseph campus: Explain why you assigned the campus a high preference rating, including any interest in rural clinical practice, location, curriculum or educational approach.

Optional Essay Prompt

3. If you are interested in rural healthcare or a specialty serving underserved rural communities, describe that interest.

Kansas City University College of Osteopathic Medicine

Program: DO

No traditional secondary essays required

Current-cycle reporting indicates that KCU-COM does not require a traditional written supplemental essay set for 2026–2027. Applicants should confirm all application questions and document requirements through AACOMAS and the KCU applicant portal.

A.T. Still University–Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine

Program: DO

Required Essay Prompts

1. Describe one or more significant life experiences that have meaningfully shaped your development as a potential future physician. What did you come to understand about yourself, and how has that insight altered your perspective or behavior? (500 words)

2. Describe your experiences with osteopathic medicine and how they influenced your decision to pursue a career as an osteopathic physician. (500 words)

Conditional Essay Prompt

3. KCOM reapplicants: Describe what has changed since your previous application. (No stated limit)

Application Questions

4. Have you previously applied to KCOM? If yes, list the application year or years.

5. List any relatives who are osteopathic physicians.

6. List any relatives who are allopathic physicians.

Optional Application Question

7. List any changes or updates to your AACOMAS application. Leave blank if the original application remains complete and accurate.

Ponce Health Sciences University School of Medicine—St. Louis Campus

Program: MD

Latest available information: 2025–2026

No written secondary essays reported

University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Medicine

Program: MD and MD/PhD

Required Essay Prompts

1. What is your personal rationale for applying to the UNMC College of Medicine, especially if you are not from Nebraska? (1,000 characters)

2. What are you most proud of in your life? (1,500 characters)

3. Tell us about a time when you have had to overcome adversity. (1,500 characters)

4. Tell us something about yourself that will enhance the UNMC College of Medicine? (1,500 characters)

5. What have you learned from working with people whose background is different from yours? (1,500 characters)

Conditional Essay Prompts

6. If you have been away from full-time academics for more than two years, please explain. Enter N/A if not applicable (750 characters)

7. If you are a re-applicant to the UNMC College of Medicine, how is your application different this year? Enter N/A if not applicable (750 characters)

8. If this is your first application to UNMC, but not your first application to medical school, what is your rationale for applying to UNMC this cycle? Enter N/A if not applicable  (750 characters)

Creighton University School of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Please state your reasons for applying to Creighton University School of Medicine. (2,000 characters)

2. Using an example or examples, describe the effect that your experience engaging with disadvantaged and/or underserved populations has had on your growth and development. Reflect on how the experience will affect your career as a future physician. (2,000 characters)

3. Describe how you have dealt with a personal challenge or major obstacle that you have overcome. Focus on what you learned about yourself and how it will help you during the challenges you might face in medical school. (2,000 characters)

4. Medicine requires individuals to uphold professional standards even in difficult situations. Describe a personal experience that influenced your understanding of professionalism and explain how it will guide your conduct in medical school. (2,000 characters)

5. “Women and Men for and with Others” is a fundamental Jesuit value and an important part of the Creighton University School of Medicine mission. Reflect on a meaningful service experience or community-engagement activity that shaped your understanding of serving others. What did you learn about yourself, others and your role in the community through this experience? (2,000 characters)

Optional Essay Prompt

5. Please reflect on your entire application, is there anything you would like to further share with the Admissions Committee? Gap(s) in your education, personal and/or academic challenges, etc. (2,000 characters)

Required Application Question

6. Creighton is committed to service to others through nonmedical volunteer activities. List all your nonmedical community-service experiences after high school, including experiences previously listed in AMCAS. Include a brief description, dates and number of hours for each activity. (300 characters per activity)

Conditional Application Question

7. Please reflect on your entire application. Is there anything you would like to share further with the Admissions Committee, such as gaps in your education or personal or academic challenges? (2,000 characters)

Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV

Program: MD

Latest available prompts: 2025–2026

Required Essay Prompts

1. Why are you interested in the Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV and how does your background and future goals contribute to our mission? (500 words)

2. Briefly discuss how you envision yourself contributing to the care of our growing and diverse population in the state of Nevada. (500 words)

3. Briefly discuss how you define professionalism and how you will demonstrate it in the classroom and clinical training settings. (500 words)

Optional Essay Prompts

4. Explain your ties or commitment to Nevada. (250 words)

5. Discuss relevant disruptions, application impacts or academic-performance context. (250 words)

6. Provide other information important for the Admissions Committee to consider. (250 words)

Required Application Question

7.  Provide a brief chronological list of your time since graduating from high school through the point of applying to medical school. Do not write in essay form. (250 words)

University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine

Program: MD

Latest available prompts: 2025–2026

Required Essay Prompts

1. Please share why you want to pursue your medical education at the University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine; describe any connections to Northern Nevada communities; and how you are prepared to contribute to UNR Med’s vision of a Healthy Nevada. (300 words)

2. Describe a time when you were part of a team that was struggling to meet objectives. How did you react? What would you do differently? What did you take away from this experience that will influence your approach to working on a team in the future? (300 words)

3. Reflect on and describe an experience where you provided care or service to individuals from populations that commonly experience health care disparities. Discuss what you learned about the socio-cultural or economic factors that affect underserved populations and describe how your interactions with these individuals motivated or prepared you for a future in medicine. (300 words)

4. Describe a time when you faced a significant life crisis or an academic, personal, or professional failure. How did you respond, what did you learn, and how did the experience influence your future actions? (300 words)

5. Please share an example of how you have used critical thinking and communication skills to develop a creative or innovative solution to a challenging problem. (300 words)

Optional Essay Prompt

6. You are invited to provide a brief statement regarding anything not previously addressed or disclosed in your application that you would like considered during the review of your application. If you are a re-applicant to UNR Med, we encourage you to outline any significant changes or new experiences from your previous application. (500 words)

Touro University Nevada College of Osteopathic Medicine

Program: DO

Latest available prompts: 2025–2026

Required Essay Prompts

1. Why are you interested in pursuing this degree at Touro Nevada? (1,500 characters)

2. What award(s) or recognition(s) have you received within the last five years? (1,500 characters)

3. What volunteer experience have you had during the last three years? (1,500 characters)

4. What research experience have you had during the last three years? (1,500 characters)

5. Please tell us about your extracurricular activities or hobbies. (1,500 characters)

Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Please indicate your plans for the 2023-2024 academic year. If in school, please list your courses. If working, let us know something about the nature of your job. If your plans or courses change subsequently, please inform the Admissions Office by email at [email protected].

2. Please reflect on your primary application and share something not addressed elsewhere that would be helpful to the Admissions Committee as we review your file.

3. Please tell us specifically why you are interested in Geisel.

4. Geisel School of Medicine values social justice and diversity in all its forms. Reflect on a situation where you were the “other.” (250 words)

Want to read some Geisel School of Medicine secondary essay examples?

Cooper Medical School of Rowan University

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Please describe your anticipated educational, employment, volunteer, or other activities between completing your AMCAS application and matriculating to medical school. (1,500 characters)

2. We are a mission-aligned education program. Please describe how CMSRU will help you fulfill your mission. (1,500 characters)

3. Medical school involves hard work and can be stressful at times. Tell us about activities that you use to help maintain a work-life balance and respond to stress. (1,500 characters)

Optional Essay Prompt

4. Please share with us something unique about your pathway to medical school, including any obstacles you may have faced. (1,500 characters)

Rutgers New Jersey Medical School

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. At NJMS, we are committed to the principles of humanism in medicine and to addressing health inequities that affect many communities. Our students work as part of interprofessional teams to care for patients who may experience disparities in health and access to care. Reflect on an experience that shaped your understanding of humanism and equity in healthcare. How do you hope to embody these values as a medical student and future physician?

2. Medicine demands humility, self-awareness, and resilience. Describe a significant challenge or failure you have faced. What did you learn about yourself, and how has it shaped your approach to working with others and handling responsibility? (if applicable)

3. Describe a meaningful interaction or experience with someone whose background, perspective, or life experiences differed from your own. What did you learn from this experience, and how has it influenced the way you engage with others?

Conditional Essay Prompts

4. Applicants taking time away from full-time academic enrollment: Describe how you have used or plan to use this time. What experiences, skills, or insights do you hope to gain, and how will they contribute to your preparation for medical school and development as a future physician? Include anticipated activities and time commitments through matriculation in July 2027.

5. Reapplicants: Describe the steps you have taken to strengthen your candidacy and reflect on what the process has taught you about your motivation and preparedness for medicine.

Optional Essay Prompts

6. If aspects of your personal, academic, or professional journey would benefit from additional explanation or context, share them here.  

7. Is there anything else you would like the Admissions Committee to know, including experiences, values, interests, or passions that shaped your path but are not fully reflected elsewhere?

Application Questions

8. Rutgers New Jersey Medical School attracts applicants from across the country. What aspects of NJMS have influenced your interest in the program, and how do you see yourself contributing to its community? If applicable, describe any personal, educational, professional, or community connections you have to New Jersey.

9. NJMS values the experiences and perspectives that shape how individuals understand the world and their role in it. Are there aspects of your background, upbringing, or experiences that have influenced your values, perspective, goals, or interest in medicine? If so, share them here.

Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. RWJMS has identified the core values below as critical to our mission and vision. We strive to matriculate learners who embody these values:

R -- Respect, dignity and humanism for the diverse population we serve

W -- Wellness and resilience

J -- Joining learners hand in hand with care delivery

M -- Making patients first with safe, compassionate, high-quality care

S -- Science to advance human health

Please select a RWJMS core value that resonates the most with you. In two paragraphs or less, reflect on one of your experiences to discuss how you have built a foundation for this value and how it will contribute to our community of learners. (Two paragraphs or fewer)

2. Discuss a difficult or challenging situation you have encountered and how you dealt with it. Be sure to include the skills you called upon to resolve the dilemma, and the support person(s) from whom you sought advice. (250 words)

3. Medical training can be stressful. What strategies have you developed to manage stress and maintain your well-being? How have these strategies evolved over time? (250 words)

4. Describe a time when you received feedback with which you did not agree. How did you handle the situation, and what did you learn? (250 words)

Optional Essay Prompts

5. Please feel free to comment on any course grades, GPA trends, or MCAT scores and what you have learned about yourself.

6. Please use this space if you would like to provide additional information to the admissions committee.

Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Why are you interested in attending the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine? (500 words)

2. Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine values social justice and diversity in all its forms. Describe a circumstance where you sought to learn about a culture, group or idea different than your own and how that impacted you. (500 words)

3. Describe your experience with the field of medicine (or a related field) that has prepared you for advanced study in this area. Specifically, how have your life experiences prepared you to pursue a degree in medicine, including: coursework, clinical work, experiences in overcoming adversity, work opportunity, volunteer activities, and/or research experiences? (500 words)

Conditional Application Question

4. Applicants with a relevant criminal conviction: Disclose and explain the conviction according to the instructions in the current secondary application. (500 words)

Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine

Program: DO

Required Essay Prompts

1. How did you learn about osteopathic medicine, and why is it a good fit for you?

2. Explain why you are interested in attending Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine.

3. Rowan-Virtua SOM seeks to train physicians who can connect with patient populations whose backgrounds may differ from their own. Describe an experience that broadened your worldview or strengthened your ability to understand people unlike yourself. What did you learn?

Optional Essay Prompt

4. Please describe any significant barriers or challenges you have overcome in pursuing your personal or professional goals.

University of New Mexico School of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Life Experiences: At the UNM School of Medicine we are committed to building a dynamic, productive and positive learning environment in addition to promoting cross cultural and cross racial understanding among students of diverse talents, experiences, opinions and backgrounds. Describe the effect that your experiences with engaging diversity have had on your own growth and development. Provide an example and describe how it will impact your career in the medical profession.

2. Interest and Suitability for a Career in Medicine: There are multiple paths that lead to medical school and many obstacles along the way. Please describe the unique path that has led you to medicine as well as any obstacles or adversity that you had to overcome in achieving this goal. How will this experience affect your career as a physician?

3. Problem Solving: While providing healthcare as a physician is often a rewarding career, it is also a profession that entails addressing constant challenges. Imagine you are a physician at a local institution and you notice on 18 occasions in the past week, patients were not administered the correct dose of a medication.

When looking into it further, you learned that 17 of the 18 cases occurred immediately after a physician handoff, defined as the process of transferring the role and responsibility for providing care from one physician to another. Given this scenario, what are the initial steps you and your institution might take to improve the situation?

4. Public Health: There is a physician shortage in New Mexico. What is your understanding of the contributors to this problem, and what ideas do you have to address it?

5. Self-Growth/Teamwork: Teamwork is integral to the training and career of a physician. This kind of work setting entails addressing constant challenges in task execution and communication. What is an issue you have encountered while working on a team, and how did you address and resolve this issue?

6. COVID-19 Impact: Please describe how COVID-19 affected your preparation for applying to medical school. Describe any academic, personal, financial or professional barriers or disruptions that COVID-19 may have triggered.

Conditional Application Question

7. Have you previously submitted an AMCAS application to the University of New Mexico School of Medicine? (Yes or No)

Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine

Program: DO

Required Essay Prompts

1. In what area of medicine do you see yourself practicing, and in what type of setting? (300 words)

2. Reflect on a previous experience where you interacted with individuals from a different background than your own. What challenges did this present, if any? How did you demonstrate openness to their perspective? How will the experience influence your approach to patient care in the future? (300 words)

3. If you could strengthen one area of your application, what would it be? What have you done, or what do you plan to do, to address it and improve going forward? (300 words)

Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons

Program: MD and MD/PhD

Latest available prompts: 2025–2026

Required Essay Prompts

1. Please describe your most meaningful leadership positions. (300 words)

2. Columbia Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons values diversity in all its forms. How will your experiences contribute to this important focus of our institution and inform your future role as a physician? (300 words)

Conditional Application Questions

3. Have you previously applied to Medical School? (200 characters)

4. If you took time off from your undergraduate studies, please briefly summarize your reasons for doing so. (250 words)

5. Did you work for compensation during college (either during the school year or summers)? If so, what did you do? How many hours a week did you work? (300 words)

6. If you have graduated from college, please briefly summarize what you have done in the interim. (300 words)

Optional Essay Prompt

7. Is there anything else you would like us to know? (400 words)

Required Questions for MSTP Applicants

8. What academic honors have you received (e.g., prizes, scholarships, fellowships, honor societies)? (1,000 words)

9. What are your major research interests? (20 words)

10. PhD Goals (1,000 words)

11. Additional Information (1,000 words)

Additional MSTP Application Section

12. There's also an "Experiences" section similar in format to the AMCAS Work/Activities section. (No word limit)

CUNY School of Medicine

Program: MD

Latest available prompts: 2025–2026

Required Essay Prompts

1. Please describe how your personal characteristics or life experiences will contribute to the City University of New York School of Medicine community and bring educational benefits to our student body.

2. Is there any further information that you would like the Committee on Admissions to be aware of when reviewing your file that you were not able to notate in another section of this or the AMCAS Application?

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Program: MD and MD/PhD

Required Essay Prompts

1. What is the toughest feedback you ever received? How did you handle it and what did you learn from it? (250 words)

2. Describe a situation that you have thought to be unfair or unjust, whether towards yourself or towards others. How did you address the situation, if at all? (200 words)

Conditional Application Question

3. If you are currently not a full-time student, please briefly describe the activities you are participating in this academic year. (100 words)

Optional Essay Prompts

4. If you are committed to a particular community or if there is an important aspect of your identity not addressed elsewhere in the application, we invite you to do so here. Briefly also explain how such factors may have influenced your motivation for a career in medicine. Completing this section is optional. (150 words)

5. Were there any adverse circumstances in your premedical preparatory journey including but not limited to impact from COVID-19? (100 words)

Required Essay Prompts for MSTP Applicants

Important Note: Question 4 above does not have to be completed by MSTP applicants.

6. If there is an important aspect of your personal background or identity or a commitment to a particular community, not addressed elsewhere in the application, that you would like to share with the Committee, we invite you to do so here. Aspects might include, but are not limited to significant challenges in or circumstances associated with access to education, living with a disability, socioeconomic factors, immigration status, or identification with a culture, religion, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity. Briefly explain how such factors have influenced your motivation for a career in medicine. Completing this section is optional. (150 words)

7. What are your career goals? Describe which features of the MD/PhD Program at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai you will leverage to achieve them? (200 words)

8. Provide a one to three sentence summary of your current research interest. Limit your response to 100 words or less.

SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University College of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. What will be your support system while in medical school? (150 words)

2. Describe what personal, urban experiences prepare you to live and study in New York City. (150 words)

3. Why do believe you are a good fit for SUNY Downstate? (300 words)

4. What is your experience with diversity, health equity and social justice? (300 words)

Conditional Application Questions

5. Will you be attending college full-time as of September 15?

If no: Please describe your activities for the period of September 15 to July 1. (No word count)

6. If you had a completed application to the College of Medicine in a prior application cycle, please highlight any changes since your previous application in a list with dates. If this question does not apply to you, enter "not applicable" in the text box below. (150 words)

SUNY Upstate Medical University Norton College of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. What experiences have you had with underserved communities/populations? What have you learned from these experiences? (1,800 characters)

2. Describe any ties or meaningful experiences you have had related to Central New York or SUNY Upstate Medical University. (1,800 characters)

3. How will you contribute to the diversity of your medical school class and The Norton College of Medicine? (1,800 characters)

4. The Norton College of Medicine is committed to improving the healthcare of Central New York. How do your career plans advance this mission? (1,800 characters)

Conditional Essay Prompt

5. Are there any areas of weakness in your application that you would like to clarify for the Admissions Committee? If yes, please describe. (1,800 characters)

Conditional Application Question

6. Please describe your gap year plans. (No stated limit)

Additional Application Question

7. Which medical specialty do you currently plan to pursue? (No stated limit)

New York Medical College

Program: MD

No written secondary essays reported for 2026–2027

NYMC uses a supplemental application containing form-based questions and confirmations rather than written secondary essays.

Application Questions may include:

• Family connections to New York Medical College
• Social-media conduct
• Acknowledgement of technical standards

Because NYMC does not publicly reproduce the complete form, applicants should confirm the current requirements in the NYMC Activities Gateway.

Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. The Jacobs School of Medicine recognizes the many options you have in choosing medical schools in which to apply. Using personal experiences or connections, in 300 words or less, explain how Western New York and/or the Jacobs School align with your values, making it a place you feel would be a good fit for you to not only complete your medical education but continue your career. (300 words)

2. In 300 words or less, please describe a time when you observed someone being marginalized whether through a subtle remark, a dismissive comment or their perspective being overlooked. How did you respond in the moment and what informed your decision-making? How has this experience influenced your commitment to an inclusive learning environment in medical school? (300 words)

3. In 300 words or less, please describe a clinical encounter that challenged your assumptions. (300 words)

Optional Application Questions

4. If your parents DO NOT work in a health care field, please list their occupation. (1,000 characters)

5. If you or your parents are active military, please describe below: (5,000 characters)

6. If you have participated in any educational program sponsored by our medical school, please list programs and dates. (5,000 characters)

Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Program: MD and MD/PhD

Latest available MSTP prompts: 2025–2026

Optional Essay Prompts for All Applicants

1. Unique life experiences: What unique life experiences, personal attributes and/or perspectives will you bring as part of the incoming class? Are there particular challenges or successes that you have encountered? If you do not wish to write anything, please write “NA.” (3,000 characters)

2. Anything else you would like to share with us? Please use this space to tell us anything about yourself that you would like us to know. If you do not wish to write anything, please write “NA.” (3,000 characters)

Required MSTP Essay Prompts

1. Please describe briefly the field(s) in which you plan to pursue your future research. We are looking for the big picture, Aging, Neuroscience, Cell Biology, Immunology, etc., not the specific focus. (250 characters)

2. Please list your previous scientific presentations and abstracts. List all authors, abstract titles, name of meeting, and date of meeting. List each meeting on a separate line. Please do not include the text of the abstract. (9,999 characters)

3. Please list publications on which you are a co-author. List each on a separate line. Include names of all authors, title, journal, year of publication, and volume and page number(s). Please do not list papers that are “in preparation.” (9,999 characters)

4. Please indicate which was your favorite course in college and why. (3,000 characters)

MSTP Application Questions

5. In the list below and in the following question, please indicate the field(s) of your prior research experience. Check all that apply.

6. Indicate whether you would like your application considered for the MD-only or PhD-only program if you are not selected for an MSTP interview.

University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompt

1. Community involvement is a pillar of medical education at the University of Rochester. Describe a community you identify with, how you are involved in it, and how you will be involved in communities we serve at the University of Rochester School of Medicine. (200 words)

Conditional Essay Prompt

2. If you previously applied to medical school, briefly describe any experiences you have been part of since your previous application. (200 words)

Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University

Program: MD and MD/PhD

Required Essay Prompts for All Applicants

1. Tell us how your past experiences and/or challenges have defined you. (500 words)

2. Please respond to ONE of the following two questions: (500 words)

• Please tell us about your career goals, and how you plan to achieve them.
• Can you describe a time you faced an ethical/professional dilemma and how you managed it?

3. Will your education be continuous between college and medical school matriculation? If no: Please explain what you have done or plan to do during the gap period and why. (500 words)

Required Essay Prompt for MSTP Applicants

 4. Describe the basic and/or clinical research fields you might like to explore or develop expertise in during your MSTP training. To the extent that you have identified potential clinical interests, describe the type or types of medicine you may pursue after completing the MSTP. (500 words)

Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Explain why the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell is a good fit for your medical education journey? (250 words)

2. “The School of Medicine, in a culture of community, scholarship and innovation, is dedicated to inspiring promising students to lead and transform medicine for the betterment of humanity.” How do you feel you would contribute to the Zucker School of Medicine’s mission and values and where do you see this taking you in the future? (250 words)

Conditional Essay Prompt

3. Applicants who have graduated: Describe what you have been doing since graduation. (250 words)

New York Grossman Long Island School of Medicine

Program: MD

Latest available prompts: 2025-2026

Required Essay Prompts

1. NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine (NYU GLISOM) seeks to train physician leaders grounded in primary care and address physician shortages in specific fields. To support this mission, acceptance to NYUGLISOM is paired with an offer of a directed pathway to residency into one of three designated residency programs at NYU Langone Hospital-Long Island: Internal Medicine I Pediatrics I Obstetrics & Gynecology

Candidates interested in Family Medicine may apply through the Internal Medicine track. Though Family Medicine is not part of the NYU GLISOM directed pathway to residency option, final year students are positioned to successfully match to external Family Medicine programs. They also retain the option of pursuing the directed pathway to Internal Medicine at NYU Langone Hospital-Long Island, if they choose.

Please select your intended residency track below and discuss your reasons for this choice, how the pre-medical experiences listed on your AMCAS application confirm your commitment to this field within the context of primary care, and why you have chosen this medical discipline over others you have explored. If applicable, please explain how your academic interests or personal journey may have influenced your residency track selection. (400 words)

2. Please provide a response to the timeline that pertains to you: (400 words)

If you have graduated from college: Please tell us what you have been doing since that time up until the present and your reasons for doing so? (Please be sure to account for all your time since graduating, including your plans for the upcoming application cycle.) Please also discuss how these experiences have informed you of your understanding of primary care and chosen residency track.

If you are still in college: What factors influenced your decision to apply to NYUGLISOM directly from undergrad? Please also tell us your planned academic, extracurricular, research, community service and/or work activities for the upcoming application cycle and how any of these activities align with your interest in primary care and chosen residency track?

Conditional Essay Prompts

3. If you are a re-applicant to any medical school, please describe what steps you have taken to strengthen your candidacy. Additionally, if you did not previously apply to NYUGLISOM, why have you chosen to apply to our program now? (400 words)

4. Please leave this question blank if it does not apply to you.

Do you have any personal, professional, or educational ties to the Long Island, NYC-Metropolitan or Tri-State (NY, NJ, CT) Areas? If so, please describe how these connections have influenced your decision to apply to NYUGLISOM and how they may impact your plans to practice medicine. (400 words)

Optional Essay Prompts

5. Please comment on any significant fluctuations in your academic record or inconsistencies in your MCAT score; if you took a leave of absence for any reason during college; or any application irregularities that you feel would be helpful for the admissions committee to consider when conducting its comprehensive review of your credentials. (400 words)

6. Please feel free to share any other information that you have not already included in your AMCAS application or secondary responses that you believe would be relevant for the admissions committee to know about. (400 words)

Application Questions

7. Prior to the current application cycle, have you ever applied to any medical school before? (Yes or No)

8. If yes, have you ever applied to NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine? (Yes or No)

9. If yes, during which application cycle did you most recently apply to NYUGLISOM?

NYU Grossman School of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Tell us about a long-term goal you pursued over several years. What obstacles did you encounter, and what sustained your motivation when progress was slow? (2,500 characters)

2. Medical training demands continuous improvement. Share an example of feedback you received that was difficult to hear. How did you act on it, and what changed as a result? (2,500 characters)

3. Conflicts arise daily from differences in perspectives, priorities, worldviews and traditions. How do you define respect? Describe a situation in which you found it challenging to remain respectful while facing differences? (2,500 characters)

4. Describe a situation in which you faced an ethical dilemma or pressure to compromise your values. How did you navigate the situation, and what guided your decision? (2,500 characters)

5. Some of the most meaningful achievements are non-academic in nature. Describe the personal accomplishment that makes you most proud. Why is this important to you? (2,500 characters)

Application Questions

6. If applicable, please comment on significant fluctuations in your academic record. (No limit)

7. If you have taken any time off from your studies - before, during, or after college - please describe what you did during that time and your reasons for doing so. (No limit)

8. Applicants may optionally provide demographic information not included in AMCAS. NYU states that these answers are used for reporting after the admissions cycle and are not included in the materials reviewed by committee members:

• Marital status
• LGBTQ+ community membership
• Child of a physician

9. Select up to three residency specialties that currently interest you. Applicants may select “Undecided,” and the choices are neither binding nor used in the admissions decision.

10. Please upload your most recent CV, ensuring it includes up-to-date publications, abstracts, and presentations.

Weill Cornell Medical College

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Please write a brief statement giving your reasons for applying to Weill Cornell Medical College. (1,525 characters)

2. Describe a setback or failure that required you to reassess your approach. How did you respond? (1,525 characters)

3. Please share something you became curious about and chose to explore further. What motivated your interest, and what did you learn through the process? (This does not have to be related to medicine). (1,525 characters)

4. Describe a time when your perspective was challenged by someone with a different viewpoint. How did you engage with that difference, and what did you take away from the experience? (1,525 characters)

Conditional Essay Prompt

5. If you are NOT attending college full time during the upcoming (2026-2027) academic year, what are your plans? (1,525 characters)

Check out some Cornell medical school secondary essay samples?

Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine - New York

Program: DO

Required Essay Prompt

1. In no more than three paragraphs that will fit on this single page (if the essay creates a second page, it is too long), please discuss how your background, experience or academic program has prepared you for meeting Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine’s Mission, Goals, or Objectives. (Three paragraphs; one page)

New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine

Program: DO

Latest available prompts: 2025–2026

Required Essay Prompts

1. Briefly describe the reasons for your campus/site choice and comment on one or two factors that are most important to you in choosing where you wish to pursue your medical education. (1,000 characters)

2. Based on your experiences within your community, workplaces, educational experiences, and your unique attributes, in what ways will you contribute to the NYITCOM Community? (1,000 characters)

3. Describe the community in which you see yourself practicing medicine. (1,000 characters)

Conditional Essay Prompt

4. If yes, what specific steps have you taken to strengthen your credentials for the current application year? (1,000 characters)

Application Questions

5. Which NYITCOM campus/site are you interested in attending? (The NYITCOM Admissions Committee reserves the right to recommend the best campus fit for you based upon your complete application.)

6. Would you consider attending either campus?

7. Have you previously applied to NYITCOM?

8. Do you have any immediate family members (ONLY grandparents, parents, brothers/sisters, spouses) who have graduated from NYIT College of Osteopathic Medicine?

9. If you do, please provide their name, relationship, and year of graduation from NYITCOM. (200 characters)

10. How and where did you learn about NYITCOM? (250 characters)

11. Are you interested in any concurrent degree programs?

Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. When you imagine your professional life 20 years from now, what do you see?

2. Describe a time when you persisted toward a desired goal despite challenges or barriers. How did you stay motivated, and what resources did you use?

3. Medical school presents emotional and professional challenges. Describe a difficult academic situation, how you managed it and how you supported your well-being.

4. East Carolina University’s motto is Servire—to serve. Describe your most meaningful community-service project or experience unrelated to patient care.

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Describe an experience where you attempted a task and realized during the process that you were not ready for it. How did this experience impact your approach to trying new things? (250 words)

2. How will your life experiences foster a positive educational environment and benefit your future patients? (250 words)

3. Discuss your involvement in a service activity that has impacted your understanding of healthcare and your desire to pursue a career in medicine. (250 words)

4. What motivates you to apply to the UNC School of Medicine? (250 words)

Duke University School of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Share with us your story. (400 words)

2. Trust and rapport are essential in your day-to-day interactions with people. How do you build a relationship with a person who may be very different from you? (400 words)

3. Describe a situation in which you chose to advocate for someone or for a cause different than yours. Define your view of advocacy. What risks, if any, might be associated with your choice to be an advocate? (400 words)

4. Describe a time when you received feedback following a setback. What did you do to implement change? (400 words)

5. What do you value most as a leader and as a contributor? What attributes do you possess as a leader and as a team member and how do you apply them on a daily basis? (400 words)

6. Critical thinking involves a number of characteristics. Describe any research experience or similar experience in which you utilized critical thinking. How will critical thinking be important in your future career? (400 words)

7. Drawing from your clinical experiences, how have you fostered a connection with people? (400 words)

8. Which personal quality or skill of yours have you found to be the most beneficial in building relationships within your community? (400 words)

9. Potential sources of health inequity exist. Duke’s Moments to Movement initiative represents a collective commitment to address them. Discuss your experience with disparities in health, healthcare and society. (400 words)

Optional Essay Prompt

10. Please let us know any additional information that you would like us to consider while reviewing your application. (400 words)

Here are some Duke medical school secondary essay examples for inspiration!

Wake Forest University School of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. The mission of our academic health system is to improve health for all. Consider your abilities, insights, and previous experiences and then tell us about your potential to help improve health for all. (200 words)

2. Describe a non-academic challenge you have faced and explain how you overcame it. (200 words or less)

3. From your list of "most meaningful experiences" on the AMCAS application, choose one that has been the most formative in terms of your desire for a career in medicine. Why did that experience have such meaning for you in your decision-making process? (200 words or less)

4. Please share an experience that demonstrates how you have collaborated with others. (200 words or less)

5. Tell us about a time you have committed yourself to something. (200 words or less)

6. Tell us about any specific reason(s) (personal, educational, etc.) why you see yourself here at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine. (150 words or less)

7. Please tell us an interesting fact about yourself that a casual acquaintance may find surprising or interesting. (50 words or less)

Campbell University Jerry M. Wallace School of Osteopathic Medicine

Program: DO

Required Essay Prompts

1. Which person in your life has contributed most to your choice of a career in medicine and describe how that individual influenced your decision to be a physician? (No word limit)

2. The MISSION of Campbell University School of Osteopathic Medicine (CUSOM) is to educate and prepare community–based osteopathic physicians in a Christian environment to care for the rural and under-served populations in North Carolina, the Southeastern United States, and the nation. Briefly describe how your career goals align with the CUSOM Mission. (4,000 characters)

3. Identify three of your core values and discuss how these values align with the CUSOM Mission. (4,000 characters)

Methodist University Cape Fear Valley Health School of Medicine 

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Describe a time you served a community in need. What impact did it have on you and others? (200 words)

2. Discuss a health disparity you are passionate about addressing. What steps would you take as a medical student and future physician to make progress on this issue? (200 words)

3. What is something you want to share that is not reflected elsewhere in your application? (200 words)

Optional Essay Prompt

4. Describe any connection you have to North Carolina or southeastern North Carolina. (150 words)

University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. The primary purpose of the UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences is to educate physicians and other health professionals for subsequent service in North Dakota and to enhance the quality of life of its people. Please explain how your past medical/clinical and community service experiences and your career goals are consistent with this purpose. (1,200 characters)

2. Describe an ethical dilemma that presented itself to you. Identify your choices, potential consequences and your resolution of the dilemma. In hindsight, what did you learn about yourself? (1,200 characters)

3. Describe and reflect on a specific experience you have had with people of a different socioeconomic, ethnic, racial, cultural or religious/spiritual background than yourself. What preconceived notions did you have prior to the experience? How did the experience challenge your preconceived notions? (1,200 characters)

4. The UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences invests in the discovery of knowledge that benefits the people of this state and enhances the quality of their lives. Reflect on your personal experience with the process of scientific discovery. What aspect was most frustrating? Most rewarding? How might these lessons be transferable to the practice of medicine? (1,200 characters)

5. Reflect on an experience in which you demonstrated creativity and innovation, where you generated an idea and implemented it to achieve an outcome. Examples may include a musical or theatrical performance, work of art, publication, invention, start-up, public service or any other major production or installation. How did it contribute to your personal growth? What skills did you gain that will help you as a future physician? (1,200 characters)

6. The UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences is a community-based medical school, and because of the unique circumstances of our regional location, we place special emphasis on the unique skills needed to provide care for patients and populations in rural and Native American communities across all competencies.

7. Reflect on a specific health care disparity affecting rural and/or Native American populations that you may have engaged with or studied and how you, as a future physician, might help to alleviate that disparity. (1,200 characters)

8. Reflect on your role in a particularly impactful leadership or team experience in which your efforts resulted in a meaningful outcome. (1,200 characters)

9. What are your career plans if you do not ever get admitted to medical school? (600 characters)

Optional Application Update and Questions

10. If needed, update the information in your AMCAS application (i.e., grades in recent courses, alterations in your proposed coursework or graduation, additions to extracurricular activities, unreported legal and institutional infractions, etc.). (600 characters)

11. Are you currently enrolled in a grant-funded and/or degree-granting postbaccalaureate program and/or advanced degree? If so, what is your timeline for completion? (600 characters)

Conditional Essay Prompt

12. UND SMHS Reapplicants Only: When was your previous application, and, subsequently, what steps have you taken to strengthen your candidacy? Note any relevant academic, employment, clinical, and personal experience and/or development. If you requested feedback from the Office of Student Affairs & Admissions regarding a previous application, please list how you addressed that feedback. (1,200 characters)

Additional Application Questions

13. Residency History: List each permanent residence, starting with your place of birth and the number of years at each residence. Please list the City, State, County and the amount of time you lived there.

• Which of these would you consider your hometown?
• List the high school, city, state, county and zip code you graduated from.
• Do you or have you lived in a Minnesota Red River Valley County? If yes, please list the county.
• Are you a current resident of a WICHE-sending state of Wyoming or Montana?

14. Excluding online degrees, are you, or will you be at the time of matriculation, a graduate of a North Dakota college or university?

15. Are you currently serving in the military, and if so, do your orders place you in North Dakota?

16. Excluding online degrees, do you have a first-degree family member (mother, father, sibling, child or spouse) who is attending or is a graduate of a North Dakota college or university? List family member(s) and the college or university they attended.

17. Do you have family members who have permanent residence in North Dakota? List the family members, their relation to you, and what city in North Dakota they currently live in.

18. Have you participated in any of these UND pathway programs (indicate all that apply):

• Scrubs Camp
• Scrubs Academy
• HOSA Future Health Professionals
• HIPAA training for grades 7-12 to shadow
• Med Prep
• Summer Institute
• Pre-Med Day
• TRIO/Student Support Services
• Pre Med Foundations Course at UND

19. Have you read the UND SMHS Standards of Capacity policy, and are you prepared to meet these standards with or without reasonable accommodations?

Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine

Program: MD and MD/PhD

Required Essay Prompts for University Program Applicants

1. Personal Challenge: The Admissions Committee is interested in gaining more insight into you as a person. Please describe a significant personal challenge you have faced that helped 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. (2,000 characters)

2. Context of Care: Describe an experience (or experiences) that changed how you understand the relationship between a person’s health and the conditions of their life. (1,500 characters)

Optional Essay Prompts for University Program Applicants

3. Research/Scholarly Work (if applying to University Program only): One of the four pillars of the Western Reserve2 Curriculum is Research and Scholarship. While research is not a required prerequisite for the University Program, if you have participated in research or other scholarly project (capstone project, honors thesis, etc.), please reflect on the prompts below where relevant.

Have you participated in research or a scholarly project (capstone project, honors thesis, etc.)? (Yes or No)

If yes:

A. Briefly describe your research/scholarly project and your role in it. If you have participated in multiple projects, choose one to discuss. (600 characters max)

B. What did you learn from the project? (600 characters max)

C. If you worked in a team, what did you learn about team dynamics? (600 characters max)

D. What challenges, if any, manifested during the project and how were they overcome? (600 characters max)

4. Gap Year(s) if applicable: If applicable, please reflect on the time you are taking between college graduation and medical school matriculation, including why you chose to take a gap/growth year(s) and what you will be doing or have done during this time. (1,000 characters)

5. Additional Information: Is there any further information that you wish to share with the Admissions Committee that may not be captured in the rest of your application? (2,000 charact

Required Essay Prompts for MSTP Applicants

1. Personal Challenge: The Admissions Committee is interested in gaining more insight into you as a person. Please describe a significant personal challenge you have faced that helped 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. (2,000 characters)

2. Context of Care: Describe an experience—or experiences—that changed how you understand the relationship between a person’s health and the conditions of their life. (1,500 characters)

3. PhD Advisor: What do you look for in a PhD advisor, and who at CWRU would interest you? (800 characters)

4. Area of Interest: What is your specific interest in the MSTP at CWRU? (800 characters)

5. What is the hardest academic or research challenge you have faced so far? How did you handle it? (1,000 characters)

Optional for MSTP Applicants

6. Gap Year or Years: If applicable, reflect on the time between college graduation and medical-school matriculation, including why you chose to take one or more gap or growth years and what you have done or will do during that time. (1,000 characters)

7. Additional Information: Is there any further information you wish to share with the Admissions Committee that may not be captured elsewhere in your application? (2,000 characters)

Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Personal Challenge: The Admissions Committee is interested in gaining more insight into you as a person. Please describe a significant personal challenge you have faced that helped 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. (2,000 characters)

2. Research: Please tell us about ONE research project to which you made a significant contribution. In your essay, describe your role on the project, the hypothesis of your research and whether you contributed to hypothesis generation, why the methods were selected to answer that hypothesis, your results, and interpretation of your results with respect to future findings. In addition, please briefly share your motivation for pursuing this research project and reflect on how this experience affected your future career goals. (3,500 characters)

3. Context of Care: Describe an experience (or experiences) that changed how you understand the relationship between a person’s health and the conditions of their life. (1,500 characters)

4. Career Goals: What does your ideal career entail fifteen years after medical school graduation? (1,000 characters)

Optional Essay Prompts

5. Gap Year(s) if applicable: If applicable, please reflect on the time you are taking between college graduation and medical school matriculation, including why you chose to take a gap/growth year(s) and what you will be doing or have done during this time. (1,000 characters)

6. Additional Information: Is there any further information that you wish to share with the Admissions Committee that may not be captured in the rest of your application? (2,000 characters)

Northeast Ohio Medical University

Program: MD

Latest available prompt: 2025-2026

Required Essay Prompt

1. NEOMED Personal Statement: Please complete a brief personal statement of 5,000 characters or fewer addressing the question below:

What do you hope to achieve from your experience as a NEOMED student? (5,000 characters or fewer)

The Ohio State University College of Medicine

Program: MD and MD/PhD

Required Essay Prompts

1. The mission statement of The Ohio State University College of Medicine is to “improve people’s lives” through innovation in research, medical education, and patient care. Describe experiences that best demonstrate your potential to contribute meaningfully to two of these areas. What did you learn through these experiences, and how do they shape your goals as a future physician? (250 words)

2. Describe an experience that shaped your understanding of health inequities in the United States. What factors were involved, and how did this experience influence your perspective or actions? (250 words)

The University of Toledo College of Medicine

Program: MD and PhD

Required Essay Prompts

1. The University of Toledo College of Medicine and Life Sciences’ mission is to “improve health in the communities and region we serve by educating and training excellent clinicians and scientists, providing high-quality patient care and conducting nationally recognized research”. Values contributing to this mission are the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Premed Competencies of:

• Commitment to Learning and Growth
• Scientific Inquiry
• Service Orientation

Please describe how your past experiences predict your potential to contribute to at least one of these mission areas, and reflect on how the corresponding AAMC Premed Competencies have shaped your personal and professional development. (600 words)

2. One of the AAMC Core Competencies for entering medical students involves resilience and adaptability. This competency involves the ability to tolerate stressful or changing environments or situations and adapt effectively to them. Additional characteristics of this competency are persistence and the ability to recover from setbacks. Discuss a specific experience from your life that you feel demonstrates your level of competence in resilience and adaptability as described above.

As part of your discussion, explain how you feel this experience will help you meet new challenges you may face in medical school. (600 words)

Optional Essay Prompts

3. We invite you to briefly discuss any connections you may have to the region of Northwest Ohio. (400 words)

4. If you feel you have any aspects of your record that may potentially negatively influence your application to our medical school, we encourage you to use this space to discuss them in order to provide the admissions committee with further context about your application. (Examples of possible topics include MCAT scores lower than our class average, low grades, withdrawn course, institutional action/student conduct violation.) (400 words)

University of Cincinnati College of Medicine

Program: MD and MD/PhD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Mission Fit: Describe your interest in the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. Which opportunities or resources would you pursue as a student, and why are they important to your goals? (2,000 characters)

2. Personal Growth: Discuss any elements of your application that you feel might be concerning to the Admissions Committee. (This could include explanation of metric trends, institutional actions, legal violations, etc.). You may answer N/A if there are no concerns you would like to discuss. (2,000 characters)

3. Additional Information, if applicable: Are you a UCCOM re-applicant? Explain how you and your application have changed since your previous submission, and tell us what you have learned along the way. You may answer N/A if not a re-applicant. (2,000 characters)

Additional Requirements for MD/PhD Applicants

Applicants to the University of Cincinnati Medical Scientist Training Program must also complete a separate MSTP secondary application. The current MSTP-specific prompt wording is not publicly available on the program’s website. Applicants should confirm the questions and response limits in their MSTP applicant portal.

Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine

Program: MD

Latest available prompts: 2025–2026

Required Essay Prompt

1. What is the primary reason that you have chosen to apply to the Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine? (750 characters)

Conditional Essay Prompts

2. If there has been a significant economic hardship, please explain the circumstances. If none, please enter N/A. (750 characters)

3. If you are a re-applicant, how has your application changed since the previous cycle? If not, please enter N/A. (750 characters)

4. Are there any specific patient populations that you desire to serve as a physician? If so how do you envision yourself serving those populations? (750 characters)

5. If there has been or will be a gap in your education, please describe how you have/will use this time. If not, please enter N/A. (750 characters)

6. If you consider yourself a non-traditional candidate, please explain. If not, please enter N/A. (750 characters)

7. Briefly describe any extenuating circumstances which you believe are pertinent to your application (i.e., poor grades, withdrawn courses, life events). If none, please enter N/A. (750 characters)

8. If you have attended any allopathic or osteopathic medical school, as a candidate for an M.D. or D.O., please list the name of the school and explain the reason for separation. If not, please enter N/A. (750 characters)

9. If you are not a current resident of the state of Ohio, please describe your connection to Ohio. If not, please enter N/A. (750 characters)

10. If you have a non-familial connection to Wright State University or the Boonshoft School of Medicine, please describe your connection. If none, please enter N/A. (750 characters)

Application Questions

11. If you earned a medically related certificate/license, how many hours have you worked in that role since earning your certificate/license? If not, please enter N/A. (100 characters)

12. If either of your parents are graduates of Wright State University or the Boonshoft School of Medicine, please list their name(s) and graduation year(s). If not, please enter N/A. (100 characters)

13. If you have other relatives that are Wright State University or Boonshoft School of Medicine alumni, current students, faculty or staff, please list their name(s). If not, please enter N/A. (100 characters)

14. If you have applied to Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine in a previous cycle, please indicate the year(s) of your previous application(s). If not, please enter N/A. (100 characters)

Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine

Program: DO

Latest available prompts: 2025–2026

Required Essay Prompt

1. There are philosophical and tangible differences between osteopathic and allopathic medicine. Describe what being an osteopathic physician means to you, and what qualities make a good osteopathic physician. What have you done to gain knowledge and experience of osteopathic medicine?

2. Select one of the following:

Option 1: Describe the community in which you were nurtured or spent the majority of your early development. What core values did you receive and how will these translate into the contributions you hope to make to your community as a medical student and later as a physician?

OR

Option 2: There are multiple paths that lead to medical school and many obstacles along the way. Please describe the unique path that has led you to medicine as well as any obstacle or adversity that you had to overcome in achieving this goal. How will this experience affect your career as a physician?

OR

Option 3: What has been your most meaningful life experience (I.e., family situation, clinical or shadowing experience, volunteer experience, etc.) that influenced your decision to pursue medicine?

University of Oklahoma College of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. What aspects of the OU College of Medicine’s mission, values, curriculum, or community drew you to apply? Describe how your goals, experiences, or interests align with what our institution uniquely offers. (450 words)

2. Describe a meaningful experience where you engaged in service, advocacy, community partnership, or work with underserved or marginalized populations. What did you learn about the factors that influence community health, and how will this shape your approach to medicine? (450 words)

3. Medical education environments differ in structure, culture, and emphasis. Describe the kind of learning environment in which you believe you will thrive. What combination of experiences, such as community-engaged learning, longitudinal clinical experiences, team-based or interprofessional care, research and scholarly opportunities, population-health initiatives, or exposure to a broad range of clinical settings, will best support your growth as a future physician, and why? (250 words)

Additional Requirements for School of Community Medicine Track Applicants

Applicants selecting the OU School of Community Medicine track in Tulsa complete an additional section. The current track-specific questions could not be confirmed publicly and should be verified in the applicant portal.

Oklahoma State University College of Osteopathic Medicine

Program: DO

Required Essay Prompt

1. What experiences have motivated you toward a career in osteopathic medicine? Please share a meaningful experience you have had while in the health professional field. (300 words)

Optional Essay Prompt

2. Is there any additional information you would like the college to know about you? (500 words)

Required Application Question

3. Which of the following Elective Programs are you interested in? Global Health/ Rural Medicine/Tribal Medicine/Urban Underserved. Please explain what interests you about this elective program? (No stated limit)

Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine

Program: MD

Latest available prompts: 2025–2026

Required Essay Prompts

1. Tell of a patient experience that influenced your perspective on becoming a physician. (1,550 characters)

2. Describe the effect of an endeavor that didn’t go according to your plan. (1,550 characters)

3. Discuss a time in your life that demonstrated your resilience and ability to overcome adversity. How did this change you? (1,550 characters)

4. How does intellectual and academic struggle fit into your identity as a future physician? (2,050 characters)

5. Discuss your experience of recent personal feedback that was difficult to receive. (1,550 characters)

6. Describe a time when you had to reconsider or change a deeply held belief or perspective. What prompted this change? (1,550 characters)

7. Describe a time personal obligations had to be prioritized over school/work. What did it teach you about managing competing priorities? (1,550 characters)

Optional Essay Prompt

8. Are there any additional ties to the state of Oregon you wish to share? If yes, use the space below. If no, leave blank. Please note that this does not factor toward your consideration as an Oregon resident or Oregon Heritage.

Optional Application Question

9. We know that many of our applicants in the OHSU UME Program may have familial relationships with individuals who are OHSU faculty, residents, staff, or current students who serve as evaluators in our admissions process. We have added this question in hopes to prevent perceived or actual conflicts of interest that can occur when an applicant has a family member (or someone with a similar close personal relationship) they may encounter through the admissions process.

If you have any such connections, please list those individuals’ names and departments below. If no, leave blank.

Supplemental Information Questions

10. Based on your own experiences or the experiences of family and friends, do you believe that the area in which you grew up was adequately served by the available health care professionals? Were there enough physicians, nurses, hospitals, clinics, and other health care service providers and how did that affect your experience and relationship with health care? Please explain. (4,000 characters)

11. While you were growing up, did you experience any of the following types of adversity? (Economic, Educational, Ethnic/Cultural, Family).

12. Please describe the nature of the adversity and how social, economic, academic, or other circumstances affected you and your opportunities. (4,000 characters)

Optional Supplemental Information Prompt

13. We acknowledge that our application is not fully comprehensive. If there is anything additional you would like to let us know about you, please briefly state it here. (550 characters)

Western University of Health Sciences Heatherington College of Osteopathic Medicine

Program: DO

Latest available prompts: 2025–2026

Required Essay Prompts

1. What experience observing a DO solidified your desire or ambition to become an osteopathic physician? This may include formal shadowing, scribing, observing your own physician or observing a friend or family member who is a DO. (500 words)

2. If you have not had the opportunity to shadow or observe a DO, why is it important to you to become an osteopathic physician? (500 words)

3. What was your most memorable community-service activity, and how did your activity benefit the community? (500 words)

4. How does the COMP Northwest mission statement align with your values? (500 words)

5. Why do you want to attend COMP Northwest in Lebanon, Oregon? (500 words)

Conditional Essay Prompt

6. Have you participated in research?

If yes: Briefly describe your role and the skills you gained through the research. Provide a link to the publication or abstract where possible. (500 words)

Optional Essay Prompts

7. Briefly discuss any extenuating circumstances pertinent to your application, such as poor grades, course withdrawals or a lapse in your education. (500 words)

8. If you have not taken coursework for more than three years, explain why and describe what you have been doing during that period. (500 words)

Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

Program: MD and MD/PhD

Required Essay Prompts

1. How would your life experiences contribute to the Perelman and Penn community, and how do they inform your decision to pursue a medical education? (1,000 characters)

2. We all periodically have to make decisions under challenging circumstances. Physicians and physician-scientists sometimes need to proceed and act with limited information. Please describe a time when you faced a situation that was ambiguous, confusing, or uncertain, and how you navigated the matter despite lacking all of the necessary information. (3,000 characters)

3. Please share your reasons for applying to the Perelman School of Medicine. (1,000 characters)

Conditional Essay Prompts

4. Have you taken or are you planning to take time off between college graduation and medical school matriculation?

If yes: Please describe your activities during this time. (700 characters)

5. Have you participated in any global activities outside of the U.S. prior to submitting your AMCAS application? (1,000 characters)

6. Have you or your family experienced economic hardships, regardless of current income status? (1,000 characters)

Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine

Program: MD

Latest available prompts: 2025–2026

Required Essay Prompts

1. Is there a unique aspect of your application that should be considered by the Admissions Committee? (75 words)

2. Explain why you decided to apply to Penn State College of Medicine. (75 words)

Conditional Essay Prompt

3. Applicants not currently enrolled in a full-time academic program: Summarize your activities from completion of your bachelor’s degree through the present application and your plans before medical-school matriculation. (75 words)

Drexel University College of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Tell us about yourself and why you feel like you may be a good fit for Drexel University College of Medicine. (1,500 characters)

2. We recognize that each applicant's journey is unique. If there were any extenuating circumstances that limited your involvement in service, academic, or other preparatory experiences—including MCAT preparation/taking—please share them here. If none, simply type "N/A" in the response area. (1,500 characters)

3. If you have applied to medical school before, reflect on any meaningful experiences, growth, or updates that you feel have enhanced your application since the last time you applied. If this is your first application cycle, simply type "N/A" in the response area. (1,500 characters)

Optional Essay Prompt

4. Why are you interested in the Philadelphia/West Reading campus specifically? (250 words)

Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompt

1. Sidney Kimmel Medical College defines diversity as the richness in human differences. How will your own experiences allow you to contribute to the diversity of the student body and to provide equitable and inclusive care to your future patients? (2,500 characters)

Optional Essay Prompt

2. Do you have additional information that you would like to provide at this time? (4,000 characters)

Application Questions

3. Have you previously applied to Sidney Kimmel Medical College?

4. Do you have a parent who received an M.D. degree from Jefferson Medical College or completed residency or fellowship training at Jefferson?

5. Are either of your parents members of the Jefferson faculty?

6. Do you have a spouse who has graduated or is currently attending Sidney Kimmel Medical College?

7. Do you have a sibling who has graduated or is currently attending Sidney Kimmel Medical College?

8. Are you applying to one of the following educational programs?

• Physician Shortage Area Program
• DIMER Program
• MD/MPH
• Jeff BEACON

9. Have you ever been convicted of a crime other than a minor traffic or parking violation?

10. If invited for an interview, from which city and state will you be traveling?

Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University

Program: MD and MD/PhD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Tell us about your special interest in the first-choice campus you selected. (2,000 characters)

2. Founded on a historic commitment to expanding access to education and healthcare, the Lewis Katz School of Medicine emphasizes a mission rooted in training physicians who combine scientific excellence with deep humanistic commitment. Our mission and vision highlight the importance of compassionate care, community engagement, and a drive to improve health outcomes through innovation, advocacy, and service. Please share how your experiences and/or activities reflect these values and how they shape the physician you hope to become. (2,000 characters)

3. The Admissions Committee would like to know more about you. Katz seeks an engaged student body with a wide variety of experiences, perspectives, and interests to enhance the medical school experience for everyone. Please use the space below to describe what makes you unique as an applicant, an obstacle that you had to overcome, or how you will contribute to the Katz community. (2,000 characters)

4. What are your plans for the current year - June 2026 until June 2027? (2,000 characters)

Optional Application Question

5. Please confirm whether your institutional action (IA) disclosure on your AMCAS application is correct. If you need to update it, please explain. (2,000 characters)

Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Do you plan to apply for the Abigail Geisinger Scholars Program? (1,500 characters)

If yes: Which specialty are you interested in? Please share with the Admissions Committee what primary care means to you, and why you believe you are a good fit for the Abigail Geisinger Scholars Program.

If no: Given Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine's unique mission and values, please tell us why you believe you are a good fit for our institution.

2. List the five most important attributes you believe a physician should possess. Please choose one that you believe you embody and describe a personal experience that demonstrates this trait. (1,500 characters)

3. GCSOM prioritizes the delivery of evidence-based medicine through compassionate and culturally humble care for all patients, particularly for the communities of Northeast and Central Pennsylvania. How will you contribute to these priorities? (1,500 characters)

4. If you have previously applied to medical school, please describe your significant experiences between this year's application and your previous application. If you are not a previous applicant, please type, "N/A" in the response area. (1,500 characters)

University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. How do you see yourself fitting into our curriculum, given your personality traits and learning style? What aspects do you expect will come naturally to you, and what challenges do you anticipate? (250 words)

2. Tell us about a challenging situation in which a belief or assumption you made was challenged by new evidence or experience. How did you respond in the moment, and what did you do afterward? (250 words)

3. Respect for others and the ability to empathize with people from different backgrounds are integral to the successful practice of medicine. Describe a situation you observed that illustrates the impact of respect and empathy. What did you learn from this experience, and how has it influenced the type of physician you aspire to become? (250 words)

Optional Essay Prompt

4. If you wish, use this space to tell the UPSOM Admissions Committee anything else about yourself. (250 words)

Duquesne University Nasuti College of Osteopathic Medicine

Program: DO

Required Essay Prompts

1. Why do you want to become a physician, and how are you a good fit for DUQCOM's mission? (250–500 words)

2. Can you describe an experience where you faced and overcame adversity? (250–500 words)

Required Essay Prompt — Select One

3. Choose one of the following: (250–500 words)

Option 1: How have your experiences and understanding of social determinants of health influenced your perspective on patient care and your approach to practicing medicine?

OR

Option 2: Can you share an example of an altruistic experience you've had and explain how it influenced your desire to pursue a career in medicine?

Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine

Program: DO

Latest available prompt: 2025–2026

1. What one aspect of the PCOM campus mission and/or community resonates with your personality and values? (2,000 characters)

Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine

Program: DO

No written secondary essays reported for 2026–2027

The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Summarize your activities during this academic year. Describe how your activities are preparing you for a medical career. (2,000 characters)

2. How will your unique attributes, life experiences and interests add to The Warren Alpert Medical School community? (2,000 characters)

3. Reflect on a non-academic situation in which you had to change course and explain how you did so. (3,000 characters)

Optional Application Question

4. Brown generally conducts interviews between September and February. Explain any significant limitations on your availability during this period. Leave the field blank if none apply. (500 characters)

Medical University of South Carolina College of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Please discuss your primary interest in attending the Medical University of South Carolina. (2,000 characters)

3. We desire to train students and physicians to work with the diverse patients of our state and nation. Please share any important aspects of your background, identity, and/or experiences that have impacted your ability to relate to and work with diverse communities and patient populations. (3,000 characters)

Conditional Essay Prompts

4. Re-applicants: If you are a re-applicant, please describe what you have done since last applying (i.e. your activities, involvement, preparedness, etc.) to strengthen your candidacy for medical school. (2,000 characters)

5. Out-of-state applicants: If you are not a legal resident of South Carolina, please describe in detail your strong Close Ties to South Carolina. Close Ties are defined as: (1) Having lived in SC for multiple years, (2) Parents who currently live full-time in SC, (3) Completed the majority of your education in SC (i.e. enrolled in or graduate of an undergraduate and/or graduate degree from a South Carolina institution), (4) and/or currently living in and/or working in South Carolina. (3,000 characters)

University of South Carolina School of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. What are your medical practice goals? (2,500 characters)

2. In what region of the country do you want to practice medicine? Why? (2,500 characters)

3. What areas of medicine are you interested in at this time, or what areas do you plan to pursue? (2,500 characters)

4. Do you have any accomplishments or experiences that make you a unique applicant?

Explain any impact that COVID-19 may have had on your educational, research, volunteering or employment plans. (2,500 characters)

5. Working as part of a team is an important aspect of your medical education at our School of Medicine and as a practitioner in the future. Please share at least one experience where you worked as part of a team to accomplish a goal/objective. What was your role as a part of the team and what did you learn from working with others? How did you deal with conflict on the team and/or working with a team member who you disagreed with?  (2,500 characters)

Conditional Essay Prompts

7. Reapplicants: What additional qualifications have you acquired since your last application?

8. Applicants with additional South Carolina ties: Do you have any other ties to South Carolina that you would like the Admissions Committee to consider?

9. Applicants who have graduated: Describe your employment status since you completed your bachelor's degree (part-time, full-time, and dates). (2,500 characters)

University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville

Program: MD

Latest available cycle: 2025-2026

Required Essay Prompts

1. At USCSOM Greenville, Lifestyle Medicine is integrated into all four years of the curriculum. Explain how you envision lifestyle medicine affecting your experience as a medical student and as a practicing physician. (500 words)

2. Service is a stated value in the school’s mission and is central to the USCSOM Greenville community. Share a service experience that has been significant in your journey and reflect on what motivates your commitment to continue serving others through medicine. (500 words)

University of South Dakota Sanford School of Medicine

Program: MD and MD/PhD

Latest available prompts: 2025-2056

Required Essay Prompts

1. Given the mission statement of the school, please explain how your experiences and long-term goals would help meet the mission. (1,500 characters)

2.Given the diversity statement of the school, explain how your background and experiences with diversity will bring value to the school. (1,500 characters)

3. Describe how your experiences in health care or social care activities will help you become a good physician. (1,500 characters)

4. Briefly describe a crisis or significant challenge in your life, how you have worked through the crisis or challenge, and what you have learned from this experience. (1,500 characters)

5. What are your career plans in the event that you are not admitted to a medical school this year or after several applications? (1,500 characters)

6. Knowledge and skill are crucial, but why should a physician be kind? (5,000 characters)

Conditional Essay Prompts

7. Repeat applicants only: Since your last application, what steps have you taken to strengthen your candidacy? Please note any relevant academic, employment, clinical and personal experience. (1,500 characters)

8. Non-South Dakota residents applying to the regular MD program: Please describe your ties to South Dakota. (1,500 characters)

Optional Essay Prompts

9. Please use this space to update the information contained on your AMCAS application (i.e. grades in recent courses; alterations in your proposed coursework or graduation; additions to your extracurricular activities) or anything else you want the committee to know. (1,500 characters)

10. Please share and explain any disruptions/hardships in your academic, volunteer, work, and/or personal life related to COVID-19 that you would like the Admissions Committee to consider. (5,000 characters)

11. Please use the space below for anything you might wish to discuss related to the corona virus (COVID-19) public health crisis. Possible topics might include, for example: your biggest lessons and insights from the pandemic; creative ways in which you were able to serve your community during the crisis; how the pandemic has affected your outlook on the role of medicine. (5,000 characters)

East Tennessee State University James H. Quillen College of Medicine

Program: MD

Latest available prompts: 2025–2026

Required Essay Prompts

1. Why have you chosen to apply to Quillen College of Medicine? How do your personal and professional goals align with Quillen’s mission and values? (1,500 characters)

2. Quillen College of Medicine’s curriculum is designed to foster excellence in clinical practice through active, in-person participation and peer co-learning. This approach requires individual preparation, engagement in participatory class sessions, and a commitment to mutual coaching among peers. We believe that meaningful learning extends beyond academics and can be found in all areas of life.

To help us understand how you will thrive in our community, please reflect on the significance of this learning model in your personal and professional development. In your response, consider the following:

• Describe a time when you navigated a challenging group learning experience. What was your role, and how did you contribute to the group’s success?
• Discuss the value you find in learning through teaching and coaching your peers.
• How does this approach enhance your understanding and application of material?

You are encouraged to draw from both academic and non-academic experiences to illustrate your points. (1,500 characters)

Required Essay Prompt — Select One

3. Choose one:

• Explain how your life experiences have prepared you to treat patients with respect, compassion and dignity when their backgrounds or beliefs differ from your own.
• Describe a project or initiative you undertook to improve your community, including your motivation, challenges, impact and lessons learned.
• Share information about yourself that has not been presented elsewhere in your application.

(1,500 characters)

Meharry Medical College

Program: MD

Latest available prompts: 2025–2026

Required Essay Prompts

1. Statement of Purpose: Why do you wish to attend Meharry Medical College, School of Medicine?

2. Statement of Resilience: Please describe a personal situation of failure, significant challenge or a major obstacle that you have overcome. Include a description of your coping skills and lessons you learned about yourself from that situation.

University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Medicine

Program: MD

Latest available prompts: 2025–2026

Required Essay Prompt

1. Imagine you are a medical student in a clinic and encounter a patient whose cultural background and beliefs differ significantly from your own. The patient is hesitant about a treatment plan that is standard practice but conflicts with their personal beliefs. How would you approach this situation to ensure the patient feels heard and respected while also providing the best possible care. (3,000 characters)

Optional Essay Prompt

2. Any additional information not previously provided in the personal comments of your AMCAS primary application. (500 characters)

Conditional Application Question

3. List all courses you are taking or planning to take within the current academic year. List course(s), title, and credit hours. (If applicable)

Vanderbilt University School of Medicine

Program: MD and MD/PhD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Please reflect on the upbringing, background, and experiences in your life that have shaped who you are as a person and will help define the person you want to be in the future. In other words, what makes you who you are? (800 words)

2. Tell us about a time when you interacted with someone who is different than you. What did you learn? Would you do anything differently and if so, what? (600 words)

3. It is important to understand that everyone needs help at various times in their lives. Reflecting on the last five years, describe a time you asked for help and what you gained from that experience that has influenced your approach to asking for help. (600 words)

Optional Essay Prompt

4. Please briefly summarize your activities since graduating from college. If you are still enrolled in undergraduate studies, please comment on any new projects, roles or initiatives undertaken since submitting your AMCAS application. (200 words)

Baptist Health Sciences University College of Osteopathic Medicine

Program: DO

Latest available prompts: 2025–2026

Required Essay Prompts

1. BUCOM shares the values of our larger learning community at Baptist Health Sciences University such as integrity, professionalism, continuous improvement, and service as an expression of our Christian values. We foster a Christian environment where servant leadership is modeled in all aspects of learning, teaching, service, and business. Describe what it means to be a servant leader, and specifically how it connects to your decision to become an osteopathic physician. (250 words)

2. Please describe your experience working or volunteering in the healthcare sector. Provide details of the work you did as well as any direct patient encounters you had that were particularly meaningful. (250 words)

3. Describe the town or city where you spent the majority of your K-12 years including the general population size and make-up. Please include the closest major metropolitan city and how far away it is. (250 words)

Thomas F. Frist, Jr. College of Medicine at Belmont University

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Select the Frist value you find most energizing and explain why and how it has affected your life: We Love Learning, Lead by Serving, Live with Integrity, Heal Together in Humility or Welcome Difference. (2,000 characters)

2. Discuss how your spiritual experiences, faith or personal beliefs have influenced your life and your decision to pursue medicine. (2,000 characters)

3. Reflect on a time you embraced ambiguity and contributed to building a culture of growth, collaboration and adaptability. (2,000 characters)

Optional Essay Prompt

4. Reapplicants: Describe changes to your application since previous cycles, including academic, experiential or personal developments. (2,000 characters)

Lincoln Memorial University DeBusk College of Osteopathic Medicine

Program: DO

Latest available prompts: 2025–2026

Required Essay Prompt — Select One

1. Please write and attach the short essay addressing one of the following questions:

A) Medical school requires a huge commitment in time and energy. How have you prepared for this commitment?

OR

B) If you are a re-applicant please tell us what you have done to strengthen your application.

Optional Essay Prompt

2. Is there anything you want the admissions committee to know that you haven’t explained on your AACOMAS application?

University of Texas Southwestern Medical School

Program: MD and MD/PhD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Describe a group project or collaborative experience that you are most proud of. What was your role, and how did you contribute to the group's success? Reflect on how you navigated challenges or differing perspectives. (2,500 characters)

2. Describe a time that you have witnessed someone acting unethically or experienced a behavior of harassment or discrimination. What did you do? Describe your reaction. Is there anything you might do differently now in retrospect? (2,500 characters)

3. Describe an experience that deepened your understanding of people whose backgrounds or life experiences differ from your own. How did this experience shape your perspective? (2,500 characters)

4. Tell us about a community service experience that had a significant impact on you. What made it meaningful, and what did you learn through your involvement? (2,500 characters)

Optional Essay Prompt

4. Tell us about a community service experience that had a significant impact on you. What made it meaningful, and what did you learn through your involvement? (2,500 characters)

5. Please explain any academic discrepancies or extenuating circumstances that you feel the Admissions Committee should know. (2,500 characters)

Required for MD/PhD Applicants

1. Describe the type of research you are currently most interested in pursuing for your PhD training. You can be general or specific (e.g., genetics, biochemistry, Alzheimer’s disease, rational drug design, etc.). (500 characters)

2. Why are you interested in MD/PhD training at UT Southwestern in particular? (500 characters)

MD/PhD Application Questions

4. List names of up to five UT Southwestern faculty whose research is of particular interest to you.

5. If accepted, would you be able to start with a laboratory rotation by the date specified in the application?

Baylor College of Medicine

Program: MD and MD/PhD

Required Essay Prompts

1. In addition to training as a competent physician, please select up to two additional areas of interest from the items below that you may want to pursue during your medical studies. Your responses will have no bearing on applications to joint degrees or special programs to which you might also apply.

• Clinical Research
• Healthcare/disparities/medical underserved communities
• Academic Medicine
• Community Health
• Simulation in medical education
• Health systems science
• Telehealth
• Advocacy

What knowledge, skills and attitudes have you developed that have prepared you for this career path? (1,000 characters)

2. Indicate any special experiences, unusual factors or other information you feel would be helpful in evaluating you, including, but not limited to, education, employment, extracurricular activities, prevailing over adversity. You may expand upon but not repeat TMDSAS or AMCAS application information. This section is mandatory. Please make sure you submit an essay or your application will not be reviewed by the committee. (2,000 characters)

Conditional Essay Prompt

3. Are you planning to matriculate into medical school immediately after completing your undergraduate education?

If not: Please explain what activities and/or careers you have pursued in the time between your college education and your application. (No stated limit)

Additional Prompts for MD/PhD Applicants

1. Please describe your primary research Interests for PhD training. (1,000 characters)

2. Why do you think Baylor College of Medicine MD/PhD Program would be a good place for you to train to be a physician scientist? Please provide names of potential Baylor College of Medicine and/or Rice University faculty with whom you would like to work. (Will not limit final research project or mentor selection) (1,500 characters)

3. Tell us about a characteristic(s) that may enable you to interact with people from a wide range of ages, experiences, viewpoints, and backgrounds. (1,000 characters)

4. Published articles, please provide full citations.

John Sealy School of Medicine at the University of Texas Medical Branch

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts — Select Two

Select two of the following six prompts. Each response is limited to 300 words.

1. Describe a situation where your team's success depended on your ability to learn a new skill or perspective quickly. How did your contributions specifically alter the group's outcome?

2. Analyze a time that you made an error in a professional or academic setting. Provide your response, how you disclosed it, and any changes you made to prevent it from recurring.

3. Scientific inquiry is important for being a physician. Describe a time you encountered a claim or piece of information that you initially doubted. How did you verify the truth and how will this skepticism serve you as a physician?

4. Identify a specific trait that you look for in your physicians that you currently lack. What is your plan to develop this attribute during your time at John Sealy School of Medicine?

5. If you have any work experience, particularly with significant responsibilities, explain how those skills will help you be a better physician.

6. John Sealy School of Medicine at the University of Texas Medical Branch serves patients throughout Texas, focusing on Galveston County and the Gulf Coast Region. Are there particular characteristics of our school and/or the Galveston area in terms of location, history, regional mission, or other attributes that make you especially interested in matriculating here?

Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine at UT Health San Antonio

Program: MD

No written secondary essays required

University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston McGovern Medical School

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1.  Why do you feel that McGovern Medical School is the best fit for your medical education? In what way do you see yourself adding to the McGovern community? (1,000 characters)

2. Describe the most significant experience that has prepared you thus far for life in medical school. (1,000 characters)

3. Describe a time or situation where you have been unsuccessful or failed. What did you learn from this experience and how have you applied this learning to your work and/or life? (1,000 characters)

4. What’s one thing a mentor taught you that you still appreciate today?  (1,000 characters)

University of Texas Rio Grande Valley School of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) School of Medicine prepares physicians to serve communities in the Rio Grande Valley and other similarly underserved regions. Describe one significant health challenge affecting communities like those in the RGV. Briefly discuss how your experiences or observations have shaped your understanding of this issue, and how training in this environment may influence the kind of physician you hope to become. (250 words)

2. Describe a time when you worked with others to address a challenging problem that affected a group, organization, or community. Please discuss:

• The challenge or situation
• The outcome or impact of your collaboration
• What this experience taught you about collaboration, leadership, and working in healthcare
• How it might influence your future role as a physician

(250 words)

3. Describe an experience in which you were required to make a difficult decision. In your response, please discuss:

• How you approached the decision-making process
• The factors you considered
• The outcome of your decision
• What this experience taught you about responsibility, accountability, or leadership

(250 words)

4. Describe a commitment you have maintained over time to a community, organization, or cause. Discuss the nature of your involvement, why you remained committed and the impact of your commitment on the organization or community. (250 words)

Required Video Response

1. In 90 seconds, respond to the following prompt: Describe a time when your perspective changed. Explain what you initially believed, what led you to reconsider, and how your thinking evolved. You may take a moment to gather your thoughts before responding, and please focus on your reasoning and reflection.

Tilman J. Fertitta Family College of Medicine at the University of Houston

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompt

1. Why are you interested in the primary care field(s) and care of the community as a whole? (2,500 characters)

Application Questions

2. I have prior experience in a primary care setting with a general internal medicine physician, general pediatrician or family medicine physician. (Yes/No)

3. I have prior experience in a medical practice or social service for an underserved area. (Yes/No)

4. I have prior experience in community or public health. (Yes/No)

Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center Paul L. Foster School of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. The mission of the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso Paul L. Foster School of Medicine is to provide an outstanding education and development opportunities for a diverse group of students, residents, faculty, and staff; advance knowledge through innovation and research; and serve the needs of our socially and culturally diverse communities and region.” Recognizing the components of this mission and that PLFSOM is located on the US/Mexico border, please describe why you are interested in applying to our school. (300 words)

2. The Foster SOM student honor code states “In my capacity as a Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso School of Medicine medical student, I will uphold the dignity of the medical profession. I will, to the best of my ability, avoid actions which might result in harm to my patients. I will protect the dignity of my patients and the deceased and will protect their confidential information in accordance with the prevailing standards of medical practice. I will not lie, cheat, or steal. I will enter into professional relationships with my colleagues, teachers, and other health care professionals in a manner that is respectful and reflective of the high standards and expectations of my profession. I will not tolerate violations of this Code by others and will report such violations to the appropriate authorities.” Please describe past experiences or personal attributes that reflect your affinity with this honor code. (300 words)

3. Please describe any unique personal experiences or disadvantage (educational, financial or otherwise) and their significance to you in your pursuit of a medical degree. (300 words)

Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompt

1. Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center is responsible for providing primary health care to 108 counties of West Texas. We are interested in hearing about the areas of medicine that interest you.

Please indicate the area(s) of medicine you are interested in and briefly describe your significant activities for each respective interest in the available text box. (100 words)

• Practicing in an underserved area
• Rural Health
• Medical Research
• Medical Academics
• Primary Care
• Border Health
• Public Health
• Other

2. Please share any lessons learned during your academic journey. For example, a time a goal of yours was deterred and maybe even halted, how did you handle that situation? (250 words or less)

Conditional Essay Prompts

3. Please tell us about your favorite recreational/leisure activities. (100 words or less)

4. Please share with us your ideal practice. For example: Where would you practice? Who would your patients be? What would your specialty be? (100 words)

5. Have you experienced any road bumps in your academic career? Low academic performance, dropping, retaking or failing courses, etc.

If yes: Please explain. (250 words or less)

6. Have you experienced any hardship or adversity, personally or professionally?

If yes: Please share your experience with us. (200 words or less)

7. Do you consider yourself from West Texas or as having West Texas ties?

If yes: What town or county did you reside in, or what other factors would you cite? (100 words or less)

8. Do you consider yourself to be first generation?

If yes: Please explain your reasoning. (100 words or less)

Application Questions

9. If you are applying to a dual-degree program, please rank the programs in order of preference.

10 Are you applying to the MD/MBA program?

11. Are you applying to FMAT?

12. Have you participated in any TTUHSC special programs?

• Middle School to Medical School
• Early Dedication to Medical Education
• Future Healthcare Professional’s Experience
• Summer Enrichment Program
• Premedical Enrichment Program
• Graduate Medical Education Sciences

University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School

Program: MD

No written secondary essays required

Dell Medical School does not use traditional written secondary essays as its standard format. Selected applicants complete a video secondary application with mission-based questions and approximately two minutes to respond to each. Questions may vary by applicant.

Texas A&M University Naresh K. Vashisht College of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. As a physician, you never know what type of patient you will serve. From your past experiences, please describe or highlight factors or situations that demonstrate your ability to work with individuals from multicultural communities. (3,500 characters)

2. The Texas A&M University Naresh K. Vashisht College of Medicine embraces the Aggie Core Values of Respect, Excellence, Leadership, Loyalty, Integrity and Selfless Service. Please elaborate on personal characteristics, values, accomplishments and/or any experiences that you feel will help to demonstrate your potential to contribute to the college and to the profession of medicine. (3,500 characters)

Optional Essay Prompt

3. Describe or reflect on any circumstances indicative of some degree of hardship, such as, but not limited to, personal or family illness, a medical condition, a death in the immediate family or socioeconomic disadvantages not mentioned in your primary application essays. What steps or strategies have you used to address these circumstances? (3,500 characters)

Application Question with Written Responses

4. Please indicate the area(s) of medicine you are interested in and briefly describe your significant activities for each respective interest. You may select more than one. (150 words per selected area)

• Practice in a medically underserved area and/or work with medically underserved populations
• Rural Health
• Military Medicine
• Aerospace Medicine
• Medical Research
• Primary Care Specialty
• Other

Required Prompts for EnMed Applicants

1. How did you hear about the EnMed program? (250 words)

2. How will the Engineering Medicine program meet your career goals and aspirations in ways that a traditional MD program would not? (250 words)

3. List the knowledge and skills you have participated in outside the classroom, then describe how these have prepared you to create innovative medical technologies. (250 words)

4. List the knowledge and skills you have acquired inside the classroom, then describe how these have prepared you to create innovative medical technologies. (250 words)

5. At the end of your career, what do you want to have accomplished in order to consider yourself successful? (250 words)

Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine at TCU

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. The Burnett School of Medicine defines empathetic scholars with these eight traits: Compassion, Teachability, Altruism, Insight, Humility, Collaboration, Integrity, and Respect. Which trait do you think you embody most and how will that be valuable to patient care? Which trait might you need to improve upon? How will you improve in this area and how will this be of value in your role as a physician? (250–300 words for both parts combined)

2. Describe any personal qualities and/or lived experiences that add context to your application that shape who you are as an individual and aspiring healthcare leader. (250–300 words)

Sam Houston State University College of Osteopathic Medicine

Program: DO

Required Essay Prompts

1. How has your community and/or hometown shaped your values and your pursuit of medicine? (800 characters)

2. Describe a moment when you failed to accomplish a task or let yourself down. How did you grow from this experience? (800 characters)

3. What do you consider the role of physicians in medically underserved Texas communities? (800 characters)

4. Sam Houston State University’s motto is “The Measure of a Life is its Service.” What is the most significant service contribution that you have made? (800 characters)

5. Why do you want to pursue osteopathic medicine at SHSU-COM? What about osteopathic medical education interests you? (800 characters)

Optional Essay Prompt

6. Please share anything you would like to mention to the SHSU-COM Admissions Committee about yourself to strengthen your application. (500 characters)

Application Question

7. Are you a Texas resident? (Yes/No)

University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth/Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine

Program: DO

Required Essay Prompt

1. What experiences and/or relationships have motivated you toward a career in osteopathic medicine? (2,000 characters)

Conditional Essay Prompts

2. If you attended more than two colleges/universities, explain why. Community colleges are not needed. (1,000 characters)

3. If applicable, please update the information contained on your TMDSAS application. Indicate any additional grades earned, alterations in your proposed coursework or graduation date, additions to your extracurricular activities, name change, or anything else you feel the Admissions Committee should know. (1,000 characters)

4. Do you consider yourself financially disadvantaged?

If yes: Please explain. (1,000 characters)

5. Do you consider yourself educationally disadvantaged?

If yes: Please explain. (1,000 characters)

Optional Essay Prompt

6. One of the values of the University of North Texas System is Courageous Integrity which means one should model exceptional standards and act in the best interest of our community. These behaviors include:

• Build trust through consistent actions that are honest, transparent, and authentic
• Provide, accept, and support open and constructive feedback
• Hold yourself and others accountable for decisions, behaviors, actions, and results

Please select a specific instance where you have demonstrated Courageous Integrity and describe how this is indicative of your character. (2,000 characters)

University of the Incarnate Word School of Osteopathic Medicine

Program: DO

Latest available prompts: 2025–2026

Required Essay Prompts

1. Explain your understanding of the UIWSOM curriculum and why you are interested in it. (200 words)

2. Words like “holistic” and phrases such as “mind, body, and spirit” are often associated with Osteopathic Medicine. Briefly discuss your understanding of this. (200 words)

3. Describe your “Mission Fit” with the UIW School of Osteopathic Medicine. (200 words)

4. Describe your preparation for the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT). Include any tools you used and how much time you prepared for the exam. (200 words)

Conditional Application Questions

5. If you are reapplying to UIWSOM, what have you done to strengthen your application since you last applied?

6. Are you a current or former University of the Incarnate Word student in one of the following categories?

• Current MBS student
• Previous UIWSOM MBS student
• Current UIW undergraduate student in the Direct Admit program

Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine at the University of Utah

Program: MD and MD/PhD

Required Essay Prompts

1. The Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine's mission guides our work and community. What aspect of our mission stands out most to you, and how have you demonstrated alignment with this mission through your experiences and preparation for medical school?

2. The University of Utah's "Impact 2030" vision emphasizes collaboration to address society's most pressing challenges. What "big problem" in your community or in communities you have served concerns you most? How do you see yourself contributing to a solution to this issue in your role as a future physician?

Rocky Vista University College of Osteopathic Medicine - Southern Utah Campus

Program: DO

Latest available prompts: 2025–2026

Required Essay Prompts

1. Why do you want to become an Osteopathic Physician?

2. Why do you want to attend RVUCOM?

3. What unique characteristics, abilities, or skills will you bring to RVUCOM and the Osteopathic Profession?

Optional Essay Prompt

4. Add any additional information you consider relevant or that you believe would be beneficial to your development as an osteopathic medical student or physician.

Conditional Application Questions

5. If you are not currently in school, what have you been doing since you were last a full-time student?

6. Were you employed during the regular school year, excluding summers, while completing your undergraduate education?

If yes: State the type of work and approximate number of hours worked per week.

7. Have you ever been convicted of a criminal offense?

If yes: Provide a complete explanation.

Noorda College of Osteopathic Medicine

Program: DO

Required Video Response

1. Submit a short video introducing yourself to the Noorda-COM admissions team. The video should be authentic, reflective and professional and should address:

• Who are you beyond your application?
• What does service mean to you?
• How do you learn, grow and contribute as part of a team?
• Why Noorda and osteopathic medicine?

(Maximum 8 minutes)

University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. The Larner College of Medicine curriculum emphasizes active in-person participation and peer co-learning. This relies on individual students preparing for, and being actively involved in, participatory class sessions. Please share your thoughts on the suitability of active learning for you.

Consider the points below to guide your response.

• The value of balancing your learning with the teaching of your classmates.
• Any potential challenges to this approach to learning.
• Personal contributions to such a learning environment and areas of growth.
• Examples of navigating a group learning process such as a flipped classroom experience.

2. The Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont recognizes that diversity extends beyond chosen and unchosen identities and encompasses an individual's entire experiences. Diverse environments can promote growth and provide an opportunity for reflection. Reflect on a time you learned something from someone or a group of people who are unlike yourself and how that challenged your preconceptions or biases. How will this experience influence your behavior in the future? (400 words)

3. The Larner College of Medicine has core values that are reflected in our professionalism statement. How has your understanding of what professionalism means evolved over time? Reflect on a personal experience that contributed to your understanding of your own core values. (300 words)

4. What unique opportunities at Larner College of Medicine would be meaningful to you in your education and how do these align with your larger goal of becoming a physician? (250 words)

Optional Essay Prompt

5. Use this space to share any information, not presented elsewhere, that will clarify any aspect of your application. (250 words)

6. If you are a reapplicant, you may choose to share what you have done since your previous application. (250 words)

University of Virginia School of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Why are you interested in attending the University of Virginia School of Medicine? What factors will be most important to you in choosing a medical school? (350 words)

2. Tell us about a challenge or obstacle you experienced. How did you manage it? (350 words)

Application Questions

3. Briefly describe anything that has affected your college or postgraduation experience.

4. List planned clinical work, shadowing, research or community-service activities for the upcoming year.

Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine

Program: MD and MD/PhD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Using specific examples, discuss how your mission and values align with those of VCU School of Medicine. (2,000 characters)

2. Describe an experience that led you to change your views about an issue for which you previously held a strong opinion. (2,000 characters)

Conditional Essay Prompts

3. Briefly explain any lapses in your journey to medicine that are not explained in your application. (2,000 characters)

4. Please briefly explain any low GPAs or poor grades. (2,000 characters)

Required Application Question

5. What will you be doing for the next 12 months during the application cycle? (2,000 characters)

Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Reflect on a trait or characteristic you are proud of that you feel is most vulnerable to being lost on your journey to becoming a physician. How do you plan to protect it? (400 words)

2. Describe a time when doing the “right” thing conflicted with rules, authority, or expectations. How did you handle it? (400 words)

3. Beyond the rise of AI, what do you consider the greatest challenge facing your generation, and how do you plan to address it? (400 words)

Optional Application Question

4. List any publications in the appropriate citation format. (400 words)

Macon & Joan Brock Virginia Health Sciences Eastern Virginia Medical School at Old Dominion University

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. Briefly describe your exposure to medicine. (2,000 characters)

2. What do you think you will like best about being a physician? (2,000 characters)

3. What do you think you will like least about being a physician? (2,000 characters)

4. Describe yourself and your medical career as you see it 10 years from now. (2,000 characters)

5. State your reasons for applying to VHS–EVMS at ODU. (2,000 characters)

Optional Essay Prompts

6. VHS-EVMS at ODU is dedicated to inclusivity and supporting patients and students from diverse backgrounds. Feel free to share your personal experience or ties to communities from diverse backgrounds. Please explain in detail if you wish to respond. Some examples include but are not limited to race/ethnicity, culture, LGBTQ+, differently-abled/disabled, etc. (2,000 characters)

7. If you would like to discuss how your individual background, perspective, or experience, including any societal or other barriers, have affected your life, through discrimination, inspiration or otherwise, feel free to share your experiences, obstacles overcome, and how this impacted your education and road to applying to medical school. (3,000 characters)

Liberty University College of Osteopathic Medicine

Program: DO

No written secondary essays required

University of Washington School of Medicine

Program: MD and MD/PhD

Latest available prompts: 2025–2026

Required Essay Prompts

1. The University of Washington School of Medicine values applicants who can work effectively with classmates, patients and colleagues from varied backgrounds, perspectives, regions and lived experiences. Describe an experience that demonstrates your ability to contribute to such an environment.

2. Describe an academic, personal or professional challenge you have experienced. How did you respond, what did you learn and how has the experience prepared you for medicine?

3. Why are you interested in attending the University of Washington School of Medicine and participating in the WWAMI program? Discuss how your goals and experiences align with your selected regional cohort.

4. Discuss factors beyond direct medical care that influence health in the United States. How did you come to understand the importance of these factors?

Application Question

5. Describe how you have explored and developed competency in the social sciences, humanities or the human condition as they relate to the practice of medicine.

Conditional Essay Prompt

6. For reapplicants: Describe how you have strengthened your candidacy since your most recent application.

Program- and Region-Specific Requirements

Applicants may receive additional questions concerning:

• WWAMI residency and regional connection
• Seattle or Spokane Foundations site preference
• TRUST
• CUSP
• MSTP

The exact current pathway questions should be confirmed in the official secondary portal.

Washington State University Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine

Program: MD

Required Essay Prompts

1. How will you contribute to the mission and vision of the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine? Support your response with your experiences and/or attributes. (300 words)

2. What experiences have you had with communities facing significant barriers, such as social, cultural or access-related barriers? What have you learned from these experiences? (300 words)

3. Describe your connections to Washington communities and your interests in practicing medicine in Washington. (300 words)

4. How have you built your resilience? (300 words)

5. Learning from others is enhanced in educational settings that include individuals from diverse backgrounds and experiences. Please describe your personal characteristics or experiences that would add to the learning environment for your classmates. (300 words)

Conditional Essay Prompt

6. If you are a reapplicant to the Washington State University College of Medicine, describe what you have done since last applying to strengthen your candidacy for our medical school. (300 words)

Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences College of Osteopathic Medicine

Program: DO

Latest available prompt: 2025–2026

Required Essay Prompt

1. Describe personal experiences that have shaped your desire to attend an osteopathic medical school that focuses on addressing rural and/or medically underserved populations and diversity, equity, and inclusion in health care. (One page; no stated word limit)

West Virginia University School of Medicine

Program: MD

Latest available prompts: 2024-2025

Required Essay Prompts

1. Why do you want to attend the West Virginia University School of Medicine? How did you first learn about WVU School of Medicine, and why do you believe you would be a good fit? (150 words)

2. Describe a time when you advocated for someone, other than a relative or friend, whose background differed from your own. (150 words)

3. How do you see yourself serving the state of West Virginia if accepted? (150 words)

4. Which AAMC interpersonal or intrapersonal core competency is your strongest, and why? How will this competency enhance your ability to become an outstanding physician? (150 words)

5. What would be the six-word title of your memoir? (Six words)

Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine

Program: MD

Latest available prompts: 2025–2026

Required Essay Prompt

1. How does your professional goal of becoming a physician align with the mission and values of the Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine? (5,000 characters)

Conditional Essay Prompts

2. If you are not currently attending school, describe your employment or other plans before your anticipated enrollment in medical school. If you are still attending school, enter N/A. (5,000 characters)

3. Marshall reapplicants: State the class year of your previous application and outline any significant changes or new experiences since applying. (500 characters)

West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine

Program: DO

Required Essay Prompts

1. Why do you want to be an osteopathic physician? (500 characters)

2. What advantage do you see in attending WVSOM over other medical schools? (500 characters)

3. Describe an ethically challenging situation you have been in, and how you responded.

4. What do you feel it will take for you to succeed in medical school? (500 characters)

5. Provide a brief comment about your study habits. (500 characters)

6. Describe a situation in work, volunteer activities, or organizations where you demonstrated your ability to work well with others. (500 characters)

7. What experiences—living, working or visiting—have you had in rural areas? (500 characters)

8. Briefly comment on how your volunteer experience benefited you. (500 characters)

University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health

Program: MD and MD/PhD

Required Essay Prompts

1. The Admissions Committee is committed to comprehensive, mission-aligned evaluation of all applicants. Review our institution’s mission. Using specific examples, discuss how and why you believe you are a good fit for the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. (500 words)

2. UW SMPH uses the AAMC’s Premed Competencies for Entering Medical Students as an applicant evaluation framework. Choose one of the professional competencies from the drop-down list where you have experienced growth. Using specific examples, describe your development in this competency. (250 words)

3. Reflect on a time when a failure, or an apparent failure, set you up for later success. Do you have a favorite failure that you now see as a pivotal moment in your personal or professional growth? (250 words)

4. Individual and population health flow from the intersections between healthcare outcomes, sociopolitical factors, economic, historical and other systemic factors. Choose a broader issue or policy that impacts health outcomes where you believe change is needed. Discuss the role you hope to play as a physician in addressing this issue. (250 words)

Conditional Essay Prompt

5. For reapplicants: Individuals reapplying are required to submit a statement indicating what has changed since the previous application to the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health MD or MD/PhD program. Applicants changing application pathways should also explain that decision. (500 words)

Medical College of Wisconsin

Program: MD and MD/PhD

Required Essay Prompts

1. At MCW, we are guided by the values of acting in caring ways, engaging in collaborative efforts, approaching our world with curiosity, advancing inclusive practices, demonstrating integrity in all that we do, and treating everyone with respect. Describe how your unique experiences, interests, and talents have embodied one or more of these values, and how they will shape the way you plan to contribute to the MCW learning community. (1,000 characters)

2. How will MCW uniquely prepare you for your future goals? (1,000 characters)

3. Recount a time when you made a decision you regret. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience? (2,000 characters)

4. MCW is committed to its missions of community engagement and improving health for all. MCW medical students play an important role in advancing these missions by working with and within various communities throughout Wisconsin, which requires adaptability and a willingness to learn from new experiences. Describe a time where you entered a new environment or situation, how you adapted, what you learned, and how that experience helped you grow in your ability to serve others and contribute to MCW’s missions during your education. (2,000 characters)

Conditional Essay Prompt

5. For reapplicants: Please explain how your application has changed since your last application to MCW Medical School. How have you enhanced your preparation for medical school and your future career as a physician? You may also discuss how you evaluated your prior application or any life changes that affected it. (2,000 characters)

Required for MCW–Central Wisconsin and MCW–Green Bay Applicants

1. Describe the experiences that have contributed to your motivation to pursue a primary care-focused, community-based medical education program. (2,000 characters)

2. Describe the community in which you envision yourself living and practicing medicine. Address the benefits and challenges of life in your specified community. (2,000 characters)

Universidad Central del Caribe School of Medicine

Program: MD

Latest available information: 2025–2026

Universidad Central del Caribe requires a secondary application, but current written essay prompts were not publicly available at the time of writing.

Ponce Health Sciences University School of Medicine

Program: MD

Latest available information: 2025–2026

No written secondary essays reported but confirm current requirements through the official application portal.

San Juan Bautista School of Medicine

Program: MD

Current written essay prompts were not publicly available at the time of writing

Qualified applicants receive a supplemental application from San Juan Bautista School of Medicine.

University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine

Program: MD

No written secondary essays reported

Applicants must still complete the school’s required application forms and submit all requested admissions documents.