How to Write the “Why Us?” Essay | Medical School Secondary Essay Prompts

[@happygrams342]

You are like Sal Khan of the med school admission journey!! thank you SO much!!!

[@Shemmassian]

@@happygrams342 Hah! We got a kick out of that. You’re welcome!

[@abdelrahmanelnaggar6242]

Perfect timing!

[@Shemmassian]

Glad to assist with your writing!

[@bryanhayes2]

Any recommendations on how to write these essays with a much slimmer character count?

[@Shemmassian]

@@bryanhayes2 When pre-writing essays, we often recommend writing one longer essay for each category (eg, diversity, why us?) as a “template essay” that you can then adapt for individual school prompts. When you are given a prompt with a much smaller word or character limit than the template essay you wrote, we encourage you to consider the main takeaway(s) you want to leave the adcom with and edit out all extraneous information. Dr. Shemmassian will often ask students, “What’s the point?” to ascertain this and will then ask, “Does this sentence/text help make that point?” If the answer is yes, keep it or trim it. If the answer is no, remove it entirely.

[@rk-jc9se]

Unspoken tip: Write your essay without worrying about character counts. Then run it through chatgpt to shrink to the character limit. Don't copy the exact essay from the chatgpt response but use it for ideas for where you can be more concise.

[@Im0nJupiter]

I worry that imposing ideas into your essay that were not asked will come off as overriding the school/adcoms. Like "We asked you why you wanted to go here, not 'what would you do for us', why did you try to ingratiate yourself in an ugly and uncalled for way?"