• 2. almost every medical school you apply to requires a separate secondary application. Yes, this means you will be paying an additional of anywhere from $40-100 for EACH medical school you applied to in your primary application to which you want to continue applying.

  3. this is optional for the schools that you want a rejection letter from.

  4. this is required for the schools that you want to an acceptance letter from.

  5. lots of busy work.

  6. comes in the form of essays, video submissions, and/or an online, proctored examination. Yes, you read that correctly. Proctored examination.

  7. an application that may cause side effects, such as headaches, nausea, confusion, eye bags, sleeplessness, fatigue, writer’s block, anxiety, sadness, an empty bank account

  synonyms: supplemental application, an application that makes you question your career, it’s OK – just focus on the process

  antonyms: no interviews for you, future rejection letters, “We regret to inform you..”

  Now that you’ve read some of the basic definitions of a secondary application, let me break it down for you.

  Tips and Tricks

  • Secondary applications are different from the primary application. Keep this in mind.
  • Secondary applications are not streamlined altogether like the primary application. This means that each school has their own secondary application that you are required to complete, given that you still want to continue applying for said school.
  • The average cost to submit a secondary application is $60. There are some schools that do not charge at all, but those miraculous schools are a rare find. Remember when I said applying to medical school would be expensive and that you really have to make sure you actually want to apply to all of the schools you are applying to? I said what I said.
  • You have to complete your prospective school’s secondary application for you to get considered for an interview.
  • Some schools automatically send you an email to complete their secondary application almost immediately after you submit your primary application, meaning that they do not look at your primary application until you have completed and submitted their secondary application. This can take days.
  • Some schools look at your primary application first and then send you an invite to complete their secondary application before considering you for an interview. This means they saw potential in your primary application. Congrats! This can take weeks.
  • Some schools already have their secondary application open for anyone to see and download on their websites during application season.
  • Some schools do not have a secondary application. This is also very rare.
  • If you never get an email back (from a school that you applied to in your primary application whose secondary application is not available on their website) within 4-7 weeks inviting you to complete their secondary application, it means you will most likely receive a rejection letter/email once admission decisions have been made.
  • Invites to complete a secondary application take longer when you wait longer to submit your primary application, which means you should submit your primary application as early as possible.
  • Each due date for secondary applications vary, depending on the school AND the student AND when the student submitted their primary application, meaning that if your friend submitted his/her primary application even 1 day earlier than you did, you both can have different due dates for your secondary application submission. This means it is vital for you to keep a calendar for your own due dates per school.
  • The earlier you submit your secondary application to that school, the earlier you will be (or will not be) considered for an interview. The earlier you get an interview, the more likely you will be considered for a possible pre-match offer or get accepted, in general. I will talk more about pre-match offers in Part Three of Applying to Medical School series on maiuseful.com.

Purpose of Secondary Applications

• To get to know you better. Each medical school has slightly different missions and values, and secondary applications allow a window of opportunity for the admissions committee to see if you are a good fit for their school’s culture.
• Capital. This is a good maybe. I only bring this up because secondary applications do not have to be this expensive, but it is, nonetheless. Then again, medical schools have to hire and pay their admissions committees somehow. No such thing as a free lunch, and we might as well learn that sooner than later.

Types of Secondary Applications

1. Video Submission:

• Some schools will require you to do a timed, live, “interview-like” video as their secondary application. For example, I applied to a school that required me to answer 3 questions, and I was given 2 minutes to answer each question, one after another through a video recording. I was not given the questions ahead of time; I had to read and answer the questions to the best of my ability within the allotted time, just like a regular interview. The video recording stopped at the 2-minute mark, whether or not I finished answering the question, and there were no do-overs.
• Some schools will require you to upload your own video, either through YouTube as an unlisted video or through the school’s secondary application website. This is a case where they would give you the question you need to answer ahead of time, so you can practice.
• Tips for video submissions:
  • Dress and groom yourself professionally.
  • Be calm. Do not fidget.
  • Try not to look too intimidating – smile when it is appropriate.
  • Record yourself in a quiet area, preferably with a background that is not too distracting or will not give the wrong impression.

2. Test Submission:

• Some schools now require you to take what’s called a “CASPer” exam, which screens for people skills by using an online situational judgment test.

• It costs $10 per medical school you send it to.

• You are being videotaped while you take the exam to make sure you are who you say you are and to make sure you are not cheating.

• This exam has 12 scenarios. For each scenario, a situational video where there is a conflict is played for you. The videos cannot be replayed. After the video plays, you are asked a few fill-in-the-blank questions, which are all timed.

• Be honest. This test is only designed to weed out socio/psychopaths that have no empathetic nerves in their bodies.