Secondary Essay Prompts for the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine

Below are the secondary essay prompts for the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, OH.

2019 – 2020

  • Essay: Additional Information (Optional)
    • Is there any further information that you wish to share with the Admissions Committee? This optional response will only be considered by the University Program.
  • Required Essay: Greatest Challenge
    • The admissions committee is interested in gaining more insight into you as a person. Please describe a significant personal challenge you have faced, one which you feel has helped to shape you as a person. Examples may include a moral or ethical dilemma, a situation of personal adversity, or a hurdle in your life that you worked hard to overcome. Please include how you got through the experience and what you learned about yourself as a result. Please limit your response to 1 page (about 3,500 characters), and leave a blank line between paragraphs.
  • Required Essay: Research
    • Please describe the hypothesis of your research, 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 you. If you have not participated in research or scholarly work, please indicate so in the text area below.
  • Required Essay: Small Group Essay
    • If you were working on a small group project and you thought that another student wasn’t carrying his/her load, how would you handle it?
  • Please limit your response to 300-1000 characters, and leave a blank line between paragraphs.
  • Required for College Program: Areas of Improvement Essay
    • Each year our students target for themselves areas of improvement. Other than the acquisition of new knowledge, what personal area do you think you have that could use strengthening? Design a plan as to how you could improve it.
  • Please limit your response to 500-1000 characters, and leave a blank line between paragraphs.
  • Required for College Program: Criticism and Feedback Essay
    • Tell us about a time when you received unexpected criticism or negative feedback. How did you react? What did you do?
    • Please limit your response to 500-1000 characters, and leave a blank line between paragraphs.
  • Required for College Program: Career Essay
    • How do you see your career ten years from now?
    • Please limit your response to 500-1000 characters, and leave a blank line between paragraphs.
  • Required for College Program: Teaching Essay
    • When were you challenged to teach, coach, or mentor others to learn a new skill or improve an old one? Please describe how it went and what you learned from the experience.
    • Please limit your response to 500-1000 characters, and leave a blank line between paragraphs.
  • Essay: Gap Year
    • Did you take a gap year?
    • If you are taking time off between college graduation and medical school matriculation, please tell us in no more than four sentences what you are doing during this gap, and why.
  • Please upload a picture of yourself. The picture is NOT required, but will help us to remember you. Please note that if your uploaded picture looks sideways to you, it will to us too! We can’t make changes to your photo on our end after you have uploaded and submitted your application.
  • If you choose to not upload a photo.

2018 – 2019

Essay: Greatest Challenge

The admissions committee is interested in gaining more insight into you as a person. Please describe a significant personal challenge you have faced, one which you feel has helped to shape you as a person. Examples may include a moral or ethical dilemma, a situation of personal adversity, or a hurdle in your life that you worked hard to overcome. Please include how you got through the experience and what you learned about yourself as a result. Please limit your response to 1 page (about 3,500 characters), and leave a blank line between paragraphs.

Essay: Gap Year

Did you take a gap year?

Yes / No

 

If you are taking time off between college graduation and medical school matriculation, please tell us in no more than four sentences what you are doing during this gap, and why.

 

Gap Year

 

Essay: Small Group Essay

If you were working on a small group project and you thought that another student wasn’t carrying his/her load, how would you handle it?

 

Please limit your response to 300-1000 characters, and leave a blank line between paragraphs.

Below are the secondary essay prompts for the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

2017 – 2018

  • The Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine strives to ensure that its students become respectful physicians who embrace all dimensions of caring for the whole person. Please describe how your personal characteristics or life experiences will contribute to the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine community and bring educational benefits to our student body. (1000 characters)
  • 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? (1000 characters)
  • Why have you chosen to apply to the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and how do you think your education at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine will prepare you to become a physician for the future? (1 page, formatted at your discretion, upload as PDF)

2017 – 2018

  • Required Essay: Greatest Challenge
    • The admissions committee is interested in gaining more insight into you as a person. Please describe a significant personal challenge you have faced, one which you feel has helped to shape you as a person. Examples may include a moral or ethical dilemma, a situation of personal adversity, or a hurdle in your life that you worked hard to overcome. Please include how you got through the experience and what you learned about yourself as a result.
    • Please limit your response to 1 page (about 3,500 characters), and leave a blank line between paragraphs. If the 3,500 character recommendation is exceeded, your essay WILL still be saved in its entirety.
  • Required Essay: Research
    • Please describe the hypothesis of your research, why the methods were selected to answer that hypothesis, your results and interpretation of your results with respect to future findings. If you have not participated in research or scholarly work, please indicate so in the text area below.
    • Please limit your response to 1 page (about 3,500 characters), and leave a blank line between paragraphs. If the 3,500 character recommendation is exceeded, your essay WILL still be saved in its entirety.
  • Required Essay: Small Group Essay
    • If you were working on a small group project and you thought that another student wasn’t carrying his/her load, how would you handle it?Please limit your response to 300-1000 characters, and leave a blank line between paragraphs. If the 1000 character recommendation is exceeded your essay WILL still be saved in its entirety.

Optional: Additional Information Essay (University Program Only)

  • Is there any further information that you wish to share with the Admissions Committee? This optional response will only be considered by the University Program.

2016 – 2017

MedEdits advises against using outdated prompts for the current season.

  • The admissions committee is interested in gaining more insight into you as a person. Please describe a significant personal challenge you have faced, one which you feel has helped to shape you as a person. Examples may include a moral or ethical dilemma, a situation of personal adversity, or a hurdle in your life that you worked hard to overcome. Please include how you got through the experience and what you may have learned about yourself as a result. Please limit your response to 3500 characters.
  • One of the four pillars of the Western Reserve Curriculum is Research and Scholarship. Although research is not a pre-requisite requirement for the University Program, if you have participated in research or in another scholarly project please tell us about it. Describe your experience, including the question you pursued and how you approached it, your results and interpretation of the results, and most importantly, any thoughts about what this experience meant to you. Remember that the definition of research is broadly-based and can include such projects as a senior capstone or a thesis, and can include both medically and non-medically-related investigations. This essay is optional Please limit your response to 3500 characters.
  • If you were working on a small group project and you thought that another student wasn’t carrying his/her load, how would you handle it?  Please limit your response to 400 to 1000 characters.
  • Is there any further information that you wish to share with the Admissions Committee? This optional response will only be considered by the University Program. This response is optional.

Secondary essay webcast with Dr. Jessica Freedman, founder and president of MedEdits Medical Admissions.  Read more about Dr. Freedman.

Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine Secondary Essay

Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine

Topics covered in this presentation:

  • When should I submit my secondary essays?
  • Pay attention to the word/character limits.
  • Can I recycle secondary essay prompts for multiple schools?
  • Identify topics that you left out of your primary application.
  • And, much more.

Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine Admissions Requirements

2017-2018 Accepted Student Data
Median GPA = 3.82
Median MCAT = 518
Applications = 14062
Interviewed = 1300
Matriculated = 217

Learn more about this school:

CWRU-University Campus
Office of Admissions, T-308
Cleveland, OH 44106-4915 USA

(216) 368-3450

(216) 368-6011

Secondary Essay Prompts for Other Schools

 

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*Data collected from MSAR 2022-2023, 2022 Osteopathic Medical College Information Book, and institution website.

Disclaimer: The information on this page was shared by students and/or can be found on each medical school’s website. MedEdits does not guarantee it’s accuracy or authenticity.

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