Stanford Medical School Secondary Essays: Tips & Prompts

Getting accepted to Stanford School of Medicine is hard. Very hard. Stanford is looking for the next game changers in healthcare. Submitting an OUTSTANDING Stanford secondary application is vital to receiving an interview invite, which ultimately can lead to an acceptance. Read our Stanford Medical School secondary essays tips so you know what to highlight in your Stanford secondaries.

Our Cracking Med School Admissions team is made of Stanford School of Medicine alumni. We know Stanford Med inside and out. We have a track record of helping multiple applicants receive acceptances to Stanford School of Medicine year after year. Contact us if you want help with standing out to the Stanford Admissions committee! We can help you with essays or interview prep! You will be working directly with Dr. Rachel Rizal and Dr. Rishi Mediratta, Stanford Med graduates!

While there are many Stanford secondary essays, they are relatively short and will help cover a wide variety of other medical school secondary essays you will have to write. The prompts don’t change too much year over year. You can definitely pre-write your Stanford secondaries because prompts barely change each year, but this is the least time sensitive school, and we know many students who submit in September and still receive Stanford Interview Invites!

• Personally Tailored Essays
• Edits by Stanford & Harvard-trained Doctors
• We study your application strengths to see what unique attributes we’ll bring to the medical school

Stanford Secondary Application Essay Prompts: 2023 – 2024

Stanford Medical School Secondary Essay Prompts

1. Describe in a short paragraph your educational and family background. (E.g., I grew up in New York City, as the 3rd child of a supermarket cashier and a high school principal. I attended Mann High School where my major interests were boxing and drama.) (600 characters max)
2. Select your desired medical practice. 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 max) Choose the single answer that best describes your career goals and clinical practice setting:
   • Academic Medicine (Clinical)
   • Academic Medicine (Physician Scientist)
   • Non-Academic Clinical Practice
   • Health Policy
   • Health Administration
   • Primary Care
   • Public Health/Community Health
   • Global Health
3. How will you take advantage of the Stanford Medicine Discovery Curriculum and scholarly concentration requirement to achieve your personal career goals? (1,000 characters max)
4. The Committee on Admissions regards the diversity (broadly defined) of an entering class as an important factor in serving the educational mission of the school. The Committee on Admissions strongly encourages you to share unique, personally important and/or challenging factors in your background which may include such discussions as the quality of your early education, gender, sexual orientation, any physical challenges, and life or work experiences. Please describe how these factors have influenced your goals and preparation for a career in medicine and may help you to uniquely contribute to the Stanford learning environment. (2,000 characters max)
5. Please describe how you have uniquely contributed to a community with which you identify. (1,000 characters max)
6. Please describe an experience/situation when you advocated for someone else. (1,000 characters max)
7. (Optional) Please include anything else that will help us understand better how you may uniquely contribute to Stanford Medicine? (1,000 characters max)

Stanford Knight-Hennessey Program Prompts

1. State contribution of: employment, family, loans, and scholarships/grants
2. List up to 6 employment
   • Organization Name:
   • Country:
   • City:
   • State:
   • Dates of Employment (Month, Year):
   • Position/Title:
   • Sector [Nonprofit, Private, Public]:
   • Hours/Week:
   • Job Type [Full-Time, Part-Time, Intern]:
   • Organization’s Activities [150 char]:
   • Your Responsibilities [150 char]:
   • Your Accomplishments 150 char]:
   • Your Challenges [150 char]:
   • Reason for Leaving [100 char]:
3. List up to 3 Activities
   • Organization / Activity:
   • Role(s):
   • Country:
   • City:
   • State:
   • Dates of Participation:
   • Frequency of Participation:
   • Did you participate during and/or after college?
   • Why did you get involved?
   • What did you achieve and/or learn?
4. List up to 3 Awards & Honors
   • Award / Honor Received:
   • Date Received:
   • Basis of Selection:
   • Why is this award / honor meaningful to you?
5. Resume
6. 2 Letters of recommendation
7. Short Answer Essay: How will your K-H Scholars experience prepare you to realize your immediate and long-term intentions? [250 words]
8. Short Answer Essay: Tell us when you [150 words total]:
   • Made somebody proud of you?
   • Were most challenged?
   • Fell short of expectations?
9. Short Answer Essay: Please tell us eight improbable facts about you [150 words total]
10. Long Essay / Personal Statement: Connect the dots, How have the influences in your life shaped you? [600 words total]
11. Optional Essay: Has there been a period exceeding three months when you were neither working nor in school since you completed high school/secondary school? Please let us know what you did during the gap period(s). [750 characters]
12. Optional essay: One Last Thing/Additional Info [750 characters]

Tips to Answer Stanford Secondaries

Stanford Secondaries Pre-Writing Guidance: Questions for Stanford School of Medicine do not vary too much each year. Sometimes, Stanford adds or removes 1 question. This is a good med school secondary to pre-write. However, from our extensive experience, Stanford is not a time-sensitive medical school, so you do not need to rush to submit this secondary. This is usually one of the last secondaries we tell

Disclaimer: Our knowledge about Stanford University and Stanford School of Medicine are based from our personal experiences. Our views are our own and not of Stanford University’s. Our tips for getting accepted to Stanford are based off of 15+ years of helping premedical students get accepted into Stanford University School of Medicine and other top medical schools. Dr. Mediratta and Dr. Rizal help applicants through editing their AMCAS primary application, editing + strategizing their Stanford secondaries, and preparing intensely for Stanford’s Multiple Mini Interview. We help several applicants get accepted into Stanford each year. If you want our help, contact us down below or email us at info@crackingmedadmissions.com.

Stanford Medical School Secondary Essays Tip #1: First thing’s first. What does Stanford Medical School look for and how do you stand out? Each Stanford Medical School class is extremely diverse, but there are a few common attributes among its medical students (and you should convey these elements on your Stanford secondary essays!):

• Leadership experiences. The Stanford Admissions Committee wants to recruit the next leaders in medicine.
• Desire to improve healthcare through innovation. Innovation can be through new health education programs, artificial intelligence, biomedical research, or any other creative out-of-the-box ideas you have!
• Patient care and clinical experiences. However, it is not enough to mention to the Admissions Committee your various clinical experiences – stories about patients you’ve impacted should relate to how you want to change healthcare.
• How you will contribute to the Stanford community and how Stanford will help you become a leader in healthcare.

Write about how you’ve accomplished innovative thinking, leadership, and impact in your community. Write about how you plan on contributing to society through these attributes. Don’t forget to write how Stanford University will help you accomplish these ambitious goals. It is difficult to exude your vision to change healthcare in rather short answers that don’t exactly ask you “how do you want to change healthcare.” Therefore, you should take advantage of the open-ended diversity essay. There’s a lot of strategy for the Stanford Medical School application so contact us if you want help with your Stanford secondaries!

Stanford Medical School Secondary Essays Tip #2: Answer as many questions as possible. Optional questions are NOT optional questions, in our opinions, if you want to stand out through your Stanford Medical School secondary essays. For example, answer “Please include anything else that will help us understand better how you may uniquely contribute to Stanford Medicine?” Your response should fill in the gaps – things you were not able to discuss in your other Stanford Medical School secondary essays. This is a good question to add a patient story and leadership.

Stanford Medical School Secondary Essays Tip #3: Discuss your vision your change healthcare. When the admissions committee reads your application, it needs to be clear how you will make an impact in medicine. For some people, they will discover a new drug for autoimmune diseases. For other applicants, they may build healthcare programs that improve healthcare disparities. Your vision does not have to be research-oriented. Have questions about how you can stand out and convey your vision? Contact us below. Need editing help on your secondary? We can help you through our secondary essay packages. This is a popular secondary we help students edit since we graduated from Stanford Med :).

Stanford Medical School Secondary Essays Tip #3: For the Stanford secondaries question, “Describe in a short paragraph your educational and family background” find something unique about your upbringing, such as studying abroad, jobs you worked, or values your parents taught you.

Stanford Medical School Secondary Essays Tip #4: For the Stanford secondaries question, “How will you take advantage of the Stanford Medicine Discovery Curriculum and scholarly concentration requirement to achieve your personal career goals” and “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” –> these two questions have to complement each other

• It is extremely important to learn how to write a strong “Why Stanford Medical School” essay.
• Read about the Discovery Curriculum
• Choose a specific Scholarly Concentration and clearly explain how the classes and opportunities in the scholarly concentration will help you become an impactful healthcare leader.
• When writing “Why Stanford,” you should also mention other opportunities outside the Scholarly Concentrations. Stanford University School of Medicine is located on the main Stanford University campus, along with the undergraduate departments, other graduate programs, and other graduate schools (MBA / JD / Master’s). Many Stanford medical school students, including ourselves, took advantage of working on projects with other departments. For example, Dr. Rachel Rizal regularly took classes at the business school. You can write about these interdisciplinary opportunities in your Stanford secondaries.

Stanford Medical School Secondary Essays #5: For the Stanford secondaries question, “Please describe an experience/ situation when you advocated for someone else,” write a story. Examples of excellent topics include a time when the medical school applicant advocated for a patient or a time when the medical school applicant advocated for an underserved individual.

Stanford Medical School Secondary Essays #6: If you have a strong interdisciplinary background, apply to the Knight- Hennessy Scholars program.

Common Questions from Medical School Applicants:

• Does Stanford screen for secondaries? To our knowledge, Stanford School of Medicine does not screen to determine whether you receive a secondary or not. The admissions committee wants to hear from everyone and give all applicants an opportunity to submit as strong of an application as possible!
• Does Stanford send secondaries to everyone? Yes, Stanford University School of Medicine sends secondaries to everyone. Therefore, our Cracking Med School Admissions team recommends that you pre-write your secondary essays for Stanford.
• Do I need to strategize my answers for the Stanford secondaries Health Attitudes and Beliefs survey? No! These survey questions are anonymous questions and are not tied to your secondary application submission.
• Is the Stanford secondaries Health Attitudes and Beliefs survey truly anonymous? Yes! The Stanford School of Medicine admissions committee would not say that it’s anonymous and then have a back-door way of finding out your answers. That’s unethical! And the Stanford Admissions committee is anything but unethical. Answer the Stanford secondary application Health Attitudes survey truthfully!