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

For a lot of med school applicants, the “Why Us?” Essay is one of the most intimidating of all the secondary essays.
You may have added some schools to your list because of their location, affordability, prestige - or because your GPA and MCAT align with those of recent matriculants.
But those reasons alone aren’t strong enough to convince an adcom to admit you, of course. You’ll need to dig deeper to convince them you’re the perfect “fit” for a spot in their next entering class.
In our latest TH-cam video, we’ll crack the code of the “Why Us?” Essay prompt.
Then we’ll explore some prewriting strategies that you can employ to get ahead of the curve on essay-writing before you even receive your secondary prompts.
Then we’ll show you how to go from a surface-level, unconvincing “Why Us?” Essay to one that will stand out and impress adcoms.
This resource is part of our six-video series designed to prepare you for six of the most common med school secondary essay prompts - The Diversity Essay, The Adversity Essay, The Why Us Essay, The Gap Year Essay, The Leadership Essay, and the Additional Information Essay.
📚 Access sample secondary essays responding to every prompt required by every MD and DO program in the US and Canada. www.shemmassianconsulting.com...
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 - Introduction
01:19 - About the "Why Us?" Essay
01:42 - How to demonstrate fit
03:32 - Prewriting prompts
04:33 - How to research schools for your "Why Us?" essays
07:00 - "Why Us?" Essay prompt examples
09:01 - "Why Us?" Essay - First Draft
11:51 - "Why Us?" Essay - Final Draft
15:03 - Final thoughts
Who we are:
Shemmassian Academic Consulting (SAC)
For nearly two decades, our team of admissions experts has helped thousands of students get into top medical programs including Harvard, Mayo, and UCSF. SAC has been featured on The Washington Post, US News and World Report, and NBC.
We'd love to hear from you! Drop a question down below in the comment section; we respond daily!
#medicalschool #medschool #medschoolessays #medschoolsecondaries #whyus #secondaries #secondaryessays #medschooladmissions #medschoolapps #medschoolapplications

[@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.