Doubts about secondaries

[premed123321]

Hey everyone,
I've been working on my secondary essays for the past few weeks, and even though I've invested a lot of time, I can't shake the feeling that they're not quite there yet. They just don't feel like the kind of writing that would get me accepted.

Does anyone else experience this kind of doubt? If so, any tips on overcoming it, or knowing when an essay is "good enough" for submission (meaning I can just mentally mark it as done and leave it alone till secondaries actually roll around July-ish)?

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[AJS59]

First of all, don't try to cram them all in one go; if you feel that you're burning out, slow your roll. Better quality writing = better secondary. You still have, at ABSOLUTE worst, almost 3 months until most secondaries are done.

Here's what I think a good workflow is:
1. Sit down and write down your ideas for all the essays for 1 school
2. Commit to 1-3 (depending on how much you can stomach and how much covers the same ground you did for other secondaries) to just write drafts. Just write them out. Even if they're bad or under word count
3. After about a 2 day rest for each essay where you don't look at it, give it a read through. I'd recommend focusing this read on the content...are you answering the question you were asked? Are you being direct? Are you showing not telling? Make adjustments as necessary.
4. After this, give the given essay 24 hours. Come back to it now with a more fine-toothed comb, mainly for the little stuff...grammar, spelling (identifying the right location of a school in the why us essay!)
5. Finally, once you've done this and you feel pretty confident, find some trusted friend, advisor, etc. to give it a read over. Do it with multiple if possible. Then make edits from there.

This is just a suggestion that follows premises of what I think good writing is (I tried to apply this initially before I got overwhelmed and just had to start cranking them out) and it might help you feel more "done"

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Read

The Art of Writing Medical School Secondaries - SDN

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