example of diversity essay medical school

Medical School Diversity Essay Examples and Tips

• Cracking Med School Admissions

Diversity secondary essay questions are a common prompt in secondary medical school applications. Diversity essays are extremely open-ended and broad. Many premedical students struggle with this secondary essay prompt because it is broad. Each year, our Cracking Med School Admissions team receives hundreds of questions from applicants about how to write about diversity in your secondary essays? Our Cracking Med School Admissions team thinks you can use the broad nature of diversity essay prompts to your advantage! Use your response to your diversity essays as a way to discuss an aspect of your application you have not been able to elaborate on already in your other secondary essays for that specific school. Additionally, you can use diversity secondary essays to augment your awesomeness to admissions officers through discussing your passions in medicine and conveying your leadership experiences! If you want to read medical school diversity essay examples , skip down below!

This diversity essay medical school essay blog post will cover:

• What are medical school diversity essays?
• Sample diversity essay prompts from various medical schools
• Tips on how to write about diversity in your secondary essays
• FAQs about medical school diversity essays
• * Medical school diversity essay examples*

What are Medical School Diversity Essays?

Medical school diversity essays are questions on medical school secondary applications that applicants write as part of the medical school application process. Medical schools value diversity in their student bodies because it leads to a more dynamic learning environment where students can learn from each other and benefit from diverse perspectives and experiences. Additionally, medical schools want to recruit students who aspire to improve healthcare in different ways. For examples, some applicants’ strengths lie in research. Other applicants thrive in creating public health programs to improve community health. Still other applicants are interested in narrative medicine and want to inspire others through future books they write about the human condition. 

Diversity essays provide an opportunity for applicants to showcase their unique personal experiences, cultural background, educational experiences, extra-curricular activities, and perspectives. Applicants can express how they will contribute to the diversity of the medical school community.

As stated earlier, diversity essays are broad. Applicants are asked to describe how their culture background, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or any other characteristic that defines them has shaped their life experiences and perspective.

Topics you can discuss on your medical school diversity essay include:

• Personal background – ethnicity, socioeconomic status, race, gender, sexual orientation, or religion
• Perspectives from your cultural background
• Family background and life circumstances with regards to upbringing
• Adversity and challenges
• Healthcare experiences that reflect your motivation to pursue a career in medicine
• Unique non-healthcare passions and activities
• Courses that inspired you
• Majors and minors in college
• Summer internships
• Gap year activities
• Post-graduate degrees
• Personal qualities, including leadership skills and your personal strengths

Remember that secondary application essays should complement your primary application essays.

Medical School Diversity Essay Prompts

Diversity secondary essay questions may be phrased in a multitude of ways. Diversity essays have a wide range of character limit; some medical schools only allow 1,000 characters while other medical schools have no word limit. Additionally, some diversity secondary prompts are optional while other diversity secondary prompts are mandatory.

To better understand what diversity essays are and how broad they can be, let’s take a look a sample medical school diversity essay prompts. 

Harvard Medical School Diversity Essay Prompt

• If there is an important aspect of your personal background or identity, not addressed elsewhere in the application, that you would like to share with the Committee, we invite you to do so here. Many applicants will not need to answer this question. Examples might include significant challenges in access to education, unusual socioeconomic factors, identification with a minority culture, religion, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity. Briefly explain how such factors have influenced your motivation for a career in medicine.

As listed in the Harvard Medical School prompt, you can write about:

• Demographic variables, such as ethnic, racial, social, gender, religious, etc. diversity that have substantially shaped your life or your passion for medicine
• Personal circumstances/hardships that have shaped your growth
• A specific passion that you have cultivated and pursued over time (for example, sexual health, LGBTQ advocacy, etc.) You should further write about how this passion/activity that you have pursued has allowed you to develop qualities that you believe contribute to your individual diversity.

Note: You basically can write about anything.

In essence, these diversity secondary essay questions are asking you how your unique qualities/experiences will serve their medical community AND will help make you an excellent physician.

Let’s take a look and examine other medical school secondary essay prompts:

Yale School of Medicine Secondary Application Diversity Essay Prompt

• Yale School of Medicine values diversity in all its forms. How will your background and experiences contribute to this important focus of our institution and inform your future role as a physician?  

Read a Yale medical school diversity essay example below!

The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Secondary Application Diversity Essay Prompt

• Optional: The (Johns Hopkins) Admissions Committee values hearing about each candidate for admission, including what qualities the candidate might bring to the School of Medicine if admitted. If you feel there is information not already addressed in the application that will enable the Committee to know more about you and this has influenced your desire to be a physician, feel free to write a brief statement in the space below. You may address any subject you wish, such as being a first generation college student, or being a part of a minority group (whether because of your sexual orientation, religion, economic status, gender identity, ethnicity) or being the child of undocumented immigrants or being undocumented yourself, etc. Please note that this question is optional and that you will not be penalized should you choose not to answer it.

A special point to notice here:  This essay is optional. See our thoughts below in the FAQ section as to whether you should write this essay or not. Also, read an example Johns Hopkins diversity essay below!

And here are even more secondary essay prompts from various schools….

Baylor College of Medicine Secondary Application Diversity Essay Prompt

• Indicate any special experiences, unusual factors or other information you feel would be helpful in evaluating you, including, but not limited to, education, employment, extracurricular activities, prevailing over adversity. You may expand upon but not repeat TMDSAS or AMCAS application information. This section is mandatory. Please make sure you submit an essay or your application will not be reviewed by the committee. 

Drexel University College of Medicine Secondary Application Diversity Essay Prompt

• What else do you feel is important for us to know about you? You can use this space to highlight something not addressed in your application, including new experiences not in your AMCAS application. You can also talk about how COVID -19 impacted you. For example, it may have caused disruptions or changes in your plans. If there is something you would like to share regarding how this event impacted you, share that information here.

Duke University School of Medicine Secondary Application Diversity Essay Prompt

• Tell us more about who you are. You may provide additional information that expands your self-identity where gender identification, racial and/or ethnic self description, geographic origin, socioeconomic, academic, and/or other characteristics that define who you are as you contemplate a career that will interface with people who are similar AND dissimilar to you. You will have the opportunity below to tell us how you wish to be addressed, recognized and treated. 
• Optional: In addition to the broad categorization of race, ethnicity, geographic origin, socioeconomic status as provided through your AMCAS application, you may use the text box below to provide additional clarifying information that may reflect the impact of any of these parameters on your development thus far as well as the impact that these may have had on your path to a career in medicine and your plans for the future. 
• No word limit & Optional:  Please let us know of any additional information that you would like us to consider while reviewing your application.

Special note:  Duke University School of Medicine has THREE diversity essays. Applicants can really leverage this an opportunity to give a holistic and varied view about themselves!

Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth Secondary Application Diversity Essay Prompt

• Please share with us something about yourself that is not addressed elsewhere in your application and which could be helpful to the Admissions Committee as we review your file.

Georgetown University School of Medicine Secondary Application Diversity Essay Prompt

• 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?

George Washington University School of Medicine Secondary Application Diversity Essay Prompt

• What makes you a unique individual? What challenges have you faced? How will these factors help you contribute to the diversity of the student body at GW? 

Stanford University School of Medicine Secondary Application Diversity Essay Prompt

• The (Stanford) 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.
• Optional:  Please include anything else that will help us understand better how you may uniquely contribute to Stanford Medicine?

Note:  Stanford University School of Medicine has multiple essays where you can write about your “diverse” experiences. Other than Stanford secondary essay questions about how you want to take advantage of Stanford’s curriculum, the rest of the Stanford University School of Medicine essay prompts are very open-ended!

The Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University Secondary Application Diversity Essay Prompt

• How will your unique attributes (e.g., cultural or socioeconomic background, lifestyle, work experiences) add to the overall diversity of the Alpert Medical School community?

Tufts University School of Medicine Secondary Application Diversity Essay Prompt

• Do you consider yourself a person who would contribute to the diversity of the student body of Tufts University School of Medicine ?

Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine Secondary Application Diversity Essay Prompt

• Feinberg’s mission is to train future leaders in medicine who will serve their patients, communities and society. Describe one specific interest in medicine and how FSM, located in Chicago which is one of the most culturally diverse cities in the country, will help you achieve this professional goal
• The Feinberg School of Medicine values diversity as a measure of excellence. We define diversity as the totality of the characteristics and experiences of our students. We believe that a diverse student body improves the educational environment and the ability of our graduates to serve an increasingly diverse patient population. Narrative Descriptions: Everyone has their own narrative. Please provide more detail about how your experiences would enrich the Northwestern community. 

Note: Northwestern University has TWO diversity essays! In the first essay prompt, your essay topic should be more related to healthcare and medicine. But, in the second prompt, you can write about anything!

Washington University School of Medicine Secondary Application Diversity Essay Prompt

• Optional:  Is there anything else you would like to share with the Committee on Admissions?

How to Write About Diversity in Your Secondary Essays

Our goal at Cracking Med School Admissions when helping students strategize and edit their secondary application essays is to always help students stand out. Yes, that means, we want students to stand out in every single essay, including this open-ended diversity essay question.

It is incredibly important to do THREE THINGS when it comes to your diversity essays:

1. Include anecdotes.

You want to make sure that you show your readers how specific experiences and demographic factors have shaped you as an individual, rather than tell them.

Examples of anecdotes include:

• Demographics – if you are going to discuss something from your demographic background, don’t just say where you are from. SHOW your culture through anecodotes and stories. For examples, premedical students in the past have talked about cooking a cultural meal with their grandparents. Other medical school applicants have talked about a grandparent’s or parent’s experience with the American healthcare systems.
• Challenges – Give specific instances where you faced a challenge. What was the challenge? How did you overcome the challenge?
• Patient care stories – Give anecodotes about memorable patient experiences. What were your interactions with a patient? Why was the patient in the hospital? What happened? What are your reflections about the human experience and human condition? 
• Leadership – give a specific challenge you faced as a leader or a specific event that you organized. Alternatively, you can talk about a time when you led a team or founded an organization / initiatives.

2. Connect your stories to medicine.

How will your experiences help you become a better doctor? That is the question that is relevant to almost every single prompt regardless of if it is explicitly worded as such or not. You absolutely must discuss how your past experiences and the qualities you have cultivated through these experiences will help you in medicine. For example, you can illustrate how your experiences with patient advocacy or within medical teams will help you as a future doctor; it is a good idea to include particularly challenging patient encounters and how you grew from such experiences. You should further write about leadership, teamwork, resilience, and other qualities learned from your experiences—make the explicit connection to how you will use these qualities as a doctor.

3. Tailor your diversity essays TO EACH MEDICAL SCHOOL.

Connect your stories and experiences to what you will do at the medical school. You can talk about how you want to do research with a specific professor or work with a specific club to pioneer a new initiative. Talk about how your presence at the medical school will enhance the community.

Different schools have different strengths. You must do your research on each school that you are applying to, and try to connect your experiences to the schools’ strengths.

Moreover, different schools have different needs. If there is a specific problem in the regional community that the school belongs to that you feel you are poised to solve (for example, homeless health, refugee health, etc.), you can further tailor your essay to a medical school by making that connection.

Be creative to show EACH INDIVIDUAL medical school that you would be a standout contributor to their community.

Frequently Asked Questions about Diversity Secondaries

We want to share with you frequently asked questions about diversity secondaries. Our responses below are here to help you strategize your secondary essay topics.

Again, our goal is to help you STAND OUT in every single part of your application, including your secondary applications!

Remember, the point of the diversity essay is to help you discuss the strengths of your application. Whatever you write should complement the other responses and other essays in  each school’s secondary application. Each applicant will have his or her own unique strengths, stories, and experiences, so if you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact Dr. Mediratta and Dr. Rizal , who literally read thousands of secondary essays each year!

What is the biggest mistake you’ve seen on diversity essays?

This is our biggest advice for medical school diversity essays:

Applicants often think that they  have to write about their personal background, specifically culture, ethnicity, race, and/or socioeconomic status. While there are some secondary applications that ask for specifically those topics, most diversity essay prompts are broad.  We often encourage students to talk about other extra-curricular activities and passions UNLESS they their cultural background plays a significant role in their pursuit towards a career in medicine.

You can think about the following questions:

• What will you bring to the medical school class?
• How will you change healthcare (and how have you already started on that journey)?
• What are your strengths as a person?

Can the topic of my secondary essay be the same as topics I wrote about in my primary application personal statement?

Yes! Absolutely! However, we would suggest that you write about a different angle. 

For example, if in your primary application personal statement you talked about your research and what you did in your research, in your diversity essay medical school, talk about a challenge you faced in your research project. Or, talk about a different study or research lab your were involved with. Finally, premeds may write about teaching and mentoring younger individuals in their labs, again, to give a different angle in their diversity essays for medical school.

Can I “recycle” or “reuse” my diversity essay response for multiple schools?

Yes! What we typically advise students is to use most of the essay as a template or starting point. And then, tweak the essay as necessary based on the number of words or characters available. If applicable, you can tailor the diversity essay towards each school. 

Many students will have 2-3 “diversity essay medical school topics and essays” that they draw from. And, depending on the medical school and other prompts, they will pick and choose which essay to use.

Can I talk about a challenge in my diversity essay?

Definitely. Make sure you did not use this essay for another essays like a “challenge” prompt for that specific school’s secondary. Discuss how overcoming the challenge has helped you grow, and what you will contribute to the medical school student body. 

Can I talk about how COVID-19 impacted me and my application in my diversity essay?

Typically, talking about COVID-19 challenges isn’t the strongest topic for the diversity essay. But, if you faced a challenge during the  COVID-19 pandemic and took action to improve society or healthcare, then you can definitely use those experiences! Also, another secondary application strategy to consider: make sure there is not another prompt that allows you to talk about COVID.

You can read about an ICU expererience during COVID down below in our diversity secondary essay examples!

Medical School Diversity Essay Examples

You can include multiple experiences in one diversity secondary essay, but make sure that your transitions are seamless. Furthermore, in such essays, you want to pay attention to your paragraph breaks to further communicate your strong attributes and diverse experiences with maximum impact. Remember—make it as easy as possible for your reader to understand your writing and to visualize you as a strong physician.

Below are 2 medical school diversity essay examples answers from a student who then received an interview at both Yale University School of Medicine and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Yale Medical School Diversity Essay Example

Prompt: Yale School of Medicine values diversity in all its forms. How will your background and experiences contribute to this important focus of our institution and inform your future role as a physician?  

When I first arrived at UPenn, I was made acutely aware of an issue that plagued our campus community: an extensive culture of sexual assault. I felt compelled to act in opposition. I joined Abuse and Sexual Assault Prevention (ASAP) in my first semester and later became a Sexual Assault Counselor.

A lesson I learned as Co-Chair of ASAP is that leaders must critically examine their communities to meet unfulfilled needs. I transformed our programming to better serve survivors with an intersectional lens. I held a workshop at UPenn with a community leader from the Movement for Black Lives and discussed how racial justice must inform our advocacy. This focus was integrated into our Take Back the Night advocacy event, as we spoke at length about how to serve the needs of black and trans survivors. I piloted the expansion of this event to being held with eight other schools.

Moreover, the Title IX reporting process at UPenn is quite complex and not readily accessible. Given the number of sexual trauma survivors at our university, I worked to clarify this process for our student community by directing an educational campaign, to be released in the next academic year. I played the leading role in a meeting with the Title IX Coordinator and Associate Vice President for Equity, as well as Directors and Associate Directors from various UPenn Centers—we discussed my vision for the project and dove into specifics of the campaign. I enjoyed collaborating with individuals who direct initiatives and policy changes for the safety of our campus community of 25,000 students.

As a physician, I will continue to lead the movement to build a world free of sexual violence and gender inequity. I strive to integrate clinics that offer primary, psychiatric, and gynecological care for sexual trauma survivors into national healthcare. These clinics will also offer forensic examinations led by Sexual Assault Forensic Examiners (SAFE), as well as social and legal support. By providing a centralized location for all of the care needs of survivors, I want to limit the difficulties of navigating the healthcare system often faced by this vulnerable population. I would love to work with Dr. Jubanyik to drive this initiative forward and promote health equity for survivors at Yale. Furthermore, statewide tracking of SAFE centers is inconsistent. I want to generate a national database to consolidate these programs and help survivors better access them. I would love to extend my advocacy for survivors as a member of the student group, Prenatal Partners, to be able to advocate for a trauma-informed approach to medical care for expectant mothers.

As a medical student and physician, I am eager to leverage my skill in storytelling to inform and strengthen healthcare. I believe that compelling stories can be important catalysts for change, particularly in the context of my aspirations to serve women and survivors. I would love to work with Dr. Reisman to write a journalistic novel on women’s sexuality and resilience deriving from my longitudinal patient relationships.

Johns Hopkins Medical School Diversity Essay Example

Optional: The Admissions Committee values hearing about each candidate for admission, including what qualities the candidate might bring to the School of Medicine if admitted. If you feel there is information not already addressed in the application that will enable the Committee to know more about you and this has influenced your desire to be a physician, feel free to write a brief statement in the space below. You may address any subject you wish, such as being a first generation college student, or being a part of a minority group (whether because of your sexual orientation, religion, economic status, gender identity, ethnicity) or being the child of undocumented immigrants or being undocumented yourself, etc. Please note that this question is optional and that you will not be penalized should you choose not to answer it. 2500 characters

As a Neuro/COVID-19 ICU clinical volunteer operating at the center of the pandemic crisis, I encouraged patients who were suffering the worst of COVID-19 symptoms through our patient call bell system. 

In public health emergencies, I understand how patients can feel detached from and misunderstood by their healthcare systems, causing them to refuse treatments or preventive measures like vaccines. I once had a conversation with an ICU patient who was approaching discharge and refusing to wear a mask. My team respectfully asked questions and listened to his supplication of answers and reasoning. I knew that convincing someone to let go of an entrenched opinion would be difficult. But I tried as hard as I could and felt him soften in conversation. He ultimately wore his mask. I left this interaction with a better understanding of how to approach and care for an individual with a radically different perspective from my own.

I take seriously my responsibility to listen carefully to my patient’s concerns and assure them that recommended measures are medically sound. To promote patient trust in medicine and to address health disparities exacerbated by the pandemic, I will work to leverage community partnerships, as I have done as an advocate for survivors. I will listen to what specific communities need and tailor health care delivery accordingly.

Throughout the coronavirus surge, I was able to have a more hands-on role with neurological care in the ICU. After caring for an unconscious patient with moyamoya disease and two ischemic strokes in the Neuro/COVID-19 ICU and learning of her poor prognosis from her physician, I pored through the medical literature. I hoped that studies would reveal something different. The patient’s antiplatelet therapy was proving ineffective. Yet surgery was not a safe option as her unstable moyamoya carried greater postoperative ischemic complication risk. I struggled, unable to find an alternative. Thereafter, I wrote “Between you and me,” excerpted below.

Her eyes are closed, a tube connecting her to her life.

They are draining her cerebrospinal fluid and it should

be yellow. But it’s pink. Like watermelon juice.

The act of writing brought me peace and helped me come to terms with my patient’s suffering.

Nikita’s work in the ICU was featured in U.S. News , “ What Premeds Can Learn in Intensive Care Units ”

We hope this blog post was a great starting point in giving you ideas for how to write a medical school diversity essay.

Check out our other helpful resources:

• COVID-19 Secondary Essay Prompts
• How to Write “Why This Medical School?” Secondary Essays
• Medical School Secondary Essay Editing

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How to Write the Medical School Secondary Diversity Essay

• By Med School Insiders
• June 13, 2022
• Secondary Application

The medical school secondary diversity essay exists because admissions committees want to ensure their campus is as diverse as possible. Medical schools want to attract applicants from all walks of life so that each student contributes something unique to the student body. The diversity essay is an opportunity for applicants to discuss their minority background or otherwise unique history or identity and how their uniqueness will contribute to the college community.

In this post, we’ll break down why this prompt is asked, what admissions committees are looking for, and how to best answer it.

Medical School Secondaries

The AMCAS application opens for the following year’s medical school class around the first week of May. Submissions open around the end of May to early June, so you have a month to prepare your primary application. Therefore, if you hope to begin medical school in the fall of 2023, you must apply in the spring of 2022.

Your secondary applications will take about two to four weeks to arrive after you submit your primary application. Secondaries must be completed as soon as possible without compromising quality. We recommend taking no longer than 7-14 days to submit each secondary you receive.

This is especially true because, at Med School Insiders, we recommend applicants apply to around 20 different medical schools . This could mean receiving 20 different secondaries, all within the same general time frame.

For more information about ideal scheduling, read our Medical School Application Timeline Guide .

Why Do Schools Include a Diversity Essay?

Colleges, and not just medical schools, believe their college culture, community, and campus learning experience can be enriched by including a wide array of different backgrounds, perspectives, identities, and beliefs. Therefore, many admissions committees assign a diversity essay so that each applicant can explain in their own words how their identity and background will help enhance the student body at large.

Diversity essays are an opportunity for applicants with minority backgrounds, unique family histories, an unconventional education, or otherwise distinctive experiences to explain how their uniqueness will add to the campus community.

How to Answer the Medical School Secondary Diversity Essay

1 | diversity comes in many forms.

This is an extremely important point, as many applicants who don’t come from a specific socioeconomic or ethnocultural background believe they are unable to add diversity to a prospective medical school class. This is a common misconception. Diversity isn’t limited to the color of your skin or which religion your family belongs to.

Did you experience a non-traditional upbringing growing up? This could include losing a family member, having a sibling or family member with a health concern or disability, growing up in a single parent home, needing to work at a young age, or much more. There are many, many factors that could contribute to your diversity.

Focus on your story. Which personal qualities make you unique? What aspect of your personal identity, upbringing, or family has separated you from your peers?

2 | What is Your Personal Identity?

If you’re stuck on what direction to take this essay, take time to look inward and consider your own identity. Who are you? What kind of person are you? What makes you, well, you? What makes you unique from other candidates?

Your identity is made up of a number of different factors, including your ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and health.

You might also consider any non-traditional experiences you’ve had or a non-traditional upbringing.

• What was your home life like?
• What was your financial situation growing up?
• What is your family’s education level?
• How much did you have to work when you were younger?
• Do you come from a multicultural background?
• Have you experienced a personal health scare?
• Do you have family members who have significant health concerns?
• Have you lost close family members?
• Did you lose a parent at a young age?
• Did you grow up in a single parent home?
• Have you experienced any kind of traumatic event that has informed your values and identity?

3 | Get Personal

Don’t hold back when sharing your experiences. Surface-level stories or bland anecdotes will not stand out. What personal details can you add that will better illustrate your points?

Describe in detail how the experience made you feel. What did you learn? What qualities have you developed as a result of the experience? How will you apply what you learned and the qualities you earned to your medical education and eventual career?

At the same time, remember that your experience may be brought up during your interview. Anything you mention in your application is fair game to be asked about on the interview trail. Do not write about any experience you will be unable to speak about in person. It’s good to be open and show vulnerability, but it’s also vital that you maintain your composure during your interview.

If you don’t think you can speak about the experience face-to-face with an interviewer, leave it out of your essay.

4 | Don’t Repeat Yourself

You may have been asked a diversity question in your primary application, or you may have chosen to focus on this aspect of your life in your personal statement.

Do not repeat yourself in your secondary. Admissions committees already have access to your primary application. Repeating the same stories won’t provide adcoms with any additional insight into who you are. The secondaries are an opportunity to add something new to your story.

If you’re going to touch on an experience, moment, or lesson you’ve already mentioned, ensure that you are adding to it. You must provide a notable amount of additional context if you utilize the same examples in your secondaries.

5 | Continue Crafting Your Narrative

An essential piece of a successful primary application is the cohesive narrative you build throughout it about who you are and why you want to be a doctor. The secondary application is no different. The diversity essay is an opportunity to continue the narrative you established in your primary application.

It’s important that the diversity essay fits well with the rest of your secondary application. Each piece of the application should add to your story and provide additional context about how you’ve arrived at where you are today.

Learn How to Develop a Cohesive Narrative for Medical School Applications .

Medical School Secondary Diversity Essay Examples

There are a number of different directions you can take your diversity essay.

You might discuss a time when you or someone you care about experienced prejudice. How did that experience make you feel? What did you learn? How did it shape who you are? If you took action in response to this, what action did you take? Did you try to support others who are experiencing prejudice?

You might discuss the difficulties you’ve had growing up with parents who have different values than your own. How did these differences change your relationship with your family? How did that conflict in your life shape who you are today? Were you able to resolve your differences with your family, or did you need to prioritize your own needs and identity?

You might discuss how your cultural background has been a positive influence on your life. How has learning another language and participating in cultural values distinct from those of the US shaped who you are? What have you learned from the traditional values of your family? How can you apply what you’ve learned to interacting with people who come from other ethnic or socioeconomic backgrounds?

You might discuss how from a very young age you needed to help support your family financially. How did taking on that burden when you were young shape you? How were you able to help and support your family? Was it financially or with your time? What did you learn from that experience growing up, and how has it informed your priorities and outlook on life?

Other Common Secondary Questions

The diversity essay is only one of the common medical school secondary prompts you can expect to see in one form or another. Knowing which questions are likely to appear on secondaries will help you prepare your answers in advance.

Some of the most common secondary questions include:

• Why are you a good fit for our school?
• What are your strengths and weaknesses?
• Why do you want to be a doctor?
• Why us? / Why do you want to join this program?
• Describe a moral or ethical dilemma you faced. What did you learn from the experience?
• Describe a time when you failed and what you learned.
• Did you take time off after undergrad? What did you achieve during this time?
• Where do you see yourself in ten years?

With these questions in mind, start writing your responses to common secondary questions long before you actually receive your secondaries. Once you do receive a secondary, deeply research the program and tailor your answers to suit their values and offerings.

Learn more about the complete secondary process and how to plan ahead in our Medical School Secondary Application Guide .

Secondary Application Editing With Med School Insiders

We get it. We understand how long you’ve already been working on the application process,  but now is not the time to give up. It’s time to knuckle down and drive this thing home.

Med School Insiders can help. Our Medical School Secondary Application Editing services will help you write the kind of singular secondary applications that will get you noticed by your top choice medical schools. Our doctor advisors have served on medical school admissions committees, and they’ve read hundreds of secondary essays. Our team will help you craft a stellar secondary application tailored to each school you apply to.

Med School Insiders

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2024 AACOMAS Secondary Application Guide

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2024-2025 Medical School Application Timeline and Monthly Schedule

This is the medical school application timeline you should follow, including key dates and an ideal month-by-month preparation schedule.

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Medical School Diversity Essay: Complete Guide

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Admissions committees want to ensure their campus is as varied as possible, so they require additional diversity essays for medical schools. 

Medical schools strive to draw candidates from diverse backgrounds so that each student can bring something unique to the school.

The diversity essay allows you to talk about your ethnicity or other distinctive characteristics and how those characteristics will benefit the campus community.

This article will give you a thorough understanding of a medical school diversity essay and the best tips on making a compelling one.

What is a Diversity Essay for Medical School? 

Many secondary admissions require a diversity essay. If a diversity essay is suggested, you should still view it as a requirement because contributing additional, compelling materials increases your chances of getting accepted.

Sending extra resources will enable the admissions committees to understand your distinctive background better since they matriculate well-rounded, diversified, and experienced individuals. A recurrent element across purpose and vision statements on medical school websites is diversity.

This is due to the necessity for healthcare professionals who can relate to and treat a variety of patient populations in the medical industry. 

Some institutions even have unique diversity declarations demonstrating their unwavering dedication to enrolling a diverse student body, including students of every color, religion, sexual orientation, identity, and experience in education and the workforce.

To further promote the advantages of diversity in medicine, admissions committees give unconventional applicants with non-science backgrounds substantial consideration and admit them.

What Counts as Diversity?

Put your worries aside if you are concerned that because you do not identify with a historically underrepresented group, you do not qualify as a diverse applicant. 

Diversity in the context of med school applications does not mean that only members of racial or ethnic minorities should be admitted. 

Yes, minority applicants are diverse and are urged to submit applications to medical school, but diversity does not stop there. 

Instead, diversity is viewed broadly to embrace a variety of areas. In addition, everyone is diverse because each person may draw on their own particular experiences and backgrounds, which is advantageous in the healthcare industry.

Candidates might be diverse due to a variety of distinct qualities and traits:

• Career switchers
• Returning older students
• Non-traditional candidates
• Returning parents to the workforce
• Candidates with military experience
• Candidates who did not major in science
• Candidates from challenging socioeconomic backgrounds
• Candidates who persevere in the face of enormous difficulties
• Historically underrepresented groups (including those based on race, ethnicity, gender, and gender identity as well as language, sexual orientation, and more )

You will have many examples to pick from if you widen your idea of diversity to include your learning experiences and worldviews.

8 Tips for Answering Medical School Diversity Essays

Diversity essays for medical schools give candidates with diverse backgrounds, unusual families, unorthodox educations, or other different experiences a chance to describe how their distinctiveness would enrich the campus community.

Your diversity essay is your chance to show the medical school you are applying to what you have to offer. Hence, it is a must that you ensure that you stand out among the other candidates. 

Below are the best tips when writing your diversity essay for medical school.  

Decide What Makes You Unique

Before you even start writing, develop a list of the characteristics in your background that set you apart. 

Consider your schooling, employment history, extracurricular activities, upbringing, family life, and other facets of your path to medical school.

The purpose of brainstorming is to stimulate your creative thinking. 

Do not worry about spelling, grammar, or sentence structure at this time. Your objective is to write down as many thoughts as you can so that you can start to develop a narrative for your diversity essay using one to three examples.

Focus on Your Story

This is a crucial aspect since many applicants who do not belong to a particular socioeconomic or ethnic group feel they cannot bring variety to a potential medical school class. 

Unfortunately, this is a typical misunderstanding. Diversity is not only about your skin tone or the religion your ancestors practiced.

Did you grow up in a non-traditional environment? 

This could involve losing a family member, having a brother or other family member who is ill or disabled, growing up in a home with only one parent, starting work at an early age, or many other things. There are a ton of different things that could be a part of your variety.

Do not Hold Back

Do not be reluctant to share your experiences. Simple or uninteresting anecdotes will not stand out. What specific information about yourself can you include to support your arguments?

Clearly state how the encounter affected you. 

What did you discover? 

How has the experience helped you grow in terms of your character? 

How did you utilize what you learned and acquired skills to further your medical education and, ultimately, your career?

In addition, keep in mind that your experience can come up during the interview. Therefore, any information you include in your application is fair for questioning throughout the interview process. 

Never write about an experience that you will not be able to discuss in person. It is beneficial to be honest and vulnerable. Still, it is equally important that you keep your cool throughout the interview.

Make Sure Your Story Has a Potential Contribution to the Community

Occasionally, candidates focus so much on their differences that they lose sight that being unique is a means, not an end, to an objective. 

These distinctions and distinctive traits/experiences must have a purpose. They must assist in demonstrating your merit for a place at the roundtable discussion for medical schools.

Being a two-time offender or a habitual absence from school are two examples of unusual qualities and experiences for a medical school applicant . Will they aid you in entering? 

Most likely not, and for apparent motives. Concentrating on another subject for your medical school diversity essay might be best.

The idea is straightforward. Once you have determined your unique traits, your primary responsibility is to explain how that distinctiveness will enable you to offer something extraordinary both in and outside school.

Enter your text here...

Keep Developing Your Narrative

The coherent story you weave throughout your primary application about who you are and why you want to be a doctor is crucial to a successful application. 

Nothing different applies to the second application. The diversity essay allows you to develop the story you started in your main application.

The diversity essay must flow naturally with the remainder of your secondary application. Each application component should support your narrative and offer further background information on how you came to be where you are.

Do Not Repeat Yourself

Make sure you are expanding on any experiences, moments, or lessons you have already addressed if you will bring them up again. You must include more background if you use the same examples in your secondaries.

Do not say the same thing twice in your secondary. Your initial application is already available to the admissions committee. Repeating the same tales will not give the admission committee any new information about you. The secondary chapters offer you the chance to develop your plot further.

Have Enough Evidence of What You Are Writing

Even if diversity may be an elusive idea or characteristic, it needs concrete proof. Therefore, diversity essays for med school are not comprehensive without a clear explanation of how your "diversity" relates to your experiences.

You cannot, for instance, blatantly claim that your history as an immigrant son or daughter and first-generation college student gives you some important insight into the concerns of immigrant populations. 

You still need to provide evidence, even though it makes sense that you would be more knowledgeable than people from wealthy, non-immigrant families. Clearly state the links.

Therefore, the ideal strategy is not to overemphasize how significant your minority identity is if you do choose to focus on ethnic, cultural, or religious diversity.

Instead, a compelling essay might concentrate on your commitment to diversity and social justice issues or your efforts to address the health disparities between minorities and non-minorities. It could also be your encounters that show a concrete proof of your cross-cultural competence in patient or client interactions. 

These three subjects are not exhaustive but could serve as an excellent starting point.

Proofread and Double-Check Your Diversity Essay

Spend some time going over a few crucial details in your article again. Ensure the element or elements you emphasize have real personal significance for you. Then, reread your essay one last time to ensure you genuinely respond to the question.

The diversity essay is multifaceted. For example, one school might require you only to list any noteworthy aspects of your background. 

At the same time, another would want you to explain how those aspects will improve their curriculum or influence your future line of work.

Additionally, make sure you relate your attributes to medicine, particularly to the institution you are applying to.

Medical School Diversity Essay Sample Prompts 

The leading schools' diversity essay prompts are provided below to give you an idea of what is anticipated. Remember that each of these prompts has a consistent theme. 

Specifically, medical schools are interested in your broad diversity and how it will benefit the institution's purpose, vision, and student body.

Larner College of Med – University of Vermont

The Larner College of Medicine understands that diversity embraces all of a person's experiences and goes beyond their self-identified or unidentified identities. Consider a period when you gained knowledge from a person or organization that is different from yourself.

Mayo Med School – Mayo Clinic

Our individual inflections, which make up our diversity, distinguish us from one another or bind us together. Describe how your personal and professional activities reflect your relationship to your own variety and the diversity of others.

Stanford University School of Medicine

The diversity of an entering class is viewed by the admissions committee as a crucial component in advancing the school's educational purpose. The Committee on Admissions encourages you to address any distinctive, personally significant, and/or challenging aspects of your background.

These aspects may include how well you were educated as a child, your gender, your sexual orientation, any physical disabilities, and life or employment experiences.

Please explain how these influences have shaped your aspirations and training for a future in medicine and how they might enable you to make a distinctive contribution to the Stanford learning environment.

University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine

The Pritzker Sch of Medicine at the University of Chicago is committed to encouraging diverse students with an extraordinary promise to become leaders and innovators in science and medicine for the benefit of humanity. This is done in an environment of multidisciplinary scholarship and discovery.

Our essential objective and educational ethos are expressed in our mission statement. In particular, it emphasizes how important diversity is to us since we believe that variety in the student body is vital to academic performance. Please submit an essay outlining how you would further Pritzker's goal and promote diversity there.

Wake Forest School of Medicine

We want to develop doctors who can relate to various patient populations, even though they may not have a common background. Tell us about a situation that helped you to see the world more broadly or to understand people who are different from you better and what you took away from it.

Medical School Diversity Essay Samples

The diversity essay questions you are given by various institutions may differ, meaning that the terminology and what is being asked of you will be unique to each institution. 

To prepare yourself, reading a few samples is a good idea.

While the general substance of each prompt will not fluctuate significantly depending on the school, you might want to change the organization or sequencing of the content for various prompts.

Here are some of the best samples of medical school diversity essays.

Prompt: Diversity can take many different shapes. How do you think you could add to the class's diversity?

I feel fortunate to have a solid sense of my roots. Being in Italy frequently throughout my life has allowed me to see how this culture's ideologies differ from those of the United States.

Italian society is frequently tarnished by the myth that its people are idle or unwilling to put forth the effort. People will, in my opinion, see a community where love and camaraderie are more critical than monetary possessions if they view the world objectively.

As a result, there is a considerable emphasis on other people's health and wellness. There is always time for family dinner, a coffee with a friend, or a mind-clearing walk in the evening.

Growing up, my family always ensured everyone had access to food and conversation. I adhere to this concept and see working in the healthcare industry as a chance to assist people in leading fulfilling lives and seeking their own happiness.

Healthcare experts have continuously allowed my loved ones to live independently and be there throughout my life. They have provided me with a service and a gift, and I want to spend the rest of my life sharing that gift with others. My passion for studying medicine and my holistic way of living have been influenced by my culture, background, and experiences in life.

In addition to being a physician in training, I will bring these qualities of empathy and holistic care to my role as a classmate who supports others through medical school challenges.

Prompt: Without restricting the discussion to your identity, please elaborate on how you see yourself supporting the fundamental principles of inclusion and diversity at our school of medicine and the medical field.

When I think about diversity, the first thing that springs to me is "a difference of opinion." As a member of the debate club and a student with a budding interest in classical philosophy, I've come to understand the importance of having a variety of viewpoints. I think advancement is basically impossible without the ability to question our assumptions and expectations about the world and ourselves.

My responsibility as a volunteer scribe at a mobile clinic was to document the specifics of patient examinations. We saw primarily middle-aged or older people. One patient, Paul, showed up at the mobile clinic with a nasty cut on his foot that he claimed was caused by catching his foot on an old rolled-up fence behind his barn. He was skeptical when we suggested he get a tetanus injection. He expressed why he didn't think immunizations were effective.

It was crucial to avoid conflict. We emphasized that while maintaining his autonomy was our first goal, he was likely to contract tetanus, which is potentially fatal. We explained to him that the tetanus vaccine has contributed to a 95% reduction in tetanus cases since about 1950. The patient thought for a bit, then agreed to the vaccination and thanked us for our assistance before leaving. I want to provide the University of Maryland School of Medicine with what I've learned through polite, open communication.

Prompt: What diverse characteristics and experiences could you offer the community of medical schools?

Our training for the Peace Corps taught us a metaphor for our work. Our new neighborhood could be compared to a square if America, our country of origin, were a circle. Volunteers like me formed triangles. The purpose? We could see both as legitimate modes of existence since we were a part of both.

The majority of us have several identities. I also practice living in the center by driving a boat across an island chain. The translator assumes a crucial role in Ann Patchett's Bel Canto, one of my favorite books, which tells the tale of foreign ambassadors who are taken hostage during a banquet. He is the one who must communicate, interpret, and give voice to the blank spaces between characters.

I have had many opportunities to translate for my siblings, parents, Belizean villagers, and others in my health advocacy work. I am the oldest child, a former Peace Corps volunteer, and a member of a mixed-race family.

My "triangular" persona enables me to take an alternative perspective on issues. The medical school is a hub for creative thinking and an entrepreneurial community. I wish to take part in the translation of differences and support of evidence-based solutions to health issues.

I believe that to fulfill my duty, I must be willing to try to comprehend others. My capacity to stand in two places, ears and heart open, enable dialogue, and give my perspective from a place of collaborative appreciation, will be my most outstanding contribution to the medical school community. In a silo, growth cannot take place. It starts with acknowledging the significance of all identities while learning from and working with others.

Additional FAQs – Medical School Diversity Essay 

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How to write the perfect diversity essay for medical school.

Reviewed by:

Akhil Katakam

Third-Year Medical Student, Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University

Reviewed: 5/19/23

Wondering how to write the perfect diversity essay for medical school? Stick around to find out our top tips!

The medical school admissions process is becoming increasingly holistic. Admissions committees look at more than just your GPA and extracurricular activities to decide your candidacy.

There is a significant need to diversify the medical field, so various other selection factors play an important role in your success. Many medical schools require secondary essays as part of their application materials to help them assess candidates’ strengths, desirable qualities, experiences, and insights. 

Some schools require the medical school diversity essay, so it’s essential to understand the ins and outs of what makes a compelling essay stand out. This blog will review the definition of diversity in the context of medical school applications and provide examples of prompts from top schools. 

You will also learn how to write a diversity essay, including tips on what to include and the proper format to follow. Lastly, we’ll provide an example that tells an interesting story and connects a candidate’s diversity with a medical school’s mission and vision.

Get The Ultimate Guide on Writing an Unforgettable Personal Statement

What is a Diversity Essay for Medical School?

A diversity essay is required or recommended for many medical school secondary applications . In the cases that the diversity essay is recommended, you should still consider it as a requirement, as submitting additional, strong materials maximize your chances of acceptance. 

Admissions committees matriculate well-rounded, diverse, and experienced candidates , so sending more materials will help them gain a better overview of your unique background. 

If you look at medical school websites, there is a common theme among mission and vision statements: diversity. This is because the medical field needs to diversify health care practitioners who can empathize with and effectively treat various types of patient populations.

Some schools even have separate diversity statements that show their ongoing commitment to matriculate a diverse student body, representing every race, religion, sexual orientation, identity, educational/professional background, and more. 

In fact, admissions committees are even seriously considering and matriculating non-traditional applicants from non-science backgrounds to further serve the benefits of diversity in medicine. 

What Counts as Diversity?

If you’re worried that you don’t count as a diverse candidate because you don’t belong to a historically underrepresented group, cast your concerns aside. Diversity in the context of diversity essays for medical school is not a code word to only matriculate ethnic or racial minorities. 

Yes, candidates from minority groups are diverse and are encouraged to apply to medical school, but diversity doesn’t end there. Rather, diversity is broadly defined to include many categories. Everyone is diverse because everyone has their own unique experiences and backgrounds to draw from, which is valuable in healthcare.

There are many distinguishing factors and characteristics that can make candidates diverse:

• Non-traditional applicants (2 or more gap years before med school)
• Candidates who are non-science majors
• Career changers
• Candidates with a disability
• Historically underrepresented groups (racial, ethnic, gender and gender identity, linguistic, sexual orientation, religion, and more)
• Older returning students
• Applicants with military service
• Parents returning to the workforce
• Candidates who overcome extreme challenges and adversity
• Applicants with a difficult socioeconomic background

If you broaden your understanding of diversity to include your unique learning experiences and worldviews, you will have a plethora of examples to choose from to write a powerful diversity essay. 

Examples of Diversity Essay Prompts

The following are previous diversity essay prompts from top medical schools to give you an idea of what a diversity essay prompt looks like . You’ll notice there is a similar thread in all of these prompts: medical schools want to know about your diversity in broadly defined terms, and most importantly, how it will enhance the school’s mission, vision, and student body.

Prompt: Stanford University School of Medicine

“ 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.”

Prompt: Wake Forest School of Medicine

“We seek to train physicians who can connect with diverse patient populations with whom they may not share a similar background. Tell us about an experience that has broadened your own worldview or enhanced your ability to understand those unlike yourself and what you learned from it.”

Prompt: Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont

 “The Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont recognizes that diversity extends beyond chosen and unchosen identities and encompasses the entirety of an individual’s experiences. Reflect on a time you learned something from someone or a group of people who are unlike yourself.”

Prompt: Columbia Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons

 “Columbia Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons values diversity in all its forms. How will your background and experiences contribute to this important focus of our institution and inform your future role as a physician?”

Prompt :University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine

“At the University of Chicago, in an atmosphere of interdisciplinary scholarship and discovery, the Pritzker School of Medicine is dedicated to inspiring diverse students of exceptional promise to become leaders and innovators in science and medicine for the betterment of humanity. Our mission statement is an expression of our core purpose and educational philosophy. In particular, it highlights the value we place on diversity since we regard the diversity of entering class as essential for educational excellence. Please write an essay on how you would enhance diversity at Pritzker and advance the Pritzker mission.”

 Use our tool to discover every U.S. medical school’s secondary essay prompts! 

How to Write a Diversity Essay

If you’re having trouble figuring out how to write a diversity essay, take the following steps:

1. Identify What Makes You Unique

First, before you even begin to write, brainstorm the things in your background that make you unique. In particular, think about your education, work experience, extracurricular activities, upbringing, family life, and other aspects of your journey to medical school.

Brainstorming ideas is meant to get your creative juices flowing. At this point, don’t worry about grammar, spelling, or sentence structure. Your goal is to get as many ideas on paper as possible so that you can begin to craft a story that uses one to three examples for your diversity essay.

You can ask yourself the following questions to get started:

• Who are you at your core, at your best self?
• What experiences have defined you?
• How do you identify yourself, and how does this differ from society’s expectations of your identity?
• How have you overcome challenges, adversity, or rejection?
• Where did you grow up, and what was it like to live there? How do your geographic roots inform your worldview?
• What was your family life like?
• Have you faced a disability, injury, or illness? What did you learn, and how did you overcome these challenges?
• Are you a part of any teams, groups, or organizations? How have they contributed to your interpersonal skills?

Remember, admissions committees are interested in your story. You should never falsify information in your essays. Write what you know!

2. Pick 1-3 Meaningful Experiences to Potentially Write About

A compelling diversity essay consists of one or a few meaningful experiences instead of overloading the essay with brief mentions of too many examples. You should prioritize quality over quantity and weave a story that’s memorable to the admissions committee.

You should also be mindful of character limits. Every school has different requirements, so be sure you achieve the minimum character count and stay within the upper limits. 

3. Outline the Structure of Your Diversity Essay

No matter the length of your secondary essays , you should always structure it with the following: 

• An introduction that hooks the reader. 
• A body that details your experience(s). 
• A conclusion that concisely ties everything together with the school’s mission.

The introduction should begin to tell your main story. It should introduce your main talking points so that the reader knows what to expect in the essay. Strong introductions often have a hook, which can appear as the beginning of an interesting and evocative anecdote.

The body of your diversity essay should delve into your unique experience through reflective storytelling . Here is where you will go into compelling details about your examples. The body will also demonstrate how your diversity will be an asset to the school and your peers and colleagues. 

It’s also important to show rather than tell. For example, rather than list all of the personal characteristics that make you diverse, use imagery and storytelling to show these personal characteristics in action. 

Finally, the conclusion should neatly tie in your meaningful and diverse experiences to the pursuit of medicine. Your last sentences should leave the reader with a strong impression of why your diversity will be an asset to the school.

4. Write the First Draft

Draw from your notes and outlines to write the first draft. Excellent writing involves an evolution of multiple drafts, so don’t be discouraged if the first draft isn’t perfect. 

You’re not striving for perfection here—you’re still in the beginning stages, so you should prioritize fully addressing the essay prompt with strong examples from your diverse background. Polishing your first draft can come later.

5. Revise and Edit Your Diversity Essay

Go over your draft with a critical eye. Ensure that all prompt components are thoroughly answered, check for spelling and grammatical mistakes, and proofread for proper syntax and sentence structure. 

Look at the flow of your essay. The transitions from introduction, to the body, to the conclusion should be seamless and make sense. If you’re writing about a few experiences, ensure that they make sequential and logical sense. The transitions should feel natural, not jarring or out of place.

Have someone else look at your essay to offer objective feedback. This can be a trusted friend, family member, instructor, employer, peer, or mentor. Be open to constructive criticism and revise any areas that need improvement or further clarification/elaboration. 

Diversity Essay Examples

The following diversity essay examples both tell compelling and memorable stories. As you read, consider how the essay transports you to another location and invites you to view medicine and health care from a unique perspective. 

Note how the essay ties into the school’s mission, vision, and goals for diversifying health care. Finally, consider the overall structure of the essay: there is a tangible introduction, body, and conclusion.

“Being South Asian, I have firsthand knowledge of what it means not to access basic health care. As a child, my mother took me to Pakistan every year, where I spent summers with my grandfather, a top pediatrician in the nation. He had a free clinic attached to his home in Faisalabad, and his practice was so renowned and respected that people from all over the country would travel great distances to have my grandfather treat their children.  Pakistan is a third-world country where a significant part of the population remains illiterate and uneducated due to the lack of resources and opportunities. This population is the most vulnerable, with extremely high numbers of infectious disease and mortality rates. Yet, it is entirely underserved. With the lack of hospitals, clinics, and doctor’s offices in rural Pakistan, parents of ailing children must travel great distances and wait in long lines to receive proper health care.  Every summer at my grandfather’s clinic, from ages five to 17, my job was to open the doors to long lines of tired, hungry, and thirsty parents with their sick children. I would pass out bottled water and pieces of fruit. I would record names, where the patients came from, and the reasons for their visits. I would scurry back inside with the information for my grandfather to assess, and then he’d send me running back out again to let the next family inside. I learned in my formative years how to communicate with diverse patient populations with special needs and a lack of basic necessities. I learned to listen to every family’s unique reasons for their visit, and some of their desperation and pleading for the lives of their children will stay with me forever. When I get into medical school, I hope to share the story of how Gulzarah carried her dehydrated daughter for 12 miles in the Pakistani summer heat without rest (thanks to my grandfather, she later made a full recovery). I want to tell my peers that doctors like my grandfather are not only healers in biology but healers in the spirit by the way he made up heroic songs for the children and sang the fear out of their hearts. I want to show my peers that patients are unique individuals who have suffered and sacrificed to trust us with their health care, so we must honor their trust by providing quality treatment and empathy. My formative experiences in pediatrics contributed to my globally conscious mindset, and I look forward to sharing these diverse insights in my medical career.”

Example 2: University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

“‘911 operator, what’s your emergency?’ ‘My friend has just been shot and he is not moving!’ ‘Is he breathing?’ ‘I don't think so!’ ‘Are you hurt?’ ‘No.’ ‘Stay there, the paramedics are on their way.’  ‍ On April 10th 2003, at approximately 11pm, my best friend Kevin and I, intending to see a movie, headed out my front door. We never made it to see a horror movie; but our night was nothing close to mundane, when we became innocent victims to gang crossfire. As we descended my front door stairs two gunshots were fired and one person fell to the floor. Kevin was shot! I vividly recall holding him in my arms, and while he lost blood I almost lost my mind. All I wanted was to help, but there was nothing I could do. At 1am that morning Kevin's family and I sat in the emergency waiting room at Brookdale Hospital in Brooklyn, hoping and praying that the chief surgeon would bring us good news. While this event started me on my quest to become a medical doctor, at that moment all I could envision was a life of despondency.  ‍ According to author Jennifer Holloway, ‘tragedy is a substance which can ignite the soul.’ When Kevin’s surgeon walked through the door of the emergency waiting room he did not have to say a word. Kevin’s family cried hysterically. I, on the other hand, could not cry. As fast as despondency had filled my heart, it was now gone; I was consumed by anger, frustration and motivation to change my life’s direction. The death of my best friend compelled me to pursue a career in medicine. This, I hope, will enable me to help save the lives that others try to take.  ‍ In the fall of this event, I took my first biology and chemistry courses. By the end of the year I excelled as the top student in biology, received the Inorganic Chemistry Achievement Award and was encouraged to become a tutor in general biology and chemistry.  ‍ Tutoring was a captivating experience for me. Questions raised by students challenged my understanding of scientific concepts and their application in patient care. To further develop my knowledge of medicine, I volunteered in the emergency department at Albert Einstein Hospital, in Bronx, NY. While shadowing doctors, I was introduced to triaging, patient diet monitoring and transitioning from diagnosis to treatment. This exposed me to some of the immense responsibilities of a doctor, but my 5 experience helping in the cancer ward was where I learned the necessity of humanity in a physician and how it can be used to treat patients. Peering through a window I saw Cynthia, a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with terminal cancer, laughing uncontrollably after watching her doctor make funny faces. For a moment not only did Cynthia forget that she was dying, but her smile expressed joy and the beauty of being alive. This taught me that a physician, in addition to being knowledgeable and courageous, should show compassion to patients. It also became clear to me that a patient’s emotional comfort is as important as their physical health, and are both factors that a physician considers while providing patient care.  ‍ Although focused on medicine, I was introduced to research through the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation in Science. Here, I learned organic synthesis techniques, while working on a project to elucidate the chemical mechanisms of oxygen protein binding and its relationships to anemia. I also received the United Negro College Fund/Merck Science Initiative Research Scholarship that allowed me to experience cutting edge research in Medicinal Chemistry, with a number of world-class scientists. At Merck Research Labs, I learned the fundamentals of synthesizing novel compounds for drug discovery, and we focused on treatments for cardiac atrial fibrillation. This internship changed my view of medication and their origins, and left me with a deep appreciation of the challenges of medicinal research. I also now understand that medical doctors and research scientists have similar responsibilities: to solve current and future health issues that we face.  ‍ Despite the tragedy that brought me to the hospital on April 10th 2003, the smells, the residents and the organized chaos of the emergency room have become an integral part of a new chapter in my life. On the day that my friend lost his life I found my soul in medicine. Today as I move forward on the journey to become a physician I never lose sight of the ultimate goal; to turn the dying face of a best friend into the smiling glow of a patient, just like Cynthia’s. A patient’s sickness can be a result of many things. But with the right medications, a physician’s compassion and some luck, sickness can be overcome, and the patient helped. In time and with hard work it will be my privilege to possess the responsibilities of a physician in caring for life.”

FAQs: Med School Diversity Essays

Here are our answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about how to write a diversity essay for medical school. 

1. I’m Not an Underrepresented Minority, so How Can I Write a Diversity Essay for Medical School?

Diversity in the context of medical school secondary essays is not limited to race, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, or other historically underrepresented groups. Think of diversity in broader terms that include your unique experiences and insights, and write about how your diverse skill sets will enhance the school and the student body.

2. How Can I Write a Diversity Essay that Stands Out from Other Candidates?

Brainstorm unique experiences that you have had and narrow down one or two main experiences to weave compelling stories with a clear introduction, body, and conclusion. You should prioritize the quality of your experiences and elaborate upon them rather than pack too many bullet points in a limited space.

3. I’m Not a Strong Writer, How Can I Improve My Diversity Essay for Medical School?

Writing is not a linear process, and even bestselling authors need skilled editors. Start small with outlines and notes, then flesh out the essay with details. Write multiple drafts. When you’re happy with a draft, ask friends, family, peers, colleagues, instructors, or mentors for objective feedback. You can also consult with our team of experts to help you. 

4. Why Do Some Medical Schools Require Diversity Essays?

Medical schools want to diversify the field and accept candidates with unique backgrounds and skill sets. These students will go on to be leaders in health care, so a holistic admissions process ensures that the world’s future doctors represent diverse groups, perspectives, talents, and skill sets. 

5. Where Can I Find More Prompts and Examples of Diversity Essays?

Browse the medical school’s website and read their application procedures. You can also contact the school’s admissions committee helpline for more information.

6. What Should I Avoid in my Medical School Diversity Essay?

Avoid spelling and grammar errors, an unprofessional or casual tone/language, controversial or offensive statements, embellishing stories, and negative outlooks. If your diversity essay addresses facing adversity, make sure to focus on a growth mindset, what you learned, and the positive outcomes of that experience.

7. How Long Should a Diversity Essay Be?

Every school has its own character limits and requirements for secondary essays. Be sure to follow the recommended application guidelines and secondary essay requirements, including the school’s specific diversity prompt. You can use the same stories for each diversity essay but repurpose them to answer different prompts. 

8. How Important is a Diversity Essay for Med Schools?

Essays are generally considered a highly important piece of your med school application as they allow you the most room to express who you are and stand out from others. So, writing a thoughtful, compelling diversity essay can seriously improve your chances of acceptance - making them an important piece of your overall application.

Final Thoughts

The diversity essay for medical school is an important component of many secondary applications. Medical schools are increasingly relying on a holistic review of candidates to diversify medicine to better serve global patient populations.

To write an effective diversity essay, think about the unique characteristics and experiences that make you unique. Remember that diversity is broadly defined, so don’t limit yourself to only certain categories.

Pick one to three of the strongest examples that showcase your diversity in the best light. Answer the prompt fully and include every aspect of the prompt. Remember to tell a great story and tie in your experiences to the school’s goals of diversifying health care.

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Medical School Diversity Essay Prompts (21 Examples)

Putting together an incredible diversity essay for a college or med school application can be tough. Knowing where to start, or exactly what it is a school wants to see or read, only adds to the challenge.

A good way to prepare and get a better understanding of what diversity essays are all about is to take a look at prompts. Reading them; you can see recurring themes, common questions, and how schools even try to “diversify” their own diversity questions!

In this article I’ve put together 21 examples and grouped them together under the following categorizations:

• Prompts from Ivy League medical schools
• Prompts from mid-tier schools
• Prompts from low-tier schools
• Prompts from D.O. schools

I hope that by reading them you’ll get a better idea of what diversity essays are about!

Ready to get started? Let’s go.

Just want quick writing tips? Check out this article; How To Write An Awesome Diversity Essay In Medical School (5 Quick Tips) .

How can you find specific prompts for schools you’re applying for?

The best way to stay on top of secondary essay prompts is via the community at The Student Doctor Network .

There, you can sign up for alerts on application information (and secondary prompts) specific to each school.

You’ll also see new threads for every year of admission!

Diversity essay topics

You’ll see the most common topics from these prompts include:

• Your educational environment
• Your cultural and socioeconomic background
• Your ethnicity
• Your geographic origin
• Your lifestyle
• Your gender identity
• Your sexual orientation
• Your physical ability/challenges
• Your views on social justice
• Your work experience

Ivy League medical school diversity essay prompts

Of course, this list is by no means exhaustive and colleges change these prompts every year.

You’ll also notice that not every school asks for a secondary essay based on diversity!

Pay close attention to the word count of your school’s prompt when it comes to writing…

Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

Are there any special, unique, personal, or challenging aspects of your personal background or circumstances that you would like to share with the Committee on Admissions, not addressed elsewhere (siblings/relatives at Penn, applying as a couple, educational environment, culture, ethnicity, etc.) ( 1000 characters)

Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons

Columbia Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons values diversity in all its forms. How will your background and experiences contribute to this important focus of our institution and inform your future role as a physician? 300 words .

Harvard Medical School

If there is an important aspect of your personal background or identity, not addressed elsewhere in the application, that you would like to share with the Committee, we invite you to do so here. Examples might include significant challenges in access to education, unusual socioeconomic factors, identification with a minority culture, religion, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity. Briefly explain how such factors have influenced your motivation for a career in medicine.  (4000 character maximum)

Geisel School of Medicine

Geisel School of Medicine values social justice and diversity in all its forms. Reflect on a situation where you were the “other”. (250 words)

Yale School of Medicine

Yale School of Medicine values diversity in all its forms. How will your background and experiences contribute to this important focus of our institution and inform your future role as a physician? (500 words limit)

Alpert Medical School

How will your unique attributes (e.g., cultural or socioeconomic background, lifestyle, work experiences) add to the overall diversity of the Alpert Medical School community?  (2000 characters)

Mid Tier medical school diversity essay prompts

*Schools typically ranking 10-20 in common medical school rankings

These schools follow the same trends as those of the Ivy League ones. They also expect you to think about socioeconomics, sexual orientation, gender, and ethnicity, etc.

Some recycle their prompts every year. Others (like John Hopkins/Vanderbilt) are a little more open to creativity.

Duke University

Tell us more about who you are. You may provide additional information that expands your self-identity where gender identification, racial and/or ethnic self description, geographic origin, socioeconomic, academic, and/or other characteristics that define who you are as you contemplate a career that will interface with people who are similar AND dissimilar to you. You will have the opportunity below to tell us how you wish to be addressed, recognized and treated. (500 words)

Stanford University

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. (2000 characters )

Johns Hopkins University

Briefly describe a situation where you were not in the majority. What did you learn from the experience?  (2500 characters)

Optional:  You may address any subject you wish, such as being a first generation college student, or being a part of a minority group (whether because of your sexual orientation, religion, economic status, gender identity, ethnicity) or being the child of undocumented immigrants or being undocumented yourself, etc. (2500 characters)

University of Pittsburgh

UPSOM is committed to building a diverse and talented community that will train physicians in delivering culturally competent, person-centered care, and promoting a supportive, collaborative learning environment. To achieve this, we want our fellow students to recognize health disparities and advocate for health equity. We are interested in combating all forms of systemic barriers, and would like to hear your thoughts on opposing specifically: systemic racism, anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination, and misogyny. How will you contribute? (Limit your response to  250 words or less .)

Vanderbilt University

Tell us about a time when you interacted with someone who is different than you. What did you learn? What would you do differently?  (600 words)

Northwestern University (Feinberg)

The Feinberg School of Medicine values diversity as a measure of excellence. We define diversity as the totality of the characteristics and experiences of our students. We believe that a diverse student body improves the educational environment and the ability of our graduates to serve an increasingly diverse patient population. Narrative Descriptions: Everyone has their own narrative. Please provide more detail about how your experiences would enrich the Northwestern community. (200 word max)

Feinberg’s mission is to train future leaders in medicine who will serve their patients, communities and society. Describe one specific interest in medicine and how FSM, located in Chicago which is one of the most culturally diverse cities in the country, will help you achieve this professional goal. (200 word max)

Low Tier medical school diversity essay prompts

*Schools typically ranking outside the top 20 in common medical school rankings

Diversity is at the heart of all medical colleges in the U.S.

Rankings? Have nothing to do with a school’s level of commitment – as you’ll see with these prompts!

Make sure you read your school’s mission statement along with their prompt, that’ll help you better approach an answer.

University of Iowa (Carver)

Describe any unique personal characteristics or obstacles you may have overcome that will influence your contribution to a diverse healthcare system.

Temple University (Katz)

How do you plan on contributing to the Lewis Katz School of Medicine Community? LKSOM seeks an engaged student body with a wide variety of backgrounds, experiences, perspectives, and interests to enhance the medical school experience for everyone. Please use the space below to describe what makes you unique as an applicant, an obstacle that you had to overcome, or how you will contribute to the LKSOM community. (2000 characters )

Florida Atlantic University (Schmidt)

Diversity means understanding that each individual is unique and recognizing our individual differences. Describe what uniqueness you would bring to the Schmidt COM. We are proud to already have a medical school rich in cultural, ethnic, and socioeconomic diversity. What values, skills, talents, and life experiences would you add to our culture? (1600 characters )

SUNY Upstate Medical University

Upstate Medical University is strongly committed to providing a diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment for the patients we serve and all who work at, study at, or visit our campus. As a potential partner in this effort, please describe your commitment to eliminating health inequities, discrimination, or other forms of social injustice. (500 words)

George Washington University

What makes you a unique individual? What challenges have you faced? How will these factors help you contribute to the diversity of the student body at GW? (1000 characters)

D.O. medical school diversity essay prompts

You’ll also see that D.O. schools require diversity essays just as often as their allopathic counterparts.

The same writing rules and strategies apply.

Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine (MSUCOM)

Other than healthcare access, what are some of the most important health care issues confronting underserved communities? How would you address them?

Briefly describe a situation where you were not in the majority. What did you learn from this experience?’

New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine (NYITCOM)

NYITCOM values diversity, equity, and inclusion. How will your background and experiences add to our inclusive culture and how will this focus influence your future role as a physician? (Max. 1000 characters)

What should you do with a medical school diversity essay prompt?

The next best step is to look at your school’s mission statement. Examine what their aims and objectives are in terms of student and faculty representation. Understand that, then try to draw parallels from your own background that lend themselves well.

Use it to brainstorm a couple of points from your life that fit the prompt. Then choose what you feel are the best ones and start writing a couple of rough drafts.

The important thing is to make an attempt early. That’ll make it seem less daunting!

Where can I see medical school diversity essay examples?

I’ve ranked some of the best diversity essay examples I could find, along with giving them a small critique, in the following article…

Related : 6 Medical School Diversity Essay Examples (Ranked Best To Worst!)

Hopefully, scanning over those can give you further ideas on what to think and write about.

Born and raised in the UK, Will went into medicine late (31) after a career in journalism. He’s into football (soccer), learned Spanish after 5 years in Spain, and has had his work published all over the web. Read more .

Add Project Key Words

The Medical School Diversity Essay: Everything You Need to Know

June 13, 2017

The Medical School Diversity Essay

Now that you've turned in your AMCAS (phew!), you're probably wondering how to tackle the monster of secondaries coming your way. One of the most common questions asked in one form or another is the medical school diversity essay . Have you ever wondered why diversity is such an important component of the medical school admission process? I’ve heard a lot of pre-med students eager to write this off as a political move on the behalf of medical schools, without taking the time to truly consider its value.

Of course, in the US we have a powerful tradition of diversity in higher education. Diversity in the classroom (and on campus) allows students to produce a “creative friction,” thereby improving the educational experience for all.

However, in the medical school context, diversity has an additional, more utilitarian purpose: it is crucial to the quality of medical care provided by these soon-to-be physicians. An ability to understand your patients -- regardless of background -- is an integral part of your life as a doctor.

So, now that we have solved the great admissions diversity mystery, we can get started on the actual essays. First, what does a medical school diversity essay actually look like? Let’s take an example from one of Stanford Med School’s recent secondary applications:

“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, such as the quality of your early educational environment, socioeconomic status, culture, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and life or work experiences. Please discuss how such factors have influenced your goals and preparation for a career in medicine.”

Or this question from Wake Forest School of Medicine :

“The Committee on Admissions values diversity as an important factor in the educational mission of the Wake Forest School of Medicine. How will you contribute to the diversity of your medical school class and to the medical community in general?”

Ultimately, these medical school diversity essay prompts are all variations on the same question, “How are you different from other applicants, and how does that difference impact your ability to contribute in medical school and beyond?”

This prompt brings us to our first action point:

1. “Diversity” and “Underrepresented Minority” are not synonymous.  

Have you ever heard someone lament, “[sigh]...I’m not a minority so I’m not diverse.” I have. Many times. Most frequently, this lamentation originates from a lack of creativity and fundamental understanding about what diversity means. As we’ve already discussed, diversity serves two purposes: 1) varying perspectives in a classroom and on campus so as to produce more comprehensive learning, and 2) Improving patient care once these applicants become newly-minted MDs.

Thus, while ethno-cultural, religious, or socioeconomic backgrounds are all forms of diversity, they are by no means the only forms of diversity. Indeed, diversity is anything about you which is special and which will allow you to satisfy the objectives of diversity as described above.

Multlingual? That’s diversity.

Been in the military? That’s diversity.

Had a rare disease as a child? That’s diversity.

Have a special personal quality (such as being a talented connector, or unusually high EQ)? Diversity.

Have a very specific and innovative career path in mind (e.g., using robotics to improve prosthetics)? Diversity.

Worked as a personal trainer or a nutritionist?....you see where I’m going with this. The key is not to narrowly define diversity, but instead to broadly construe how your “diverse elements” will allow you to contribute something unique to your prospective school and ultimately, your profession.

This brings us to our second action point:

2. Your “diversity” means nothing if it isn’t clearly connected to your potential contribution.

Sometimes, applicants get too caught up in the ways they are different, that they forget that being different is not an end, but a means to an end. These differences and unique qualities/experiences have to accomplish something. They have to help prove that you are deserving of a seat at the med school roundtable.

For example, being a chronic truant or two-time felon are certainly unique qualities and experiences for an applicant to medical school. Will they help you get in? Almost certainly not, and for obvious reasons. Best to focus on some other topic for your medical school diversity essay . 

The point is simple: once you have identified what makes you unique, your primary task is to explain how that uniqueness will allow you to contribute something special in school and beyond.

This brings us to our third action point:

3. Diversity, as with all other parts of your application, requires evidence.

“I am the smartest person in the world.”

Really!? Are you actually the smartest person in the world? Prove it.

“I have unique insight into the needs of immigrant populations.”

Oh do you? And what, pray tell, gives you this incredible insight?

“I have always dreamed of being part of Doctors Without Borders, and helping to save the world one person at a time.”

Is that so? Because I don’t see a single international community service experience on your application...

...see where I’m going with this? Diversity, though it may be an intangible concept or quality, still requires tangible evidence. A medical school diversity essay is not complete without a clear explanation of how your “diversity” relates to your experiences.

For example, if you are a first generation college student and the son/daughter of immigrants, you cannot just baldly state that this background gives you some crucial insight into the needs of immigrant populations. Although it seems plausible that you would know more than others who are from affluent, non-immigrant backgrounds, you still need to prove it. Make the connections explicit.

You could do this by providing anecdotes about your communication skills with immigrant families during your time with Habitat for Humanity. Or you could explain how you used your special insights and cross-cultural communication skills in becoming a leader in La Raza.

Ultimately, if what makes you diverse is that you have a very high capacity for empathy, you don’t need to have an activity on your AMCAS experiences section called “the society for people who empathize good and want to learn to do other things good too.” You just need to explain how your diverse element(s) have affected or motivated your activities, even if they seem totally unrelated.

E.g., “I am a motivator. I love motivating people to better their lives. That is why I worked as a nutritionist. Moreover, as a writing instructor at Dartmouth’s RWIT program, I had the opportunity not only to help students with their writing, but also to show them how exciting and fun it could be.” Please note: this is not from an actual essay, and if it was, it would not be especially good. This is just to demonstrate a point.

Thus, if you do decide to focus on ethnic, cultural, or religious diversity, the best approach is not to hammer the adcom with how significant your minority status is. Rather, a strong medical school diversity essay might focus on your activities which were committed to diversity and social justice issues; or on your pursuits which address health disparities between minority and non-minority populations; or experiences which provide tangible evidence of your cross-cultural competence during patient or client interactions. Of course, these three topics are not exhaustive, but might be a good place to start.

This brings us to our final, and most succinct point:

4. Using buzzwords doesn’t convince anyone

This is a common mistake among applicants who think that repeating buzzwords such as “diverse,” “multicultural,” “cross-cultural,” “underrepresented,” etc. will automatically convince an adcom that they are those things. It won’t. In fact, it is no more likely to convince them of your diversity credentials than if I tried to convince you of the quality of this article by simply repeating “this article is super informative and comprehensive, and it is likely the best thing you’ve read all week.”

In short: let your evidence and experience do the talking.

Tags : medical school essays , med school , applying to med school , hot to get into medical school , medical school diversity essay , applying to medical school , medical school

joel butterly

Joel Butterly, Co-founder and CEO of InGenius Prep, is an experienced admissions counselor and entrepreneur. Joel comes from a rich educational background—his immediate family alone has 14 Ivy League Degrees—from Harvard, Yale, Cornell, and Dartmouth.

Joel attended Dartmouth College, where he studied Government, Geography, and the Philosophy of Ethics. He was inducted early into Phi Beta Kappa, and graduated Summa Cum Laude. He graduated with a double major in Government and International Studies, and a minor in Ethical Philosophy.

After Dartmouth, Joel attended Yale Law School, where he served on the executive board of the Journal on Regulation, as well as the Law School’s entrepreneurship society.

Joel currently resides at Yale in New Haven, Connecticut. He lives with his fiance – Emily – who teaches and is receiving her PhD in Medieval History from Yale.

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How to write a medical school diversity essay

Now that you’ve turned in your AMCAS (phew!), you’re probably wondering how to tackle the monster of  secondaries  coming your way. One of the most common questions asked in one form or another is the diversity essay for medical school. Have you ever wondered why diversity is such an important component of the medical school admission process? I’ve heard a lot of pre-med students eager to write this off as a political move on the behalf of medical schools, without taking the time to truly consider its value.

Of course, in the U.S. we have a powerful tradition of diversity in higher education. Diversity in the classroom (and on campus) allows students to produce a “creative friction,” thereby improving the educational experience for all.

However, in the medical school context, diversity has an additional, more utilitarian purpose: It is crucial to the quality of medical care provided by these soon-to-be physicians. An ability to understand your patients — regardless of background — is an integral part of your life as a doctor.

So, now that we have solved the great admissions diversity mystery, we can get started on the actual essays. First, what does a “diversity essay” actually look like? Let’s take an example from one of Stanford Med School’s recent secondary applications:

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, such as the quality of your early educational environment, socioeconomic status, culture, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and life or work experiences. Please discuss how such factors have influenced your goals and preparation for a career in medicine. -->

Or this question from Wake Forest School of Medicine:

The Committee on Admissions values diversity as an important factor in the educational mission of the Wake Forest School of Medicine. How will you contribute to the diversity of your medical school class and to the medical community in general?

Ultimately, these medical school diversity essays are all variations on the same question, “How are you different from other applicants, and how does that difference impact your ability to contribute in medical school and beyond?”

This prompt brings us to our first action point:

1. “Diversity” and “underrepresented minority” are not synonymous. 

Have you ever heard someone lament, “[sigh] … I’m not a minority so I’m not diverse.” I have. Many times. Most frequently, this lamentation originates from a lack of creativity and fundamental understanding about what diversity means. As we’ve already discussed, diversity serves two purposes: 1) Varying perspectives in a classroom and on campus so as to produce more comprehensive learning; and, 2) Improving patient care once these applicants become newly-minted MDs.

Thus, while ethno-cultural, religious, or socioeconomic backgrounds are all forms of diversity, they are by no means the only forms of diversity. Indeed, diversity is anything about you which is special and which will allow you to satisfy the objectives of diversity as described above.

Multlingual? That’s diversity.

Been in the military? That’s diversity.

Had a rare disease as a child? That’s diversity.

Have a special personal quality (such as being a talented connector, or unusually high EQ)? Diversity.

Have a very specific and innovative career path in mind (e.g., using robotics to improve prosthetics)? Diversity.

Worked as a personal trainer or a nutritionist? …  You see where I’m going with this. The key is not to narrowly define diversity, but instead to broadly construe how your “diverse elements” will allow you to contribute something unique to your prospective school and ultimately, your profession.

This brings us to our second action point:

2. Your “diversity” means nothing if it isn’t clearly connected to your potential contribution.

Sometimes, applicants get too caught up in the ways they are different, that they forget that being different is not an end, but a means to an end. These differences and unique qualities/experiences have to accomplish something. They have to help prove that you are deserving of a seat at the med school roundtable.

For example, being a chronic truant or two-time felon are certainly unique qualities and experiences for an applicant to medical school. Will they help you get in? Almost certainly not, and for obvious reasons. Best to focus on some other topic for your medical school diversity essay.

The point is simple: once you have identified what makes you unique, your primary task is to explain how that uniqueness will allow you to contribute something special in school and beyond.

This brings us to our third action point:

3. Diversity, as with all other parts of your application, requires evidence.

“I am the smartest person in the world.”

Really!? Are you actually the smartest person in the world? Prove it.

“I have unique insight into the needs of immigrant populations.”

Oh, do you? And what, pray tell, gives you this incredible insight?

“I have always dreamed of being part of Doctors Without Borders, and helping to save the world one person at a time.”

Is that so? Because I don’t see a single international community service experience on your application …

… see where I’m going with this? Diversity, though it may be an intangible concept or quality, still requires tangible evidence. A diversity essay for medical school is not complete without a clear explanation of how your “diversity” relates to your experiences.

For example, if you are a first-generation college student and the son/daughter of immigrants, you cannot just baldly state that this background gives you some crucial insight into the needs of immigrant populations. Although it seems plausible that you would know more than others who are from affluent, non-immigrant backgrounds, you still need to prove it. Make the connections explicit.

You could do this by providing anecdotes about your communication skills with immigrant families during your time with Habitat for Humanity. Or you could explain how you used your special insights and cross-cultural communication skills in becoming a leader in La Raza.

Ultimately, if what makes you diverse is that you have a very high capacity for empathy, you don’t need to have an activity on your AMCAS experiences section called “the society for people who empathize good and want to learn to do other things good too.” You just need to explain how your diverse element(s) have affected or motivated your activities, even if they seem totally unrelated.

For instance, “I am a motivator. I love motivating people to better their lives. That is why I worked as a nutritionist. Moreover, as a writing instructor at Dartmouth’s RWIT program, I had the opportunity not only to help students with their writing, but also to show them how exciting and fun it could be.” Please note: This is not from an actual essay, and if it was, it would not be especially good. This is just to demonstrate a point.

Thus, if you do decide to focus on ethnic, cultural, or religious diversity, the best approach is not to hammer the adcom with how significant your minority status is. Rather, a strong essay might focus on your activities which were committed to diversity and social justice issues; or on your pursuits which address health disparities between minority and non-minority populations; or experiences which provide tangible evidence of your cross-cultural competence during patient or client interactions. Of course, these three topics are not exhaustive, but might be a good place to start.

This brings us to our final, and most succinct point:

4. Using buzzwords doesn’t convince anyone.

This is a common mistake among applicants who think that repeating buzzwords such as “diverse,” “multicultural,” “cross-cultural,” “underrepresented,” etc. will automatically convince an adcom that they are those things. It won’t. In fact, it is no more likely to convince them of your diversity credentials than if I tried to convince you of the quality of this article by simply repeating “this article is super informative and comprehensive, and it is likely the best thing you’ve read all week.”

In short: Let your evidence and experience do the talking.

Joel Butterfly is co-founder and CEO, InGenious Prep .

Image credit:  Shutterstock.com

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Reset password, create a free fasthire account, how to write successful diversity essay for medical school (sample).

• July 19, 2023
• Education/Study

How do you write a successful diversity essay for medical school? Here is one major question raised by applicants and today we will provide you with answers. Read on to learn more.

The application process for medical school has evolved beyond simply submitting transcripts, letters of recommendation, and personal statements . While these documents are still essential, some medical schools now require diversity essays, which allow applicants to share their unique experiences and perspectives. This helps the admissions committee create a more inclusive and diverse student body.

A well-written diversity essay can help you stand out from the competition and increase your chances of getting accepted into medical school. Hence, In this article, we will discuss the meaning of diversity, what is meant by a diversity essay for medical school, and the various factors that count as diversity. We will also outline the steps to writing a convincing essay and provide examples of diversity essay prompts by different universities.

Furthermore, this article would not be complete if we didn’t include a sample diversity essay for medical school. Therefore, we will provide you with a sample to guide you when drafting your essay. Let’s get started!

Table of Contents

What is a  Diversity Essay for Medical School?

Diversity essays are a common part of the secondary application process for medical school. They allow you to share your unique perspectives, experiences, and backgrounds related to diversity and inclusion. This is your chance to show how your diverse attributes can positively impact the medical school community and the practice of medicine.

While the diversity essay is a secondary requirement, it is still an important part of the medical school application process. Medical schools value diversity because it enriches the learning environment and helps future healthcare professionals provide culturally competent and compassionate care to patients from different backgrounds. Therefore, the diversity essay can give you an advantage in the admissions process by providing the selection committee with more information about your unique experiences and perspectives.

  What Factors Count as Diversity

One challenge applicants face when considering writing a diversity essay is the perception that diversity only includes people from underrepresented geographical areas, cultural backgrounds, or ethnicities. While these are all valid forms of diversity, many other areas can be incorporated into this field.

Diversity in the context of a diversity essay covers the entire perspective that makes up a unique individual. 

Here are two broad categories you should be thinking about:

Perspective 1

This includes

• A gap year in your medical school journey
• An applicant with a non-science background
• A transitioning practitioner 
• An expert with military experience
• A career changer 
• An applicant with social

Perspective 2

Here you consider the overall diversity thought peculiar to all individuals in the universe:

• Race and ethnicity 
• Socioeconomic status
• Gender identity
• Language and Linguistic Diversity
• Family Structure
• Life Challenges and Adversities
• Sexual orientation
• Disability:
• Life experiences
• Cultural Heritage
• Immigration and Identity
• Advocacy for Inclusion
• Intersectionality
• Career Aspirations
• Cross-Cultural Communication
• Social Justice Involvement
• Volunteer Work

Note: These categories mentioned above make up the various topics you can discuss in your diversity essay for medical school.

Examples of Diversity Essay Prompt for Medical School.

The diversity essay prompt may vary from school to school, but its underlying purpose remains the same. The primary goal of these questions is to gain insight into your perspective on diversity. To help you better understand these prompts, let’s explore some examples of diversity essay prompts from various universities.

Prompt: Stanford University

“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. (2000 characters)”

Prompt: Harvard Medical School 

“If there is an important aspect of your background or identity, not addressed elsewhere in the application, that you would like to share with the Committee, we invite you to do so here. Many applicants will not need to answer this question. Examples might include significant challenges in access to education, unusual socioeconomic factors, and identification with a minority culture, religion, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity. Briefly explain how such factors have influenced your motivation for a career in medicine.”

Prompt: Mayo Clinic College of Medicine

 “ We are all differentiated from or connected by individual inflexions that constitute our diversity. Explain how your relationship with your diversity and to the diversities of others manifests in your personal and professional activities.” 

Prompt: Yale School of Medicine 

“ Yale School of Medicine values diversity in all its forms. How will your background and experiences contribute to this important focus of our institution and inform your future role as a physician?  “

Prompt: University of South Dakota Sanford School of Medicine

“ Given the diversity statement of the school, explain how your background and experiences with diversity will bring value to the school.”

How to Write a Diversity Essay For Medical School

Writing a secondary application of diversity is not as hard as you think. But if you are having issues writing yours, Here is a guide to help you:

1. Understand the Purpose of the Diversity Essay

Before you start writing your diversity essay, it is important to understand its purpose. The diversity essay is not just a list of your diverse experiences and accomplishments. It is an opportunity to reflect on how these experiences have shaped your worldview and how you can use your unique perspective to contribute to the medical community.

The admissions committees want to see your ability to think critically and empathetically about diversity, as well as your commitment to promoting inclusivity in the medical field. In your diversity essay, you should strive to answer the following questions:

• What have you learned about yourself and others through your experiences with diversity?
• How have your experiences with diversity shaped your understanding of the world and your commitment to social justice?
• How do you believe your experiences with diversity will inform your work as a physician?
• What have you learned from your different cultural, social, or economic experiences?
• How do your unique perspectives and insights allow you to see the world differently?
• How will your unique perspectives and insights benefit your patients and colleagues?
• What are your specific goals for promoting diversity and inclusivity in the medical field?
• What specific actions do you plan to take to achieve these goals?
• How will your commitment to diversity and inclusivity make a difference in the lives of your patients and colleagues?

Answering these questions sets the stage for your ideas to flow. Remember, this is just the preliminary stage

2. Choose the right Diversity Essay Topic

Choosing the right topic for your diversity essay is essential. It should be something that is personally meaningful to you and allows you to showcase your unique experiences and perspectives. Here are a few tips to help you select the perfect topic:

• Brainstorm your journey : Think about the experiences, challenges, or moments that have had a significant impact on your understanding of diversity. Consider how these experiences have shaped your values, beliefs, and aspirations about medicine.
• Highlight your unique perspective: What makes you different? What aspects of your background or identity set you apart from other applicants? Focus on those aspects that have influenced your outlook on diversity and healthcare.
• Consider the broader impact : How do you envision your contribution to the medical field? How will your unique perspective and experiences translate into tangible actions that promote diversity and inclusivity in healthcare?
• Connect your story : Now, use the right words to make your narrative logical and easy to follow.

Remember, the goal is not to simply recount your experiences, but to reflect on their significance and how they have influenced your journey towards becoming a healthcare professional. Choose a topic that allows you to tell a compelling story and effectively convey your passion for diversity and medicine.

3. Highlight 2 or 3 Unique Experiences and Expand on it

Once you have chosen a topic, it is time to dive into the heart of your diversity essay by highlighting your unique experiences and perspectives. This is your chance to showcase the aspects of your background and identity that have shaped your understanding of diversity and influenced your desire to pursue a career in medicine.

Introduction:

Start by painting a vivid picture of the situations or encounters that have had the most profound impact on you. Use descriptive language to engage the reader and bring your experiences to life. This will capture their attention and make your essay more memorable.

Next, reflect on the significance of these experiences. How have they shaped your worldview? What lessons have you learned from them? How have they influenced your understanding of diversity and its importance in healthcare? Be honest and introspective in your reflections, as this will add depth and authenticity to your essay.

Conclusion:

Finally, tie your experiences and perspectives back to your motivation for pursuing a career in medicine. Explain how your unique background and insights will enable you to contribute to a diverse and inclusive medical community. Show the admissions committee that you have a clear vision for how you will use your experiences to make a difference in healthcare.

Remember, it is not just about what you have experienced, but how those experiences have shaped you and your commitment to diversity in medicine. Your essay should be a cohesive narrative that flows from one section to the next. Each section should build on the previous one, culminating in a powerful conclusion that leaves the reader with a lasting impression.

4. Editing and Revising Your Diversity Essay

Once you have written your diversity essay, it is important to take some time to edit and revise it. This will ensure that your essay is clear, concise, and free of grammatical or spelling errors.

Here are a few tips to help you in the editing process:

• Take a break. After writing your first draft, step away from your essay for a day or two. This will give you fresh eyes and allow you to approach your essay with a more critical mindset.
• Read aloud. Reading your essay aloud will help you catch any awkward phrasing or grammatical errors. It will also help you ensure that your essay flows smoothly and has a natural rhythm.
• Eliminate unnecessary details . Review your essay and remove any repetitive or irrelevant information. Focus on the most important aspects of your experiences and reflections, and ensure that every sentence contributes to your overall message.
• Seek feedback . Ask trusted friends, family members, or mentors to read your essay and provide feedback. They can offer valuable insights and suggestions for improvement.

Remember, the editing process is just as important as the writing process. By carefully editing and revising your diversity essay, you can ensure that it is polished and impactful.

Make your Diversity Essay standout with Storytelling

Storytelling is a powerful tool when it comes to writing a standout diversity essay. With this technique, you can captivate the reader and make your essay more engaging and memorable. 

Here are a few storytelling techniques to consider:

• Start with a compelling hook. You could start your essay with a personal anecdote that illustrates your understanding of diversity. For example, you could write about a time when you were challenged by someone’s different beliefs or values.
• Use descriptive language . When you describe the people, places, and emotions involved in your experiences, use vivid language that will help the reader visualize your story. For example, you could describe the setting of a particular event in detail, or you could use figurative language to capture the emotions you were feeling.
• Show, don’t tell. Instead of simply stating your beliefs or values, demonstrate them through concrete examples and actions. For example, you could write about a time when you took action to promote diversity in your community.
• Create a narrative arc . Structure your essay like a story, with a clear beginning, middle, and end. This will help the reader follow your journey and understand how your experiences have shaped your understanding of diversity.

Diversity Essay Examples for Medical School

Embracing Diversity in Medicine: A Journey of Passion, Purpose, and Global Impact

If I were told that I would pursue a career in medicine, I would have laughed so hard, cracking my ribs. You see, I had a distaste for the sight of blood, and swallowing medications was an ordeal. However, life has a peculiar way of molding us, and my path to medicine emerged from the depths of tragedy and a deep desire to make a meaningful difference.

Growing up in a polygamous home in Nigeria, I was immersed in a multicultural household that exposed me to diverse traditions, languages, and perspectives. Despite the complexities often associated with such arrangements, our family thrived on unity, with everyone contributing to our growth and development. Witnessing the strength and resilience of my stepmothers and the collective effort to maintain harmony instilled in me a profound appreciation for collaboration and the power of diversity.

On that fateful Sunday evening, our lives were shattered by a senseless act of violence. Three armed men stormed into our home, and with bullets piercing through my fathers’ ribs and hand, our world turned upside down. Amid the chaos, the fragility of life and the disparities in our healthcare system became glaringly apparent. As we rushed my father to the hospital, we faced numerous obstacles. Calling for an ambulance was not a viable option, so we relied on the kindness of neighbors to transport him. The hospital demanded a police report before administering treatment, and obtaining one was a daunting task. Yet, amidst the chaos, a police officer lent a helping hand, expediting the process and enabling my father to receive the care he desperately needed. Gazing upon my father’s weakened state, my heart shattered. The hospital lacked his blood type, and the search for a suitable donor was a race against time. Miraculously, my boyfriend, who happened to be a match, selflessly donated his blood. Throughout that agonizing night, I clung to hope, praying for a miracle. However, tragedy struck, and my father succumbed to his injuries while undergoing surgery, deprived even of basic pain relief.

This harrowing experience ignited a fire within me a deep-seated passion to address the inadequacies in our healthcare system and alleviate the suffering of others. I realized that my purpose lay in becoming a physician, armed with compassion, empathy, and a commitment to diversity. Drawing from my academic and professional background, I possess a solid foundation for success in medical school. With a Bachelor’s degree in Biology and experience working as a medical assistant, I have gained valuable insights into patient care and the intricacies of healthcare delivery. These experiences have reinforced my understanding of the importance of holistic, patient-centered care and sharpened my resolve to promote equitable access to quality healthcare.

In choosing to pursue my medical education abroad, I have been drawn to a country that values diversity, inclusivity, and innovation in healthcare. The United States, renowned for its cutting-edge medical advancements and emphasis on comprehensive patient care, presents an ideal environment for me to flourish both personally and professionally. By attending the University of California, Riverside School of Medicine, I am confident that I will be immersed in a diverse community of learners, fostering an environment where various perspectives and experiences enrich the educational journey. I am inspired by the commitment of the University of California, Riverside School of Medicine to cultivate culturally competent physicians who can bridge gaps in healthcare and provide equitable care to all individuals, regardless of their background.

In joining the medical school community, I hope to contribute my unique perspective and experiences, offering insights into the challenges faced by underrepresented communities. I aspire to actively participate in initiatives that promote diversity and inclusion within the institution while advocating for equitable healthcare policies on a broader scale. Ultimately, my goal as a future physician is to provide compassionate, culturally sensitive care to patients from all walks of life. I believe that my diverse upbringing and personal experiences have endowed me with a heightened sense of empathy and an ability to connect with patients on a profound level. By embracing diversity, I aim to serve as a bridge between different cultures, fostering understanding, trust, and improved health outcomes.

In conclusion, my journey to medicine has been shaped by tragedy, compassion, and an unwavering commitment to creating a more equitable healthcare system. Through my academic and professional background, I have gained invaluable skills and insights that will enable me to thrive in medical school and beyond. By choosing to study medicine in a diverse and innovative environment, I am poised to make a meaningful impact by advocating for change and providing compassionate care to those in need.

Yours sincerely,

Albert, Dinma

1. How to Approach Diversity Essay for Med School?

• Start by brainstorming your experiences and perspectives. What aspects of your background and identity have shaped your understanding of diversity? How have your experiences made you more open-minded and empathetic?
• Choose a specific experience to focus on. This could be an event, a person, or a community that has had a significant impact on your understanding of diversity.
• Write about the impact of this experience on your worldview. How has it changed your perspective on the world? What have you learned about yourself and others?
• Connect your experience to your desire to pursue a career in medicine. How will your unique perspective and experiences help you to be a better physician?
• Be honest and authentic. The admissions committee wants to get to know the real you, so don’t be afraid to share your personal experiences and thoughts.

2. How Do You Start an Essay About Diversity and Inclusion?

Begin your essay about diversity and inclusion with a captivating hook. This could be a thought-provoking quote, a personal anecdote, or a startling statistic. Introduce the significance of diversity and inclusion, and how it impacts various aspects of life or the field you’re discussing. Set the tone for a thoughtful and engaging exploration of the topic.

4. How Do You Answer Diversity Questions in a Medical School Interview?

When answering diversity questions in a medical school interview:

• Be honest and authentic: Share genuine experiences that have shaped your understanding of diversity.
• Highlight empathy and cultural competence: Emphasize your ability to relate to and understand patients from diverse backgrounds.
• Discuss your contributions: Mention any initiatives or experiences where you actively promoted diversity and inclusion.
• Connect to your future career: Explain how embracing diversity will impact your approach to patient care and collaboration with colleagues.
• Be clear and concise. The interviewer is busy, so make sure your answers are easy to understand.
• Be positive. Focus on the positive aspects of diversity and how it has enriched your life.

Conclusion : Successful Diversity Essay for Medical School

Diversity essays are an important part of the medical school application process. They allow applicants to share their unique experiences and perspectives, and to show the admissions committee that they are more than just their GPA and MCAT score. By writing effective diversity essays, applicants can show that they are committed to diversity and inclusion and that they would be a valuable addition to the medical school community.

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• 2024 Medical School Secondary Essays Examples

Be Memorable. Claim an interview spot. Get Accepted.

Our team of physician and medical student editors had the pleasure of helping students craft the following medical school secondary essays. 

“Why This School” Essay

Adversity essay, diversity essay, “how will you contribute to our school” essay, “future goals” essay, “academic lapses or breaks” essay, “why d.o.” essay, why are secondaries important, tell us about any specific reason(s) (personal, educational, etc.) why you see yourself here at the wake forest school of medicine..

The ending of the motto of the Moravian church, which has a strong historical connection with Winston-Salem, is “…in all things, love.” This concluding statement is an apt description of how I attempt to live my life. Wake Forest upholds such values of inclusion and love through the Lovefest tradition and programs such as the student-run DEAC Clinic. After working at free clinics in rural areas, I am committed to becoming a physician that will promote systems of care in the community. With my exposure to rural primary care, I want to use the Rural/Underserved Health experience offered to Wake Forest students through the North Carolina Academy of Family Physicians to further my understanding and training in this career path. Furthermore, as an extension of working in primary care, I am interested in being a geriatrician. Wake Forest, as one of the best geriatric hospitals in the country, has a curriculum that aligns with my interests. I am confident that through research, service, and patient care, Wake Forest will shape me into a leader of rural health care for the geriatric community.

Application Status: Accepted |School of choice: Wake Forest School of Medicine | Class of 2024

More Examples and Writing Tips for a Convincing  Medical School “Why Us” Essay | Click Here

Describe a significant challenge you have experienced in your life, share the strategies you employed to overcome the challenge, and what you learned from the experience..

One personal adversity I have overcome is my lack of self-confidence. I was always a quiet child who grew up with two older sisters doing most of the talking. As I aged, I came out my shell to an extent and became more outgoing. I have always struggled in one particular area: public speaking. My passion for medicine grew early as I observed my eldest sister work alongside physicians during her nursing training. However, my shy nature led me to select pre-nursing as my major, since nursing does not require the ability to speak publicly like being a physician often does. I did not truly consider a career as a doctor until my anatomy and physiology professor suggested I do so after recognizing my drive, aptitude, and passion. Even so, it took introspection and time to recognize that I held the potential to become a successful physician.

Over my undergraduate career, I have participated in many group presentations during classes without the benefit of being taught how to successfully prepare. On every occasion, I would become so nervous that I was unable to sleep the entire night prior. By the time I presented, I would be so distracted that I could not think straight, let alone get my point across clearly. This went on until I had the opportunity to participate in a class called Peer Instruction in Laboratory Occupational Training (PILOT), which was an extension of a class that I had succeeded in, Quantitative Biological Methods.

PILOT was designed to expose students to research articles and assist with laboratory techniques and homework. A large part of the grade for the class consisted of teaching a laboratory section of around 40 students for 15 minutes. I almost opted out of the class because of this requirement, but ultimately decided it was a great opportunity to work through my personal fear of public speaking and build my self-confidence.

I set a schedule six weeks ahead of the presentation to begin preparing. A few helpful peers offered advice, telling me that knowing what I wanted to say verbatim was a good way to improve confidence. Thus, I practiced daily until three weeks before the class. I found another tip online: practicing in the actual location of the presentation can help reduce nerves. Subsequently, I approached one of my laboratory teaching assistants and asked if he would let me practice in the laboratory. He was an excellent teaching assistant and took the time to watch me practice and provide feedback.

Ultimately, I felt that I was able to present eloquently and received an excellent grade. Life is full of challenges, and I learned that preparation is key to success. I planned and prepared early, pulled from available resources, and implemented advice from faculty and peers. This experience taught me that I do have the aptitude, strength, and drive to succeed in medical school and overcome any obstacle that I might face. I am eager to embrace more personal growth and realize my full potential as I continue on to medical school.

Application Status: Accepted |School of choice: Nova Southeastern University College Of Osteopathic Medicine | Class of 2024

More Examples and The 6 Steps for Writing the Medical School Adversity Essay | Click Here

“do you consider yourself a person who would contribute to the diversity of the student body of tufts university school of medicine” if yes, briefly explain why..

I am a Muslim, Saudi woman, but I am not the preconceived notions of being close minded, uncultured, or oppressed. I’m a passionate helper, an open-minded extrovert, and a curious explorer of the world. 

Though I grew up attending a school that taught me to be a leader and encouraged competition, and though travelling the world allowed me to explore new cultures, homogeneity was the ‘norm’ everywhere I went until I attended school in the US. George C. Marshall High School showed me how enriching diversity is. There, in a mixture of backgrounds and ethnicities, I was an ‘other’ among many ‘others’. The following year in Nebraska was different, and I experienced the damage of prejudice when I was the only ‘other’. My experiences drove me to work to bring different people together to give back. Years later, at NYU, this personal passion pushed me to create a volunteer tutoring nonprofit organization. 

I believe the ‘other’ in me, with the uncommon background, the unique experiences, and the interesting perspectives, will contribute to the diversity of the student body at Tufts.

Application Status: Accepted |School of choice: Albert Einstein College of Medicine | Class of 2024

Click here for More Examples and Steps on How to Write an Effective Medical School Diversity Essay

Explain how interactions with people who are different from you have shaped your worldview and relate how you would enrich the VTC community.

From my academic and work experiences, I have frequently worked with people who are different from myself. Working with students and professors from different backgrounds through college helped me appreciate different viewpoints, especially during my bioethics training.  Listening to my classmate, who was a Catholic hospice nurse, explain her differing stance on end-of-life care showed me to appreciate the legitimacy of different opinions. Likewise, I learned from sociology graduate students about the issue of the medicalization of mental illness, which I had not had to consider prior to speaking and working with them. These experiences will help me contribute to the community by enabling me to approach problems from multiple lenses and to listen to and value the input of experts in different fields.

My experiences engaging with different individuals will help me to enrich the community at Virginia Tech. As a tutor, I have been able to work with students of different ages and backgrounds with unique learning goals. For example, my student, Danny, was an adult student taking classes at a community college and had failed his statistics course three times before meeting with me. Even though I had excelled in math classes during school, I was able to listen to his frustrations and identify different ways to help him learn the content and be able to apply it for quizzes and exams. I helped him navigate through the material, and he ended up passing the course comfortably. By working with a wide variety of students like Danny, I have been able to understand the importance of listening actively to individuals’ struggles and unique experiences to learn about how to best help them and I am excited to apply this skill to help future individuals.

In addition to my experiences tutoring, I have been able to interact with individuals different from myself through volunteering. For example, at Judson Park, I volunteered by helping one resident, Ron, participate in art therapy. Ron had suffered two prior strokes and was wheelchair-bound and hemiplegic. I was able to help bring him down to the art room and organize supplies for him. Ron was unique in his needs, which was why he required individualized care to be able to participate in the art therapy. He also struggled with communicating verbally due to deficits from his prior strokes. I adapted by patiently waiting for him to respond at his own pace and looking for body language cues for what he needed at the moment. He was able to make incredible art creations, showing me the resilience of differently abled individuals.

These experiences have shown me the importance of valuing everyone’s unique perspectives and utilizing that consideration and compassion to help others. I can enrich the VTC community by providing this diverse perspective to help my peers and ultimately serve the greater community as a physician.

Application Status: Accepted |School of choice: University of Virginia School of Medicine | Class of 2024

Click here for tips on writing the “How You’ll Contribute” secondary essay.

Need help writing your secondary essays?

After residency, describe the community in which you see yourself practicing medicine..

Currently, I can see myself practicing medicine in a variety of clinical settings: a private specialty care system, a nonprofit medical facility, individual practice, or a different setting. I am open to all of the new experiences that medical school will bring, including exposure to a variety of clinical settings.

I have worked as a medical scribe at the largest non-profit health care provider in Seattle and have also volunteered for a private specialty hospital. Both of these experiences have exposed me to a different type of medical practice, and I have enjoyed both although in different ways. I loved the diversity of patients I encountered at the nonprofit and enjoyed experiencing different clinic visits whether for constipation or throat pain. At the specialty hospital, I was able to encounter unique and rare medical cases that I’ve only read about in books such as spina bifida or hydrocephalus. I was also able to witness the very specialized and personalized care. I am excited to explore the various clinical setting options in medical school and residency, and figure out which environment best suits my strengths and interests!

Application Status: Accepted |School of choice: Stanford School of Medicine | Class of 2024

Use this space if you’d like to address any identified deficiencies in your application.

When I suddenly lost my father to pancreatic cancer shortly before starting college, I was confused and frustrated about my loss. Although I had dreamt of becoming a doctor since I was a little girl, I was newly unsure of whether medicine was right for me. Because I lacked a tangible goal and motivation, my studies and grades suffered during my first years of college. However, once I began volunteering at the Children’s Hospital during my sophomore year, I developed a renewed sense of appreciation and passion for medicine. I started to care a lot more about school and enjoyed learning again. I began working extremely hard in my classes, and slowly but surely, my GPA rose.

Application Status: Accepted |School of choice: Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine   | Class of 2024

How do your professional ambitions align with osteopathic medicine?

My professional ambitions have always aligned with a medical career, ever since I observed my childhood hero and oldest sister, Brittany, work alongside physicians as a registered nurse. At the time, I was only eight years old and not yet privy to the nuances of allopathic versus osteopathic medicine.

Throughout my experiences with the medical profession as a patient and mother, I have found myself disappointed with some of the allopathic medical treatments. I have myself been treated pharmaceutically with medications and became non-compliant with my treatment due to side effects. Several years ago, I was diagnosed with herpetic neuralgia. My neurologist prescription Neurontin, which helped with the symptoms but left me in a fog. I found myself questioning whether there could be a better method.

As an undergraduate student, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to listen to a presentation by a doctor of osteopathy from Lake Eerie College of Medicine in Bradenton, FL. The speaker discussed osteopathic medicine, its principles, and manipulative medicine (OMM). He talked about a time when he bumped into an old friend who had been diagnosed with plantar fasciitis. His friend’s condition was so severe that he needed a cane to ambulate independently. The D.O. performed OMM for his friend and provided him with a set of exercises to perform daily at home. Ultimately, the friend did not require the surgery his allopathic physician had recommended.

After listening to his presentation, I felt as though I had a breakthrough. I realized that I wholeheartedly supported these principles as the better solution that I had been looking for. With osteopathic medicine, I could practice medicine in a traditional manner while wielding a valuable skill set that could spare patients from invasive surgeries and pharmaceutical therapeutics causing undesired side effects.

Furthermore, while studying for the MCAT a year ago, I developed a constant waxing and waning neck pain that would radiate to my right shoulder and down my arm. This worsened over a period of four weeks, and I took increasing amounts of ibuprofen to calm the symptoms. A good friend of mine is a physical therapist who manipulated my spine and sent me home with instructions for an exercise plan. She also taught me how to self-evaluate my posture, which has been valuable in preventing additional episodes. I was incredibly impressed with the outcome of the treatment that used my own body and its muscles to treat the pain without using pharmaceuticals or leaving me with residual deficits. As such, my personal trust in natural treatments has emphasized to me that osteopathic medicine is the path I am meant to follow. 

The more I learn about osteopathic medicine, the more excited I am to incorporate its principles into my future practice. I am thrilled to learn and practice medicine with a holistic approach to evaluate and treat patients. As a healthcare partner to my future patients, I feel inspired to encourage the implementation of prevention, maintenance, and natural remedies into their treatment plans.

Application Status: Accepted |School of choice: Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine   | Class of 2024

Click here for examples and tips on writing the “Why Osteopathic Medicine” secondary essay.

Why are secondary essays important?

• Schools ask these questions for a specific reason
• It’s your final chance to make a strong impression
• When they’re done right, you will lockdown an interview spot

what others are saying about our essay reviews...

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Meet Some of Your Editors

Ansel N., MD,PhD

The ohio state university college of medicine.

Alexa S., MD

University of Cincinnati College of Medicine

Harvard Medical School

Yale School of Medicine

George Washington School of Medicine

DUKE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

NYU Grossman School of Medicine

Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons

University of California San Francisco School of Medicine

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Ansel N., MD/PhD

Radiation Oncology Resident Former Medical School: Ohio State

My name is Ansel Nalin. I am a current Radiation Oncology resident at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX. I graduated from the Ohio State University College of Medicine MD/PhD program.

While in medical school, I tutored first- and second-year medical students, helping them review lecture material and prepare for block exams. I taught study strategies to first-year students adjusting to the medical school curriculum. I worked individually with students during board exam preparation. I also led a review course for MD/PhD students prior to taking Step 1. In addition to my role as a tutor, I was also selected by the Ohio State College of Medicine Academic Office staff to serve in a leadership role for two years. In this role I led the team of 40 students on the peer tutoring team. I met weekly with College of Medicine staff to plan academic programs benefitting first- and second-year medical students. Together we organized and managed academic resources for medical students including our peer tutoring programs, group review sessions, and student-led review lectures. I coordinated the tutoring assignments for medical students involved in the program; over 100 students utilized the programs. We oversaw the creation of new student-led anatomy review sessions that were incorporated into the medical school academic program.

While enrolled in the MD/PhD program, I completed my PhD in cancer immunology studying natural killer cell development. I also collaborated on translational research projects seeking to identify new cell-based therapies for cancer. I published multiple papers in high impact journals and had the opportunity to present my work at both local and international conferences. I continue to pursue research that develops immune-based therapies for cancer and plan to pursue a career as a physician-scientist.

I joined the team at Motivate MD to help students achieve their goals in medicine. I have benefitted from the support of many outstanding mentors, and I strive to have a similarly positive impact in helping students succeed. My experiences as a tutor and teaching assistant, in both undergraduate and medical school, have helped me develop excellent skills in communication and mentoring. In addition to my teaching and leadership experience, I have developed specific skills to help students with the application and interview process for medical school and residency programs.

Not only am I familiar with what makes a strong application, I am prepared to help students highlight their strengths in their essays and interviews. I have extensive writing and speaking experience from my graduate studies. I have coached other students in communicating effectively. From my own experience in interviewing for medical school and residency, I can help students gain confidence in their communication skills and clearly express their motivations and goals. As a member of the Motivate MD team, I am passionate about helping students work toward their goal of a successful career in medicine.

I am an OBGYN resident and graduate of the University of Cincinnati. Throughout medical school, I engaged in research at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and UCCOM’s OBGYN department. I have a strong background in mentorship. In medical school, I was a part of an organization that would mentor local Cincinnati youths. I was also involved in mentoring medical students in the years below through her medical scholar’s program. I also have a lot of experience editing medical school essays and mentoring my scribes when I was a chief scribe during my gap years. I took two years off prior to applying for medical school. During this time, I completed research at WashU with a neuroimaging lab as a clinical research coordinator and scribed in an emergency department. The medical application process was daunting for me. I went through the process of taking the MCAT multiple times and struggled to figure out where I would be a competitive applicant. I chose to work for Motivate MD to assist students with this intimidating process and help in areas where I felt I was lacking guidance prior to medical school! I am very excited to get the opportunity to work with you!

Jisoo is a medical student at Harvard Medical School. She has a background in neurobiology wet-lab research, and has a strong interest in mentorship, especially of underserved populations. Everyone has a unique journey to medical school, and Jisoo is committed to helping applicants present their own unique journeys in a meaningful and comprehensive manner. She has lots of experience working with individuals that have diverse pathways to medical school and closely collaborates with applicants from the beginning to the end of their application process, providing individualized support for each applicant.

Hi! My name is Rhys (pronounced like “Reese’s Pieces”) and I am a medical student at Yale School of Medicine.

I have upwards of 9 years experience mentoring peers, most recently aiding students through the premedical path at my undergrad. I also have worked as an executive function/planning tutor for Los Angeles area high school and college students. Earlier in college, I worked as a research aide/teaching assistant helping students leverage “writing-to-learn” in order to improve their understanding of complex concepts.

After graduating  Summa Cum Laude  with a Bachelors of Science in Biomedical Engineering and Health Policy from the University of Southern California in 2021, I took a gap year primarily to scribe at a pediatric clinic to boost my clinical experience hours and to continue to work on a philanthropic start-up I co-founded while at USC.

At USC, I had multiple research experiences ranging from biomedical device research in a hybrid wet lab to policy analysis. I also was heavily involved in pro-bono consulting for non-profits and social enterprises.

I have personal experience approaching the common “Why Medicine?” question from a non-traditional angle (engineering major/activities and low clinical hours compared to non-clinical), tying in a non-standard major “X factor” extracurricular into the overall theme of an application, and expressing interest in dual degrees/interdisciplinary medical careers (policy, public health etc).

I look forward to helping you plan for and execute your unique path to medical school!

George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences

Hi Everyone! My name is Anthu Gnanakumar and I am a medical student at the George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences. I majored in neuroscience and minored in English at the University of Virginia prior to taking a gap year and attending medical school. During my gap year, I worked as a medical assistant (MA) at endocrinology and pediatric primary care practices. I really value the hands-on experience I got through being an MA and would highly recommend taking a gap year if you are at all considering it!

I remember being daunted by the significant uptick in medical school applications during the pandemic and can empathize with the ever-increasing competitiveness of getting into medical school. I have mentored and advised multiple peers and friends from high school and college as they navigated the application process and look forward to extending that mentorship to many of you. It is my hope that we can work together to shape your narrative into meaningful essays and interview responses!

Duke University School of Medicine

Hi all! My name is Arthi and I’m a medical student at Duke. I am originally from New Jersey and went to Duke for undergrad where I was able to discover interests in medical humanities, global health, and peer mentorship. Having previously taught in an art studio, I found ways to engage with medical humanities through storytelling and creative arts with elders with dementia. In medical school, I help run a program that allows admitted patients to share their life story and with cartoon creations to simplify medical diagnoses. I also majored in global health and worked on projects in based in Uganda and India during undergrad that focused on studying how evidence-based interventions actually function in practice. I spent my gap year as a global health research assistant which allowed me to gain experience with all stages of project initiation, management, and dissemination. I’m working towards spending Duke’s MS3 research year engaging with global health implementation research on site. I don’t have any family in medicine so I asked for a lot of advice from upperclassmen and medical students throughout. I was a peer tutor for over 3 years and during my senior year, I started a peer advising program that’s goal was to reach beyond just academics. During that time, I mentored many premed students on course choice, finding research and volunteering experiences, applying to summer program and gap year jobs, MCAT, and building a school list. I continued many of these relationships since graduating and have been able to provide continued support through brainstorming and editing primary and secondary applications, interview prep, and ultimately decision making. One thing I’ve come to learn from my process and that my classmates is that there isn’t one right way to do things and it can be valuable to talk through and understand your priorities and the things that make you the most excited and craft your application around those. I know how stressful and draining each step of the application process can be and I would love the chance to provide some of guidance and support I received at whichever turn you need.

NYU Grossman School of Medicine Admissions Committee Experience

Hi! My name is Kate and I’m a current medical student at NYU Grossman School of Medicine in New York City! I’m originally from Kingsport, Tennessee and attended Clemson University where I completed my undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering and a master’s degree in Applied Health Research. I have many years of experience as an advisor and mentor, mainly through working as study abroad ambassador and as a peer tutor and peer mentor through a Women in Engineering organization at my school. Later in college, I also worked as a teaching assistant for a challenging chemical engineering course in my degree. I also volunteered my time as a tour guide and was able to provide loads of advice and guidance to future students through that role. While finishing my master’s degree at Clemson University, I worked as a scribe at a gastroenterology clinic to boost my clinical experience hours. During this time, I also served as a mentor and health coach for a local volunteer organization with a mission to help people get off of government assistance. At Clemson, I had multiple research experiences ranging from social psychology to OB/GYN clinical research. I was also heavily involved with STEM outreach at local schools, ran a pitch competition, and volunteered as a conversational partner for international students who were learning English. I also spent the summer after I graduated college working at Interlochen Arts Camp as a camp counselor and reigniting my passion for theatre and the arts. I have had a slightly more non-traditional path to medicine (engineering degree/extracurriculars, taking a year to do a master’s, working at an arts camp), and I have a lot of experience in how to best weave together your own unique story in order to stand out to admissions committees. As a current medical student, I now spend my time working as an Admissions Ambassador and serving as a mentor to incoming students. I also currently interview for my medical school and so I can provide a lot of insight as I’ve sat on both sides of the Zoom interview screen. I look forward to helping you put your best foot forward in your applications and interviews for medical school!

Hello! I am a medical student at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons planning to apply into neurology this upcoming fall. I have extensive mentoring and advising experience both prior to medical school, when I served as a peer advisor for my undergraduate institution’s pre-health club, and as a medical student, continuing to advise undergraduates on essay writing, interview preparation, and general application and career advice. I also work as a mentor in the local community, tutoring and advising 8 th grade and high school age students interested in the health sciences. I have significant research and publication experience beginning as an undergraduate and continuing throughout medical school, having published four first-author manuscripts while contributing to multiple others. Prior to medical school, I spent a gap year as a National Institutes of Health Post-baccalaureate Intramural Research Training Award fellow, a role in which I studied Alzheimer’s disease proteomics and metabolomics. Currently, my research focus has shifted towards neuroinfectious diseases and contributions of infectious exposures to lifetime dementia risk. In addition to clinical medicine, I have a strong interest in public health and anthropology that informs my research and clinical pursuits. 

Hello! My name is Jessica, and I am a medical student at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine. I completed my undergraduate degree in Molecular & Cellular Biology at Johns Hopkins University, along with a minor in Entrepreneurship & Management. At Hopkins, I played on the varsity tennis team, served as a peer tutor, and volunteered at the JHH Sickle Cell Infusion Center. After graduating from college, I took on a full-time position at the Sickle Cell Infusion Center as a clinical research coordinator. I stayed in this role for one gap year, where I ran the largest registry of sickle cell disease patients in the United States, helping to characterize disparities faced in health outcomes and access to care. Since starting medical school, I have become heavily involved in cervical cancer research, volunteering at the Chinese Hospital in downtown San Francisco, and advocating for vulnerable populations. As a first-generation medical student, I understand how overwhelming the application process is and how vital near-peer guidance can be. I’ve helped several applicants through their application writing and interview process, who will all be matriculating to medical school this upcoming fall. I look forward to helping you curate your own story, put your best foot forward, and pursue your dream career!

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Medical School Secondary Essay Examples from Accepted Applicants!

Plus tips for answering the 5 most common med school secondary essay prompts.

Before we jump into medical school secondary essay examples, you need to know that the main purpose of the secondary medical school application is to determine whether you are a good “fit” with the mission and values of the school you are applying to. Medical schools send out secondary essays to further assess the unique characteristics of each applicant that have not been addressed in the  AMCAS Work and Activities  section or your medical school personal statement . This post will go over medical school secondary essay examples from students who were accepted, and tips for writing strong essays that application committees will love. 

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Article Contents 16 min read

Medical school secondary essays: "why our school" prompt.

The most important component of answering this prompt is doing your research. Do you have a thorough understanding of the school's mission statement and values? What population or populations are they most interested in serving? How do they describe their student body? What curriculum-enriching activities are available to their students? Do they have a strong research program? Is their curriculum a good fit for your learning style? Are all of these things in line with your own values, career goals, and learning needs?

Being informed will demonstrate an interest in the program, allowing you to write a response showing that you will be a genuinely good fit for the school.

“Questions like these are an opportunity for you to shine and show the faculty what sets you apart from the other candidates … In your response, it is important to highlight things that are relevant to the institution’s mission and values while also explaining qualities that would make you a great asset to the program … it is important to always tailor your response to the school and program you are applying to, including for this question.” – Dr. Neel Mistry, MD

Would you like us to help you with your medical school secondary essays ","buttontext":"free strategy call","buttoncolor":"#ffffff","addtrustpilot":"false","bannerundertext":" ","belowbuttontext1":null,"belowbuttontext2":null,"trustpilot":false}" :url=""https:\/\/bemoacademicconsulting.com\/contact-schedule-free-strategy-call"" code="banner1" background-color="#000066" button-color="#ffffff" banner-image> to answer this prompt, it can be useful to think about how to choose a medical school and what you’re looking for. “my main priority [in choosing a med school] was location. since i knew i was going to spend four years there, i wanted it to be in a location that i could see myself having support and enjoying. beyond that i looked at opportunities for research support, patient population diversity, and locations where students matched. i also thought about where rotations occur during third year as i wanted to focus on hospitals where rotations were not scattered and centralized to a main hospital center.” – dr. monica taneja, md, university of maryland school of medicine..

What are you most excited about when you think of attending this school? Research? Global health? Community outreach? "}]" code="timeline1">

Medical School Secondary Essay Example: Why Our School?

Write a critical analysis of your personal and scholastic qualifications for the study of medicine, the realization of your professional ambitions, and why you are choosing to apply to our school.

When I was in kindergarten, I was playing tag with my friends when I noticed a kid sitting on the bench. He seemed visibly anxious and left out of the fun so I felt compelled to invite him to play with us. This sense of compassion lay the foundation for my desire to study medicine. As I grew older, I became more inquisitive about the natural world and wanted to know how everything worked and fit together. I started to become passionate about chemistry, mathematics and biology, finding that those subjects gave me the tools to understand my surroundings. I felt empowered with every new concept I would learn; however I never quite felt as though I knew enough. It was only when my friend asked for help with her mental illness that I realized just how much I did not know and how unequipped I was to help someone in this situation. The clash between my sense of compassion and my lack of knowledge and ability to help drove me to want to study medicine.

As I ventured into college, my knowledge-seeking tendencies manifested in an interest in biomedical engineering. I chose this degree for its ability to teach me about the design and manufacturing of groundbreaking medical technologies such as skin-grafts, medical imaging devices, and prostheses. I dreamt of pushing clinical innovations and finding the next technology to revolutionize patient care. Aside from educating myself in medical technology, my college years gave me a lasting perspective and understanding of the Hispanic community’s struggles. I once accompanied my friends to volunteer in a mobile clinic. It was early in the morning when a nurse told me to put up a sign that read: “We do not check IDs.” At first, I was confused, but after careful consideration, I realized that it was to not deter illegal immigrants from seeking medical aid. As the day went on and patients came in, I noticed that most did not have the means to afford regular health and dental care. Most of them prayed that their illnesses would go away on their own because they did not have the means to get professional help. This experience really opened my eyes to the plight of underserved communities and reinforced my decision to pursue medicine so that I could help serve those who were unable to help themselves.

I applied to X University for its opportunities to allow me to work with underserved communities and develop the technical and interpersonal skills to provide patients from these communities the best care. I hope to combine my experience within medicine and engineering to push clinical technologies and advancements further to provide cheap and effective alternatives to current medications and treatments to drive down the cost of healthcare so that it can become available to more people.  

Questions surrounding cultural competency delve into your ability to interact with people whose culture, beliefs, or values are different from your own. Are you able to help people in a way that is in line with their values and belief system, even if these values and beliefs are not in line with your own? It is also important to realize the vital role that effective communication plays in bridging cultural differences.

Similar to the TMDSAS personal characteristics essay, your essay should focus on the barriers you encountered, the communication strategies you employed to overcome these barriers, how you helped the person in a way that respected their beliefs, and how you will apply this lesson in the future.

Great ideas for narratives that could address the diversity secondary essay prompt include:

• A time when you used your problem-solving skills to help someone from a socio-cultural background different from your own.
• A time you advocated for someone from a different socio-cultural background from your own.
• How you used your communication skills to overcome a language barrier and help someone.
• A reflection on what you learned from working with people with a different background from your own.
• A reflection on communicating with people with a different background from your own.
• A reflection on learning about and accepting the difference in beliefs of people with a different background from your own.
• A reflection on an interaction with an individual whose values were different from your own.

Medical School Secondary Essay Example: Diversity Essays

A. Describe how you relate to someone who is very different from you. Examples of differences may be cultural, racial, religious, economic, gender/sexual orientation, lifestyle.

The world is so diverse and it can be easy to resign to only care for and be informed of one’s own personal interests. To connect with someone else is to choose to forgo ignorance and aim to understand other people and their backgrounds. This is a choice that is made every day when we decide how to interact in society.

In my first year of university, I roomed with a person who immigrated from Colombia. I saw how difficult it was for her to transition to a new country and to overcome cultural barriers. Instead of accepting the fact that our cultures rendered us incompatible, I decided to educate myself on her culture. I started to read of the political unrest in Colombia, I found Latin music we could listen to, and I utilized my basic Spanish to try to make her feel at home. Five years later, we still live together and are the best of friends. It's clear that a little effort trying to understand the life and journey of someone else can go a long way to building connections and trust.

Would you rather watch a video? Here are the most common medical school secondary essay prompts:

B. Please discuss the diversity that you would bring to our school of medicine and the profession of medicine.

The challenges I faced as a first-generation immigrant has taught me several valuable lessons, which have influenced my pursuit of medicine. Here in the States, I am granted liberties that are otherwise unattainable in Vietnam- specifically access to quality healthcare and opportunities for growth and enrichment. My first exposure to medicine did not transpire in a hospital but instead took place in a small tent affiliated with a roaming clinic.

The significant gap in healthcare accessibility, advancement, and quality between the States and the developing countries were increasingly apparent when I returned to Vietnam to visit my family. In time, I also realized that these similar circumstances and situations exist in my local community as well. This has inspired me to advocate for the underserved population because I, myself, can identify with their struggles. During our financial crisis, my family received overwhelming support and generosity from several neighborhood communities. I wish to return the kindness. Now more than ever, in a time where immigrants are restricted access, I must fight to give them a voice.

I also bring with me the traditions and culture of a Vietnamese American. I have developed my own understanding of the diverse facets of the Asian American identity and the ripple effect it has on the community. Through lion dancing and partnering with the Vietnamese and Chinese communities, I grasped the important role that communities play in providing resources. To become one of the few Vietnamese doctors in the area would allow me to address the needs of the community and give me a platform to collaborate with other communities of color. One of my goals is to break down the language barriers and stigmas surrounding the older Asian community and help them achieve their health goals.

I bring a steadfast mindset of advocating for the underserved in my community and as an immigrant Vietnamese American, I aim to use my position to influence decisions that will benefit the entire community.

Medical School Secondary Essays: "Overcoming Challenges" Prompt

This prompt is looking at what medical schools typically refer to as “resilience”. The reality is that you will be faced with a wide variety of challenges during your medical training. Medical schools are looking for candidates who are equipped with mature coping strategies, enabling them to proficiently navigate whatever life, or medical school, decides to throw at them.

You can use any example from your own life to address this prompt. Ideas include:

• A time when things did not go according to plan.
• Overcoming a setback.
• Overcoming an illness or injury.
• Dealing with the illness of a loved one.

The important thing to remember with this prompt is to keep it positive. Focus on the strategies you used to overcome the hurdle that presented itself to you, and what you learned from the situation. Review some adversity essays for medical school for inspiration.

“It is not only important to highlight the situation in detail but to also reflect on your actions. Drawing upon lessons from this experience and how you used what you learned to make changes the next time around is key to demonstrating a growth mindset.” – Dr. Neel Mistry, MD.

Describe a challenging situation you faced and what you did to address it.

My sister was diagnosed with epilepsy at 3 months old, and it has been a continual learning experience. She never qualified for an autism diagnosis, but her behaviors resembled an autistic or neurodivergent individual. As an 8-year-old, I did not notice public reactions to my sister’s behaviors.

But, as we both grew older, I became embarrassed when people would stare at her, or notice her behavioral differences. Behavioral incidents continued to occur throughout my time in high school and college. However, I have grown into a more empathetic person who better understands the difficulties my sister faces. I won’t deny that sometimes it is still embarrassing, but I remind myself that she struggles to control her behaviors and it is not her fault.

The best way I can help her as a sister is to be there for her and try to help her through the emotions she may not be able to express all the time. Understanding my sister has made me into a stronger, more confident and empathetic woman.

Medical School Secondary Essays: "Future Goals" Prompt

It’s okay not to know exactly what kind of doctor you want to be or what medical specialty you want to pursue. For this prompt, reflect on the experiences that cemented your decision to pursue medicine.

• What was it specifically about these experiences that made you want to become a doctor?
• What fascinated you the most? Why?
• What patient population did you enjoy working with the most? Why?

You can then go on to say what kind of doctor you would like to be, or, if you haven't decided, suggest more generally which direction you would like to see your career take (i.e. mention a patient population you think you would like to work with). Many students change their minds once having been in medical school a couple of years, so it’s reasonable to say that you will keep your eyes open and continue to explore every opportunity!

Medical School Secondary Essay Example: Your Future Goals

Professionalism and the ability to gain respect in the community in which you live is of utmost importance as you embark upon a career as a physician. What three professional qualities do you feel a Student Doctor must be able to demonstrate as he/or she makes the transition into the study and practice of medicine? How will you demonstrate those qualities as a medical student at RowanSOM?

There are many valuable attributes a student doctor must possess, but the three of which I consider the most valuable are self-discipline/reflection, open-mindedness/sensitivity, and teamwork skills.

Possessing self-discipline and self-reflection skills are key for any student doctor planning on tackling the arduous medical courses that will come their way. Through my undergraduate career, I have constantly improved upon my academic study strategies to adapt to the rigors of upper-level biological courses. I realize that when one way does not work it is crucial to consult peers, advisors, and professors to improve my approach. Such changes included recording my lectures, attending more office hours, and even seeking resources outside of my lecture material to supplement my knowledge. I use this principle in my personal health goals as well. For example, my favorite hobby that I use to keep me grounded is going to the gym, where I attempt to break my fitness plateaus by researching and consulting peers. It is this drive to constantly improve myself that will allow me to overcome the many obstacles that will come my way during my medical pursuit.

In addition, it is important for student doctors to be open-minded and sensitive when understanding patients from diverse backgrounds. My research experience at the Center for Addiction, Personality, and Emotion Research enriched my understanding of the socioeconomic and environmental factors that are involved in developing addiction disorders. Learning about the neurobehavioral and psychological processes that underlie addictive behavior reinforced my awareness of the health disparities that arise from environmental and social systems in my local community. It is imperative to understand the patient outside of their symptoms in order to realize the other factors involved in their diagnosis. I aim to one day use this knowledge to inform my future patients of preventative measures and how to overcome their environmental strains.

Lastly, it is crucial for student doctors to develop teamwork skills when entering the field of medicine. Physicians have to be prepared to engage and work within different teamwork structures or environments with other specialists to provide high-quality care for their patients. My experiences as an EMT taught me firsthand how critical it is to build long-lasting relationships based on trust with your team. I have spent countless hours getting to know my EMS crew to ensure that we built a sense of camaraderie that would allow us to work well together during calls. I remember one occasion when my partner was flustered during a stressful call and could not remember the next step in delivering a treatment protocol to a patient. I noticed he was frustrated and subtly reminded him of the next step. Based on our relationship and trust, he acted on my advice and later thanked me for the assistance. Knowing that we always had each other’s back gave us the reassurance and confidence we needed to handle the many unpredictable calls that came our way. I hope to strengthen this same sense of teamwork as a future physician.

If you have an academic lapse or took a break that you wish to explain to the admissions committee, you may want to prepare this prompt in advance. The most important things to focus on are:

• Clearly, yet briefly, explain the situation that led to the break or lapse.
• Outlining how you moved past the situation.
• Outlining what you learned from the situation, and how you will manage similar situations going forward.

“The best way to address red flags is to be open and honest … and provide open reflection on how you grew from the experience.” – Dr. Monica Taneja, MD.

“what i would do in these situations is talk about the red flag/gap in an open and honest way without sounding closed off or confrontational about it … essentially, you are taking something that would normally be considered a negative and spinning into a positive.” – dr. jaime cazes, md, university of toronto temerty faculty of medicine., medical school secondary essay example: academic lapses or breaks.

If you have taken a gap year(s), please explain what you have been, or will be, doing since graduating from your undergrad institution. 

I threw myself into the medical school application process during my final year of my undergrad degree. Realizing that my application was lacking, I have spent the time since graduation gaining volunteer and leadership experience, improving my MCAT score, and taking science prerequisite courses.

Taking post-baccalaureate classes proved advantageous. I was thrilled when my MCAT score improved significantly, going from 505 to 517. My score was a testament to the hard work and dedication I put into my organic chemistry and molecular biology courses, and to the time management, accountability, and work ethic I refined in studying for the MCAT.

While pursuing post-baccalaureate science courses improved my academics, volunteering at a seniors’ care center has opened my eyes to the issues facing seniors and those who care for them. Once, upon entering the facility, I heard a patient calling for help; he had fallen and could not get back into his wheelchair. Per volunteer protocol, I cannot physically assist the residents into their chairs. However, after determining that he was not physically hurt, I calmly reassured him that I was getting help and informed the nurses of his situation. This incident and other experiences at the center allowed me to develop and practice skills such as enforcing appropriate boundaries, working with others, and handling unexpected and stressful circumstances with poise.

From my various experiences, I have developed and refined my belief system and skill set. I've developed a greater sensitivity to those facing physical or mental limitations, and a dedication to serving my community in overcoming such challenges. I’ve learned the value of being empathetic and showing compassion in the process. I've developed the critical traits and values that I am certain this school would be proud of, whether as a student or as a physician.

Pre-writing your secondaries for med school is key! Here's how:

Medical School Secondary Essays: Tips from Our Experts and Students

1. submit your essays as soon as you can.

Submitting your essays early means you can take advantage of medical schools’ rolling admissions process. As soon as medical school secondary essays are received, decisions about interview invites are made. Submitting early means a better chance of securing an interview, and therefore an acceptance letter. Being delayed with your secondaries can cost you both! One of our students, Rishi, had to reapply after submitting his secondaries too late and receiving zero interview invites.

“[One of] the things that really I think prevented me from getting in the first time around is I was just very delayed with my secondaries … I didn't even get any interviews that first cycle because I was so late on my secondaries.” – Rishi, former BeMo student.

Planning your secondaries well ahead of time also ensures you’re not rushing to write, proof, rewrite and finalize your essays.

“It is advisable to start preparing for secondaries as early as possible so that you have enough time to revise and go through multiple iterations of edits prior to submitting. Also, getting a fresh pair of eyes to have a look is never a bad idea.” – Dr. Neel Mistry, MD.

2. pre-write your med school secondary essays.

Some of you may be realizing at this point that you’ve applied to 10-20 schools and that each will likely send somewhere between 2-10 prompts. That’s a lot of essay writing! To get on top of this, we recommend pre-writing your secondary essays.

“Secondaries were a lot of work especially after completing all of the primary application materials. I tried to pre-write secondaries starting in mid-June as there aren’t many changes year to year in prompts, which are easily found online. For each school I read their mission statement and tailored my answers to their priorities. Since many essays also overlap between schools, I was able to morph different essays based on length to reduce overall writing. Pre-writing allowed me to have [less than] 1 week turn around on all of my secondary application returns.” – Dr. Monica Taneja, MD.

If you check out our comprehensive list of medical school secondary essay prompts , you can pull out common themes for the schools you are most interested in applying to. You should then create an essay outline or rough essay that addresses each of these themes.

“A lot of these prompts, they might be worded a little bit different … but there's some broad [question] types. If you compare a couple of schools, there will be some overlap and that's helpful because you can write what are these common skeletons that will allow you to be more efficient.” – Rishi, BeMo student.

Though schools may change their prompts from year to year, pre-planning at least some of your essays will make you much more efficient with your writing, allowing you to create consistently well-thought-out essays. 

Just like with your medical school personal statement, your personal stories will help your secondary essays stand out and be more memorable to the admissions committee.

“These application readers are reading a large volume of essays and sometimes they're not spending as much time as you might think. They are kind of glancing over every word so you have to think like what they are going to remember from this when they read it.” – Rishi, BeMo student.

As part of your pre-writing plan, start brainstorming personal experiences or influences you can talk about in your secondaries to make your points and keep your readers’ attention.

Medical school secondary essays are meant to provide medical school with more specific information about your candidacy and fit for their programs. The questions are geared towards the missions, requirements, and goals of each program. They are usually sent out once primary applications have been submitted.

Some schools will list a deadline (UCLA secondary essays are due after fifteen days). If the school does not specify a deadline, you should aim to submit your secondaries no later than 2 weeks after receiving the invites to complete them.

Some of the most common med school secondary prompts include "Why our school?", "Cultural Competency", "Overcoming Challenges", and "Future Goals". Pay attention to the wording of the prompts, as they may not include this direct terminology, but you should approach them with specific strategies to answer them.

Each medical school will have its own secondaries requirements. Some may ask for 1 or 2 essays, while others may require 10. Check the requirements of your schools of choice to make sure.

Yes, there are some medical schools without secondary essays , but these are rare. Check with the programs of your choice to make sure.

Many med schools recycle their secondary prompts from year to year. Plus, there are some common themes that all secondaries explore. Check out the old prompts from your schools of choice to start planning general outlines for your essays.

Most likely, you will be eliminated from the applicant selection pool right away. Med schools will want to see your dedicated and commitment to their school, which secondaries demonstrate. If you are late or do not submit them at all, you will no longer be considered for a position in their medical school.

If you applied to many med schools, there is a chance you will have trouble completing all the secondaries on time. If this is your position, you should certainly try to complete all of them on time and of good quality. Focus on the schools you want to attend and where you have the highest chance of acceptance and complete their secondaries first.

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Have a question ask our admissions experts below and we'll answer your questions.

Wynne Milhouse

Hello! Would it be okay to write about how not getting into medical school the first time was a time of adversity, even if it was on a secondary for a school I didn't apply to last time (or if it was)? I feel as if this prompt may show up for schools that I did and did not apply to two years ago, but not getting into medical school the first time WAS a big hurdle, and I have made significant changes to combat this. Is it okay to talk about that, or will that reflect poorly on me? Thanks! Best, Wynne Milhouse

BeMo Academic Consulting

Hello Wynne! Thank you very much for your question. Absolutely, you should write about not getting into med school the first time even if you are writing secondaries for a school you did not apply to last time. You can even mention that you are now applying to this school because you improved your research and found that this would be a more suitable choice for you. Let us know if you have any other questions!

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Weekly Weigh-in: The Diversity Secondary Essay

Welcome to PDr’s Weekly Weigh-in! Each week, we ask medical students and physicians to weigh in on some of our most frequently asked pre-med questions. This week’s question:  How did you approach “the diversity secondary essay” on your secondary applications?

Edward Chang, DGSOM MS3

Honestly I had a pretty tough time with the diversity question. I didn’t know how far I could go with this question and I had a difficult time putting what I thought made me unique on paper without sounding arrogant or cliche. At the time I was applying, I also thought this question was very ethnically charged (I felt that I couldn’t be “different” as a typical Asian American from a middle-class family) but looking back, I realized that I was approaching the question very narrow-mindedly. If I were to answer the question now, I would emphasize the unique aspects of my personality and the specific instances that demonstrate those unique qualities. I personally wouldn’t talk about race but rather focus on how my uniqueness would contribute to the student body overall. I think a few things that make me who I am are:

Obviously many people have those qualities but I think its the combination of those characteristics that make me unique.

|| Read:  Diversity in Medical Secondary Questions ||

Evan Laveman, DGSOM MS3

When I was answering questions on diversity in my secondary statements, I would catch myself unconsciously interpreting the word ‘diversity’ as a difference in race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status. I urge everyone to not be limited in their approach to portraying their own diversity. What sets me apart is not my skin color, religion, or how much money my parents make. What sets me apart is that I worked within the same marine safety department for 7 years. I got permission to obtain my EMT license earlier than most other California residents. I’ve been personally involved in saving lives and losing lives. I love the ocean. I once paddled 41 miles down the Southern California coast in one day.I helped to found a social fraternity at UCLA. I value community, camaraderie, compassion, and service. I attempted a day hike of Mount Whitney in the snow, and knew when to turn back. I’m a hard worker, but I strive to never work so hard that I lose my grounding. There are many qualities and characteristics I possess that I share with others, and some that may be unique to just me, but the constellation of what I’ve done is a fingerprint that I feel defines me and makes me diverse. This is how I chose to answer questions on diversity- by focusing on the active aspects of my character, instead of passive identifiers.

|| Read: Three Secondaries to Pre-Write ||

Brandon Brown, UCSF MS2

I approached the diversity question by just writing about what made me a unique individual that would provide new perspectives to the incoming medical school class. Diversity doesn’t merely mean diversity in how you look or where you came from, but how your experiences have shaped you as an individual and how your experiences provide a valuable addition to a group. I wrote about about my family, my upbringing, and some of the skills I’ve acquired (e.g. programming) and how those inform my decisions, thought process, and contribute to improving team work.

|| Check out: PDr’s Secondary Essay Prompts Database to start pre-writing! ||

Evan Shih, DGSOM MS3

As a heterosexual Asian-American male from an immigrant family with aspirations of applying to medical school, I wasn’t exactly jumping to the top of anybody’s diversity checklist, at least not in the classic sense of “racial background, sexual identity, and social background”. However, I wanted to show medical schools that despite growing up in an “cookie cutter” suburban community, I still possessed experiences that provided me with both an enriched background and an open-minded outlook. With my diversity essay, I sought to exhibit the fact that I was eager to learn more about the diverse patient population that I was going to serve in the future. I wrote about my experiences volunteering with a homeless clinic and the multitude of patient backgrounds in the Greater Los Angeles area: recently displaced families, chronic cocaine addicts, veteran war heroes, Latino immigrants, and countless individuals of the LGBT community.

Working with the homeless clinic showed me two things: 1) I knew very little about the world around me and 2) If I wanted to practice medicine in Southern California, I needed to hone my Spanish skills. These two realizations compelled me to plan a summer trip to Cusco, Peru with a friend. For 3 weeks we took medical Spanish, learned to salsa dance, and hiked the Inca Trail. My multicultural experiences in both Peru and inner-city Los Angeles provided me with an understanding of the many different patient backgrounds that I would encounter as a physician, and I wanted to show schools that I was confident that I could contribute the same enthusiasm and capabilities in medical school.

Related posts:

• Weekly Weigh-in: The University Secondary Essay
• Weekly Weigh-in: Which Medical Schools Should I Apply To?
• Weekly Weigh-in: The Adversity Secondary Essay
• Weekly Weigh-in: Preparing for Interview Season

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blogging my journey from premed to md & all the little life things in between

Diversity Essay for Medical School Applications: Smart 2-Step Strategy for Approaching It

May 22, 2024 · In: Applying to Medical School

Tackling the diversity essay for your secondaries on your medical school applications can be a bit intimidating. It’s easy to overthink it and cause yourself a ton of unnecessary stress. 

While the diversity essay gives you the opportunity to showcase your unique perspective and experiences , it can also feel like a tricky tightrope walk of wanting to represent yourself authentically without falling into stereotypes or clichés.

However, having been in your shoes, I’m here to tell you that you can easily nail it if you know how! The 2-step strategy I used when applying to medical school will help you approach it with confidence and clarity. You’ll be able to craft a compelling and genuine essay that highlights what makes you stand out.

This post is all about diversity essay for medical school.

This post contains affiliate links, which means I’ll receive a commission if you purchase through my link, at no extra cost to you. Full disclosure  here .

Ultimate Tips in Writing Diversity Essay For Medical School Applications

What’s the Diversity Essay for Medical School?

Medical school secondary applications often provide a diversity essay prompt. It’s a place to share with your prospective medical school how your unique background, experiences, and perspectives can contribute to the school’s diverse and inclusive community.

Similar to your adversity essay , this essay is your chance to show the admissions committee who you are beyond your academic achievements and test scores. You get to talk about your cultural background, personal challenges you’ve overcome, your experiences with diversity and inclusion, and how these have shaped you into the future doctor you aspire to be.

What Medical Schools Want to Know From Your Diversity Essay

Admissions committees prioritize candidates with different perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences. Adding a diversity essay to your application shows them how your unique story can contribute to the diverse community they’re trying to build in their med school.

If you take a peek at different medical school websites, you’ll see that words like “diversity” pop up a lot in their mission statements. That’s because they want future doctors who can connect with all kinds of patients and bring fresh ideas to the medical field.

Most schools have separate diversity statements to show just how serious they are about welcoming students from all walks of life – different races, religions, genders, sexual orientations, and more. Plus, they’re also open to non-traditional applicants , such as those coming from non-science backgrounds.

How to Write a Diversity Essay When You’re White

I recently had a fellow pre-med student reach out to me and say, “Hey, I’m a white female, and I’m not bilingual. How can I tackle the diversity question?” 

If you’re wondering the same thing, know that diversity isn’t a secret code solely reserved for underrepresented groups. Absolutely, applicants from minority backgrounds are definitely seen as adding to the diverse tapestry of medical schools. But we’re all unique with our own stories, and that’s where the magic lies.

Diversity is more than being from a specific background—it’s about the richness of your experiences and how they shape your perspective. So, if you’re struggling to figure out what makes you diverse, dig deep into your own journey. My strategy will help you with that!

2-Step Strategy for Approaching the Diversity Essay

Skip the writer’s block because I have a simple strategy that will make tackling this essay a whole lot easier. This approach will help streamline the process, save you time, and make sure you stay focused to highlight your strengths and uniqueness. 

Step 1: Think of All the Ways You Are Diverse

Of course, there’s ethnicity, culture, speaking multiple languages, and more. But there are tons of other ways you can bring diversity to the table. 

Here are some examples that may apply to you.

• Being someone who often “thinks outside the box”
• Having a major that isn’t related to science
• Being a non-traditional applicant (especially if you took more than two gap years!)
• Swapping careers to pursue medicine
• Navigating life with a disability
• Being part of any historically underrepresented group
• Coming from a unique family 
• Experiencing a different type of education, such as homeschooling
• Embracing the challenges of being an older student
• Having a military experience background
• Balancing parenting and pursuing your professional goals
• Facing tough times due to your socioeconomic background

Step 2: Use the Same 1-2 Stories for Tons of Prompts

Diversity essay prompts can come at you from all angles. But, pro tip: you can use the same one or two stories and adapt them for most prompts. Simply pick your top two themes of what makes you diverse, craft a noteworthy story around each one, and – bam, you have what you need! 

Personally, I had two standout stories that I kept tweaking to fit whatever prompt came my way. I either talked about growing up biracial or finding creative solutions when I was president of the equestrian team. Afterwards, I played around with the length, made sure to hit the stated character limit, and I was all set.

Diversity Essay Example Prompts

S econdary essay prompts on diversity often ask about different aspects of your identity that contribute to your unique perspective and how you would add to the diversity of the medical school. It’s a chance for you to share what makes you, well, you! 

Here are several examples of the type of diversity prompts that you’ll likely encounter when applying to medical school.

• How will your background and experiences shape your journey as a future physician and enrich our school community?
• In what ways do your unique attributes, whether that’s your cultural background, life experiences, or work history, bring diversity to our medical school family?
• Do you see yourself as someone who can contribute to the diverse tapestry of the student body?
• Talk about a moment that expanded your perspective or helped you understand different viewpoints, and what you took away from it.
• Reflect on a time when you learned from individuals or a community that was different from your own.
• How will your background and experiences align with the values of our institution and shape your future as a healer?

My Diversity Essay Examples

These are the exact two essays I reused for many diversity prompts, such as the following examples.

• How can you contribute to our diversity and inclusion mission statement?
• Ohio State diversity of thought
• Interacting effectively with people from diverse backgrounds
• Explain a time you interacted with people different from you
• How will your unique attributes add to the diversity of the school community? 

Prompt: What perspectives or experiences do you bring that would enrich the class?

My mother is Caucasian and my father is African American. Growing up biracial, I constantly felt like I did not belong. My hometown in Ohio lacked diversity; I could often count on being the only minority in my school classes. 

For a long time, I never even spoke about race or the color of my skin. When I heard people talking about anything along those lines, I avoided the conversation or pretended like I was not listening. These feelings caused me to be shy and confused about a large part of what made me, “me”. When I began college things slowly started to change. I was still shy talking about race and discussing my skin color, but as each year passed the shyness faded. 

Today, I have accepted my light brown skin and no longer think about whether I am the only biracial person in the room. As I continue to grow as a person, I hope to become someone who positively impacts those struggling on their own journey to acceptance and who makes others feel comfortable to be themselves around me.

This personal experience is what I believe I can bring to enrich the class. I would love to have open conversations with my future classmates about the perspectives I have regarding race and implicit bias. Additionally, I want to learn about my classmate’s diverse experiences so I can develop into a physician who is culturally competent.

Prompt: How will your unique attributes add to the diversity of the school community?

I believe many of my unique attributes are a result of the lessons learned as an equestrian. I started riding in the 3rd grade and have experienced both the highs and lows of working towards lofty goals. When I was younger, I was happy when I won and irrationally upset if I did not. 

By high school, I had learned how to handle failure more gracefully. For instance, my biggest goal during my four years on the equestrian team was to qualify for Regionals. During my senior year at our last show of the season, a small mistake prevented me from earning the one point I needed to finally qualify. 

It was a painful but transient moment and the rest of the day I was able to focus on my accomplishments during my four years on the team. I think experiences such as this will help me relate to my fellow classmates and be the student they come to for words of encouragement and help finding the positives in an upsetting situation.

Additionally, being passionate about something inspires me to find creative solutions when faced with a problem. In my senior year, I came up with an idea to start a monthly newsletter for the equestrian team. We had over twenty members and we all had riding lessons at different times. We had monthly meetings, but there were always a handful of members with schedule conflicts. As a result, we lacked an effective way to ensure that each member was informed about upcoming events. I thought a newsletter might help centralize all the information we needed members to have and eliminate the issue of scheduling conflicts. 

Eager to send the first one as soon as possible, I recruited help from my teammates, Bailey and Kayla. We stayed up late for a few nights creating the first newsletter and the end result was better than expected. Coach Mandi loved the idea and we implemented it for the rest of the year. One day as a medical student, I am eager to promote a collaborative environment with my classmates by sharing my enthusiasm for creative solutions.

3 Tips for Nailing Your Diversity Essay

Your diversity essay is your chance to showcase your unique perspectives or skills. Here are three things to keep in mind as you write your first draft.

Share Your Stories Through Anecdotes

Whether you share your cultural roots by describing a special meal with your grandparents, recount a patient interaction that left a lasting impact, or detail a leadership challenge you overcame, let your experiences shine through. Remember, it’s these stories that make you unique and shape your journey to become a doctor.

Link Your Experiences to Medicine 

How will the qualities you’ve developed help you excel in the medical field? Whether it’s through patient advocacy, teamwork, resilience, or leadership skills, explain how these traits will benefit you in your medical career. Show admissions committees how your diverse background will make you a valuable asset to their school and the medical community.

Customize Your Essay for Each School

Research each medical school you’re applying to and tailor your essay to their values and mission. Add an extra sentence or two that ties your story to an issue valued by the medical school you’re applying to. Also, pay attention to the details outlined by each different school, such as character limit and how to structure your essay. 

Want to Craft “Interview-Worthy” Secondary Essays in a Fraction of the Time?

The first time I applied to medical school, I didn’t even know secondaries existed! I was so caught off guard and clueless, I took forever to submit just 4 of the 6 secondary applications I received. Needless to say, I only got one interview invite and was never pulled off their waitlist.

The second time around, I was SO well prepared that I was able to submit 28 secondary applications. This is just within days of receiving them (and my strategy didn’t even involve pre-writing). This earned me 15 interview invites which led to not just one but TEN medical school acceptances. Granted, my secondary essays weren’t the only reason since I improved so many aspects of my application to maximize my chances. But they surely made a big difference to get me foot into the door for interviews. 

Inside my course Mastering Secondaries , I will teach you how to write unique essays for every school, brainstorming techniques, 70+ real-life essay examples and a step-by-step process to get your writing done in a fraction of the time.

The Bottom Line on the Diversity Essay for Medical School

Remember, diversity in medical schools is not just about race or ethnicity but also different perspectives, beliefs, and life experiences. So, don’t be afraid to share your story and highlight what makes you stand out! 

Just be honest and authentic, and be yourself. Talk about how you have actively contributed to promoting diversity and inclusivity in your community. And, most of all, show how you’re not just a great candidate for medical school but also a future doctor who’s ready to make a difference. Good luck writing!

Related Posts

Adversity Essay Medical School: What Medical Schools Actually Want to Know About You

How to Write a Personal Statement for Medical School – Easy 5-Step Process

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8 Tips to Writing an Excellent Diversity Essay

by internationalmedicalaid

Here at IMA, we believe in writing strong essays. We provide samples in our  medical school guides , and we’ve shown you how to write  strong personal statements . In today’s article, we’re going to examine the diversity essay. 

The diversity essay is among the classic essay prompts that many universities employ to better understand their applicants. If you don’t know how to write a diversity essay, this can be tricky. That’s why we’re going to break down the elements. If you know what the essay question is asking  and  how to answer it, you can write a fantastic essay. 

What Is Diversity?

Diversity is what makes you diverse. You could also say that diversity sets you apart from others. It makes you unique. It gives you an individual story to tell. Some kinds of diversity include:

• An unusual background
• A different educational experience
• A unique family history

How To Show Your Diversity

• Are you a U.S. immigrant?
• Were your parents immigrants?
• Do your parents have an unusual background?

If any of these apply to you, you can describe diverse aspects of your childhood. For example, if your mom was from China and ran a restaurant to support your family, you could talk about how your immigrant mother built a business from the ground up and taught you the value of hard work. What might seem ordinary or common to you could be unique and inspirational to someone else (like the admissions committee!).

• Are you a veteran?
• Did you serve as president of a club?
• Were you on your debate team?

Not all diversity means having diverse roots. Some experiences can make you diverse as well. For example, if you’ve been through the Army’s Basic Combat Training or Advanced Individual Training, you’ll surely have stories to tell. Your experiences will bring diversity to the campus you’re attending.

In short, diversity is about anything that makes you unique. Your diversity  can  come from your religious or cultural background. It could come from your sexual orientation or gender identity. But it could  also  be something entirely different. Indeed, you could write a story about having a rare disease and how you’ve worked through setbacks. Even that is diverse. 

We go into such great detail on what you can classify as “diversity” because some students get freaked out. They think that coming from a middle-class family in a suburban neighborhood means they’re not “diverse.” Then they worry that they won’t get into medical school because they’re not “diverse enough.” That is not true! Everyone has something that makes them diverse. And sharing that story will help the admissions committee to get to know you better. 

Why Is Diversity Important?

Diversity matters for a few reasons. 

• Diversity improves a student’s classroom experience.
• Diversity teaches things you can’t learn in a textbook.
• Diversity in medicine allows for better healthcare .

If everyone came from the same background, had the same interests and interacted the same way, we’d have a pretty boring world. But if we surround ourselves with a diverse population, our opportunities for growth never end. 

Once you don your white coat as an  M.D. or D.O. , you’ll be surrounded by diverse populations. The more diversity you’ve been exposed to, the better of a healthcare provider you’ll be. 

10 Diversity Examples to Get You Started

We’ve talked about diversity… now let’s get you started! Here are ten examples to showcase your diversity.

• You were raised by your grandmother after your single mother passed away from cancer.
• You subscribe to a different set of beliefs than you did when you were a child.
• You didn’t have that many friends at school. Only 3% of students were also of your ethnicity. It was hard to find others to relate to.
• You grew up in the military. You called your father “Sir” far more than you called him “Dad”. You have deep respect for him, but not really a relationship.
• You learned to adapt to an ever-changing environment because your family was part of a traveling circus.
• You’re a dual citizen. You grew up in France but moved to the U.S. as a teenager.
• Your little brother has cerebral palsy. You’ve helped take care of him since he was a baby.
• You grew up in a neighborhood with lots of different political beliefs. You’ve seen a lot of injustice and have protested for positive change.
• You were diagnosed with dyslexia when you were little. You adapted to your environment and learned different ways to study.
• You’ve been a ballerina since you were five years old. Not only do you love the sport, but it’s taught you the value of hard work, determination, discipline and grit.

These are just a few of the examples you could use to get started with your own diversity essay.  

Writing Your Diversity Essay

Now that we’ve covered  what diversity is , let’s talk about  how to write about it . Because you want to tell a story, but you also want to appropriately craft your essay for the admissions department. 

First , let’s examine what the question is. Not every school asks about diversity in the same way. For example, one school might ask how diversity has shaped you as a person, while another school might ask what diversity means to you. Some schools even combine diversity with adversity. They’ll ask you how you’ve overcome injustice related to diversity. Carefully examine the question to ensure you properly answer it. And whatever you write about, be bold. Shyness won’t show the admissions committee who you are as a person. 

Second , formatting your essay is the way to go. This will help you write within a framework so that your writing isn’t all over the place. You don’t want the admissions committee to have a hard time following what you wrote.

• Introduce yourself.  First off, tell the admissions committee who you are. But don’t write, “Hi, I’m Hannah, and I want to attend  Perelman School of Medicine .” The admissions committee already knows who you are. Your name is listed on your application. Instead,  describe who you are . What is your gender identity? What about your sexual orientation? Your background? Did you grow up Catholic but became a Latter-day Saint? Are you the first doctor in your family? Did you grow up in poverty?  And those questions are just ideas to get you started. Think about what makes you unique, and describe yourself in that light. This will make up the first part of your essay.
• How has your diversity impacted you?  The admissions committee knows you’re diverse. It’s time to tell them what you’ve done with your diversity. How have you grown through it? How has it affected you? This could be negative or positive. How have you adapted to different circumstances? The sky is the limit with this one. You can talk about scholastic achievements, leadership positions, service projects, work or internships, or even serving in the military.
• Tie it back to diversity.  It’s really easy to get lost in the experience you’re sharing, especially when you’re passionate about something. Be sure to tie your experience into your diversity, and how that contributes to your M.D. candidacy. Why should this school accept you? How do your ideas, your philosophical approach and your work ethic influence you? This is also where you’ll want to wrap up your essay. Transition into your conclusion.

We’re Here to Help

Do you need help with your diversity essay? If so, International Medical Aid is here to help! We offer  medical school admissions consulting , which includes reviewing your secondary application essays. Our experts can guide you through the writing process. We’ll even proofread your essay for you and provide pointers on how to improve it. 

It’s easy to schedule a virtual appointment with us right on our website. We look forward to helping you. 

Are you deciding which medical schools to apply to? Check out our series of definitive guides on how to get into different medical schools. We regularly update our blog with more universities, so check back often!

• Baylor College of Medicine
• George Washington University School of Medicine
• Vanderbilt University School of Medicine
• St. George’s University School of Medicine
• Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine (in Pennsylvania)
• Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University
• Wake Forest University School of Medicine
• Western University of Health Sciences (in California)
• Drexel University College of Medicine
• Stritch School of Medicine at Loyola University Chicago
• Georgetown University School of Medicine
• Yale School of Medicine
• Perelman School of Medicine
• UCLA Medical School
• NYU Medical School
• Washington University School of Medicine
• Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
• Brown Medical School

Finally, if you want to immerse yourself in experiences that will build your diversity, consider going on an internship with us. We offer internships  all over the world  to students just like you. Our doctors travel to multiple countries to provide healthcare to individuals who live in remote areas without easy access to healthcare. 

We wish you good luck as you write your diversity essay and with every section of your medical school application! Remember that we’re  here to help , should you need it along the way!

International Medical Aid provides  global internship opportunities  for students and clinicians who are looking to broaden their horizons and experience healthcare on an international level. These program participants have the unique opportunity to shadow healthcare providers as they treat individuals who live in remote and underserved areas and who don’t have easy access to medical attention. International Medical Aid also provides  medical school admissions consulting  to individuals applying to medical school and PA school programs. We review primary and secondary applications, offer guidance for personal statements and essays, and conduct mock interviews to prepare you for the admissions committees that will interview you before accepting you into their programs. IMA is here to provide the tools you need to help further your career and expand your opportunities in healthcare.

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Craft a Winning Medical School Essay with Examples and Proven Tips

Published on: May 8, 2023

Last updated on: Jan 31, 2024

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Are you dreaming of becoming a doctor or a health care professional? 

The first step towards achieving that goal is to get accepted into a top-tier medical school. 

But with so many other qualified medical students competing for the same spot, how do you stand out from the crowd? 

It all starts with your medical school essay. 

Your essay is your opportunity to your unique qualities, experiences, and aspirations. 

In this blog, we'll provide you with examples that will help you catch the attention of admissions committees. 

From purpose to common mistakes to avoid, we'll cover everything you need to get accepted into the medical school of your dreams. 

So, let's dive in!

On This Page On This Page -->

Types of Medical School Examples 

Medical school essays come in many different forms, each with its own unique requirements and purpose.

In this section, we'll discuss some of the most common types of medical school essays and what you need to know to write them successfully.

Personal Statements 

Personal statements are the most common type of medical school essay. They are usually a one-page essay that introduces you to the admissions officers. 

It explains why you want to pursue medicine as a career. Personal statements should be engaging, and memorable, and show off your unique qualities.

An outline offers a framework to help you craft a compelling narrative that showcases your strengths and experiences.

Check out this personal statement example that can help future physicians getting into the schools of their dreams.

Medical School Personal Statement Examples pdf

Secondary Essays 

Secondary essays are additional essays that some medical schools require in addition to the personal statement. 

They often ask specific questions about your background, experiences, or interests. They give you an opportunity to show off your future patient care and problem-solving skills.

Here is a brief example of a secondary application medical school essay:

Paper Due? Why Suffer? That's our Job!

Diversity Essays 

Diversity essays ask you to write about your experiences with diversity and how they have influenced you to pursue a career and your interest in medicine. 

These essays are becoming increasingly common in medical school applications as schools strive to build a more diverse and inclusive student body.

Good Medical School Essay Examples 

Are you struggling to write a standout medical school essay? They say that the best way to learn is by example. That's especially true when it comes to public health school essays. 

We'll provide you with some of the best examples to help you craft an essay that will help your career in medicine.

Medical College Essay Examples

Personal Statement Medical School Examples Pdf

Medical School Covid Essay Examples

Challenging Medical School Essay Examples 

Writing a medical school essay is more than just telling a story about yourself. It's an opportunity to demonstrate your critical thinking and analytical skills. 

In this section, we'll highlight some of the challenging medical school essay examples. This will give you a sense of what admissions committees are looking for. You can learn how to exceed those expectations by writing a successful medical school essay.

Greatest Challenge Medical School Essay Examples

Successful Medicine Personal Statement Examples

Medical School Scholarship Essay Examples

Medical School Essay Examples for Different Schools 

Each medical school has its own unique mission, values, and admissions criteria, and your essay should reflect that. 

In this section, we'll explore how to tailor your medical school essay for different schools and showcase some examples of successful essays.

Let’s explore these Stanford and Harvard medical school essay examples:

Medical School Personal Statement Examples Harvard

Medical School Personal Statement Examples Stanford

Tips on Crafting an Excellent Medical School Personal Statement 

The medical school personal statement is your opportunity to showcase your unique qualities and experiences. 

Here are some tips to help you craft an excellent personal statement:

Start Early 

Don't wait until the last minute to start writing your personal statement. Give yourself plenty of time to brainstorm, write, and revise your essay. Starting early also allows you to get feedback from mentors, professors, or peers.

Focus on Your Story 

Your personal statement should tell a story that showcases your journey to medicine. Highlight the experiences and qualities that have led you to pursue a career in medicine. Tell them how you plan to use your skills to make a difference.

Be Specific 

Use specific examples to illustrate your experiences and achievements. Don't just list your accomplishments, but show how they have prepared you for a career in medicine. Use concrete details to make your essay more engaging and memorable.

Show, Don't Tell 

Instead of simply stating your qualities, show them through your experiences and actions. For example, don’t say you're a team player. Describe a time when you worked effectively in a team to achieve a goal.

Tailor Your Essay to the School 

As mentioned earlier, each medical school has its own unique mission and values. Tailor your personal statement to each school to demonstrate your fit with their program and values.

Mistakes to Avoid in a Medical School Personal Statement 

When it comes to your medical school personal statement, there are some common mistakes you should avoid:

Avoid using cliched phrases and ideas that are overused in personal statements. Admissions committees want to see your unique perspective and experiences. They do not want generic statements that could apply to anyone.

Negativity 

Don't focus on negative experiences or aspects of your life in your personal statement. Instead, focus on your strengths and how you have grown from challenges.

Lack of Focus 

Make sure your personal statement has a clear focus and theme. Don't try to cover too many topics or experiences in one essay. Instead, focus on one or two experiences that are meaningful to you and illustrate your journey to medicine.

Too Formal or Informal Tone 

Make sure your personal statement strikes the right tone. Avoid being too formal or using overly complex language. Also, avoid being too informal or using slang.

Plagiarism 

Never copy someone else's personal statement or use a template to write your own. Admissions committees can easily spot plagiarism, and it will result in an immediate rejection.

Grammatical and Spelling Errors

Proofread your personal statement thoroughly for grammatical and spelling errors. Even a few small errors can detract from the overall quality of your essay.

Lack of Authenticity 

Be true to yourself in your personal statement. Don't try to present an image of yourself that is not authentic or that you think the admissions committee wants to see. Be honest and genuine in your writing.

In conclusion, crafting a winning medical school essay is a crucial step toward securing admission to the medical school of your dreams. 

This blog has provided examples of essays along with tips to craft an excellent medical school personal statement. By avoiding mistakes, you can increase your chances of standing out from the crowd and impressing the admissions committee. 

Struggling with your medical school essays or college papers? Look no further!

Our college paper writing service specializes in crafting exceptional papers tailored to your academic needs, including medical school essays. And for an extra boost in your writing tasks, don't forget to explore our AI essay generator .

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Frequently Asked Question (FAQs)

What is the ideal med school personal statement word limit.

There is no set length for a medical school personal statement, but most schools typically require a personal statement of 500-800 words.

How do I choose a topic for my medical school essay?

Choose a topic that showcases your unique perspective and experiences, and illustrates your journey to medicine. Consider what makes you stand out and what you are passionate about.

Should I mention my grades and test scores in my medical school essay?

It is not necessary to mention your grades and test scores in your medical school essay as they are already included in your application. Instead, focus on showcasing your unique qualities, experiences, and perspective.

Can I get help with writing my medical school essay?

Yes, there are various resources available to help you with writing your medical school essay. Consider seeking help from a writing tutor, career services office, or professional writing service like ours.

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How To: Master the Med School Secondary Essay (with examples) 2023

After you submit your primary applications , medical schools will ask you to submit secondary applications (most automatically) the majority of which require you to write secondary essays of varying lengths.

The essay prompts should serve as clues to the culture of the medical school and indicate what kind of information is important for them to know about applicants. As you research each school to apply to, begin to make notes about what draws you to that school so you can use these thoughts in your secondary essays.

You can prepare for these in advance by organizing notes in these areas: my accomplishments, obstacles I have overcome, challenges I have had and how I’ve handled these, why I want to attend this school, what kind of physician I want to be, what activities I’ve been most intimately involved with and what have I learned.

Secondary Essay Basic Guidelines

• Write essays for your top choice and target schools first! You are likely to be overwhelmed by the tidal wave of secondary applications you will receive so don’t make the mistake of completing, for example, all of your reach schools first!
• Do not rush your work. Unless a medical school specifies a return date, there is no “deadline” to complete your essays. Complete all of your essays, if possible by August 1st or by Labor Day at the latest.
• Answer the essay prompts carefully. The biggest mistake students make is trying to squeeze a prewritten essay for an inappropriate prompt.
• Some prompts will force you to repeat information that is in your primary application. This is okay!
• Don’t feel that every topic you write about should be momentous. Sometimes writing about more personal details of your life can offer more insight into your values, ideals, and life decisions.

Most Common Essay Prompts

Several common secondary essay topics that are listed below.

Greatest Challenge/Failure/Adversity Essay

Essays that ask about personal challenges, failures or adversities are seeking information about your ability to manage conflict and challenge. They also want to know how you cope with conflict and that you can be objective when things don’t go your way.

Medical schools want to know that you are level headed, and that you won’t crumble when feeling vulnerable or faced with less than ideal situations. Students often immediately gravitate to academic or scholarly subjects for these essays, but, sometimes the most compelling topics are those that are personal. Why? These topics can often say much more about your character, values, ideals, and decision making. Ideally, you should also write about what you learned and how you grew or changed as a result of the challenge, failure, or adversity. 

Students also consider writing about red flags for this topic such as a class failure, poor MCAT exam or institutional action. Generally speaking, we find that these topics are usually less interesting and don’t offer enough information about who you are as a person.

Essay Example:

I had worked on my presentation for weeks. I knew it was so important, not only for me, but for my principal investigator (PI), that I present the work we had done succinctly and clearly since I would be speaking in front of the entire biochemistry department. Public speaking has never been a strength and I was very nervous. Before it was my time to speak, I could feel my heart racing and my palms sweating. When I got to the podium, I was literally unable to speak; I was shaking uncontrollably and had to sit down while my PI took over. It was the most humiliating experience of my life. I was able to calm down, and, rather than leaving the auditorium, I waited until the conference was over and apologized to my PI who was kind and forgiving. I then resolved to improve my public speaking skills. The the next day I signed up for a Toastmaster’s course and have taken every opportunity since this incident to speak in public. Although I still get nervous before I have to speak, I have learned to actually enjoy speaking in public.

I saw the Microsoft Word document on the screen of my roommate’s computer. It looked familiar. I realized that this essay my roommate had written on the works and life of Jane Austen contained the exact language I had seen elsewhere. Where had I seen it? Why was this so familiar? I also asked myself, “Do I have a right to be looking at  this document?”

Then it dawned on me. When my roommate got this assignment for her literature class, we discussed it with our housemates from down the hall.  One girl offered to give my roommate a paper she had written on this topic for an AP class in high school. She printed out the paper and gave it to me to give to my roommate. Curious about the topic, since I am a Jane Austen fan, I read it before handing it to my roommate. The document on the computer in front of me contained parts of this paper that were copied, verbatim.

The issues here were complicated. First of all, I was invading my roommate’s privacy. I should not have been looking at her computer even though we often shared our computers. But now that I was aware of what she had done, I felt an obligation to confront her.

That night, when my roommate returned home from studying, I first apologized for invading her privacy and explained that I had read the document on the screen. I then told her that I realized she had plagiarized and told her I thought this was wrong. She explained that she felt under tremendous pressure since she also had a big organic chemistry mid-term that week and it just seemed so easy to copy the paper even though she recognized it was not right to do so. With my urging, since she had not yet handed the paper in, she stayed up late into the night to compose an original essay and, in the end, she thanked me for noticing and for encouraging her to do the right thing. I realized that even confronting my roommate, which was uncomfortable and awkward for me, encouraged her to make a better choice and reinforced for me the importance of acting ethically even if these easier choice would have been to look away.

Diversity Essay

Medical schools have broadened their definitions of diversity and for essays like this you can write about your unique interests, talents, or experiences. Maybe you have a distinctive background, perspective, or outlook. Think outside the box when writing about diversity. Do you have a special hobby or accomplishment that sets you apart?

Or, you can also choose to write about your own experiences with diverse or minority populations to illustrate your cultural competence which most people think of as the more “traditional” approach to questions about diversity. We find that most applicants do not currently write about these more traditional topics. Sometimes it can be more impressive to write about topics that are more distinctive to you and your background.

I grew up in a diverse community even though my undergraduate college was quite homogeneous. During college, I sought out  experiences beyond campus to immerse myself in more diverse communities. I volunteered in a free clinic, tutored children in Africa, and traveled during my vacations, when possible. I gained insights into the challenges facing  others and how their backgrounds and experiences influenced their perspectives and attitudes. On a medical mission abroad the summer after my junior year, I worked in medical clinics helping to care for Mexican families, which helped me understand that such challenges and unfair inequalities in education and health care also exist internationally.

Through my experiences, I came to realize that all patients, regardless of their background, fare better when their unique circumstances, cultures, and outlooks are considered. To improve my ability to communicate with some of these populations, I minored in Spanish and became more proficient in  the language through my studies in Spain. I have learned the importance of listening and seeing situations through the eyes of those I help. Throughout such experiences, apart from realizing that I hope to work with these populations as a future physician, I was continually reminded of the pervasive societal inequalities and injustices both locally and internationally.

Another Example:

Whether playing a Beethoven or Brahms sonata, playing music has always been an outlet for me. Since the age of seven, I have emulated my mother, a professional cellist. In fact, even during college, my goal was to practice medicine while working as a professional pianist. While doing my premedical coursework and majoring in biology, I also minored in music and composed my own work. The year following college, while playing piano professionally, I realized this wasn’t what I wanted to pursue for my lifetime. However, my musical interests will always be more than a hobby and serve as my escape from the stresses of daily life.

Why XXXXX School Essay

Medical schools want to know that you have the qualities and characteristics they are seeking. Before writing these essays, read the medical school’s mission statement and review their student biographies (if offered) to get a sense of what the school values in applicants.

The key in writing “Why our School Essays” is to offer as many specifics as possible. You want to show you will take advantage of the medical school’s opportunities and that you will make valuable contributions as a medical student. Do this by showcasing how your interests and experiences are aligned with opportunities at the medical school, that you can benefit from what the medical school offers and that you will contribute to the medical school community.

Also, many students fail to look beyond the first and second year curriculums when writing about why there are interested in a medical school. What you do during your third and fourth years of medical school, in clinical settings, is just as important. Show that you understand this!

Example Essay:

My interest in geriatrics and emergency medicine evolved as I worked clinically in these two departments last summer. Through my coursework in health policy, I also learned of the imminent need for geriatric specialized physicians to support the aging baby boomer generation. Through your hospital’s renowned telemedicine and information technology departments, I would be offered the unique opportunity to explore this interest further. I would also take advantage of the medical school’s summer research program to participate in research projects related to geriatrics or  emergency medicine.

At the clinic where I worked, I gained first hand exposure to disease complications, which often were  caused by lack of access to primary care. My travels and work in India have shown me how common these issues also are internationally. Your unique medical school program would allow me to continue my active community participation during my first year, while providing care to diverse populations who lack access to care. This endeavor also could be augmented through participation in research and study in South America, so I could pursue my interest in global health while caring for other underserved communities and  improving my language skills.

Of supreme importance, the urban location and suburban hospitals affiliated with the medical school as well as the Level I trauma center would offer unparalleled exposure to novel academic and clinical opportunities. Apart from the school’s location in my favorite city of Great City, it is the superior curriculum, supportive medical educational environment, opportunity for community involvement, and team-oriented culture that would make your medical school a perfect fit for me.

What are you doing next year or what have you done since graduating from college?

Answer these questions in a straight forward fashion. Typically, medical schools require that only applicants who are not full-time students answer the question. In answering these questions, write about what you will be doing, but also include information about what you hope to learn and how this will prepare you for medical school.

For the upcoming academic year, I will continue my research on breast cancer at Outstanding Oncology Center, where I have been working for one year. Our findings last year have already provided evidence for the etiology of what receptor is involved in  the development of tiny cell cancer, and we hope to build on these findings to continue our work. I have already become proficient in using the literature to design experiments, and I hope that this year I will learn how to analyze our findings. My hope is that our findings will be significant enough to lead to a publication on which I would be an author.

I  will also shadow several doctors throughout the year to broaden my understanding of clinical medicine. Right now I have plans to shadow an internist, a surgeon, and an ophthalmologist.

My Saturday mornings will be spent volunteering at Inner City Clinic, where I will be promoted to the level of triage. I will be responsible for taking vital signs and basic intake histories on patients.

This year will be productive and, I hope, will provide the foundation I need to be an excellent medical student.

Secondary Essay Writing Tips

For each essay prompt you receive, pay attention to the character and word limits and use them as cues for how much information a medical school is seeking. A medical school that limits your responses to only 50 words, for example, is asking you for a simple, straightforward response. On the other hand, the school that allows 1,000 words per essay wants you to elaborate and go into some detail.

Secondary prompts vary, and I find that students can often recycle essays for multiple schools. But reading secondary prompts carefully is important. The most common mistake students make is providing a response that does not really address what is being asked. Even though writing secondary essays can get laborious, don’t try to make an essay you have already written “fit” for a prompt if it just doesn’t work. Remember, good secondary essays can help you earn a  medical school interview.

Sometimes, especially if your primary application is comprehensive, responding to a secondary essay may force you to repeat information that is already in your primary application. That not only is  okay but also suggests that you are in good shape; many schools determine prompts by identifying topics that applicants frequently leave out of primary applications.

I discourage  applicants from  writing a “one size  fits all document” for various secondary essay themes. Since the character/word limit for secondary essays is so variable (50 – 3,000 words) it would be a waste of time to write an essay before knowing specific character limits for each prompt. Having an idea of what you would write about for  each of the common themes is wise, however. Some schools’ secondary essay prompts do not vary from year to year, and you can often find these essay prompts and start working on them in advance. But, be warned, schools do change secondary essay prompts on occasion.

Above all, just as you did with your personal statement, write authentically and honestly and don’t try to spin your responses to tell admissions committees what you think they want to read. 

A couple of additional tips: 

• Never quote others; your essays should be about you!
• Optional secondary essays are truly optional. Don’t fill a space or recycle an essay unless you have a good reason to do so.
• Unless medical schools specify a secondary essay “due date,” there are no real turn around rules. Submit your essays when they are ready and ideally within two to three weeks after receiving the secondary application.

Secondary Essay Editing Services

MedEdits’ secondary essay review and editing services will ensure that your secondary essays address what is being asked by the prompt while ensuring you highlight what is necessary to distinguish your candidacy.

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Secondary Essay Prompts By School

*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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Does Med School Have a DEI Problem?

As medicine becomes more politicized, a debate is raging over what it means for patient care.

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Produced by ElevenLabs and News Over Audio (NOA) using AI narration.

“People will die if doctors misdiagnose patients.” This is true as far as it goes. But the recent news that prompted Elon Musk to share this observation on X was not precisely about medical errors. It was about what he might call the “ woke mind virus .” A story by Aaron Sibarium in The Washington Free Beacon had revealed complaints that UCLA’s medical school was admitting applicants partly based on race—a practice that has long been outlawed in California public schools. And this process wasn’t just discriminatory, the story argued; it was potentially disastrous for the public.

The Free Beacon noted that the med school’s U.S. News & World Report ranking had dropped from 6 to 18 since 2020, and the story shared leaked data showing students’ poor performance on their shelf exams . (These evaluations are used as preparation for the national licensing exams that every M.D. recipient must pass before they can practice medicine in the United States.) According to Sibarium, almost one-quarter of the class of 2025 had failed at least three shelf exams, while more than half of students in their internal-medicine, family-medicine, emergency-medicine, or pediatrics rotations had failed tests in those subjects at one point during the 2022–23 academic year—and those struggles led many trainees to postpone taking their national licensing exams. “I don’t know how some of these students are going to be junior doctors,” one unnamed UCLA professor told him. “Faculty are seeing a shocking decline in knowledge of medical students.”

Steven Dubinett, the dean of UCLA med school, denied the story’s allegations. He told me that the admissions committee does not give advantages to any applicants based on race, and he called it “malign and totally not true” to say that his students have been struggling. Dubinett believes that anti-DEI sentiment both within and outside the school is to blame for stirring up this controversy: People “think diversity, equity, and inclusion is in some way against them. And nothing could be further from the truth,” he said. But the stakes are high for prospective doctors and patients alike. The Free Beacon ’s claims call attention to a heated fight among medical educators over how much admissions criteria and test scores actually matter, and whether they have any bearing on what it means to be a good physician.

Read: When medical schools become less diverse

Sibarium asserts that both UCLA’s fall in the rankings and its decline in test performance can be blamed, in part, on race-based admissions. The latter metric “coincided with a steep drop in the number of Asian matriculants,” the story said, and was associated with a change in the med school’s admissions standards. Dubinett told me that the decline in shelf-exam performance was “modest.” He also pointed to data shared with the UCLA community by the school after the publication of the Free Beacon story, which show that every test-taker had passed surgery, neurology, and emergency medicine during a recent set of exams from 2023–24. The data also show that, for most other specialties, the passing rates were close to the expected benchmark of 95 percent. Moreover, 99 percent of UCLA’s med students had passed the second of three tests required to obtain a medical license on their first try as of 2022–23, and scores have remained above the national average over the past three years.

Meanwhile, the Free Beacon offers little more than speculation about how UCLA’s shifting racial demographics might be linked to academic problems at the school. Nationwide, Black and Hispanic medical students do matriculate with slightly lower grades and scores on the standardized Medical College Admission Test than white and Asian matriculants, according to statistics compiled by the Association of American Medical Colleges. Yet data from UCLA and the AAMC show that the average MCAT scores of UCLA’s accepted medical students have not declined in recent years. As for grades, the average GPA among UCLA’s accepted applicants is 3.8—up from 3.7 in 2019. Dubinett told me that the school sets a minimum threshold for MCAT scores and GPAs that is designed to produce a high graduation rate. “There’s a cutoff based on national data—it’s not made up in our back room,” he said. “We've got nearly 14,000 students applying for 173 spots. Are you going to tell me that we’re getting people who are unqualified?”

So what did happen in 2022 to suddenly make so many students perform poorly on their shelf exams? The Free Beacon acknowledges that the med school began a major update to its curriculum in 2020. Following a national trend , UCLA significantly cut back the initial amount of time spent on classroom teaching so that clinical rotations could begin a year earlier. Med schools have been trying to expose their students to real-world experiences sooner, on the principle that book-learned facts are less worthwhile without on-the-job training. Yet shelf exams still require memorizing a hefty dose of facts, which can only be more difficult given less time to study. Dubinett chalks up the initial drop in scores to having students take the tests earlier in their education. Five other medical schools, he notes, also reported a decline in shelf-exam performance under a compressed curriculum.

From the May 1966 issue: “Our Backward Medical Schools”

Whether med schools’ broader shift away from traditional coursework has been producing better doctors overall is a separate question. A new curriculum that led to lower standardized-test scores in the short term might be associated, in the long run, with either better or worse clinical care. But no one really knows which is the case. There is still no reliable way to track educational quality. The influential—but controversial — U.S. News med-school rankings, for instance, don’t directly evaluate how good a program is at preparing future doctors. The benefits (or costs) of switching up criteria for admission into med school are just as mysterious. One study counted as many as 87 different personal qualities that are considered useful in the practice of medicine. Which qualities matter most is anyone’s guess.

At UCLA, dry—yet still important—scientific material has been compressed in favor of hands-on experience. The school has also committed to instilling its student body with a social consciousness . In prior coverage for the Free Beacon , Sibarium has described the mandatory Structural Racism and Health Equity course for first-years, which, according to a 2023–24 syllabus obtained by the Free Beacon , intends to help students “develop a structurally competent, anti-racist lens for viewing and treating health and illness,” and encourages them to become “physician-advocates within and outside of the clinical setting.” The Free Beacon called attention to pro-Palestinian, anti-capitalist, and fat-activist messaging included in the course this academic year. That story quotes a former dean of Harvard Medical School, Jeffrey Flier, who described the course as “truly shocking” and said that it is based on a “socialist/Marxist ideology that is totally inappropriate.” (Dubinett told me that the entire first-year curriculum is being evaluated.) Other academics have expressed concern about how a similar approach to teaching students, adopted on a larger scale, might be changing medicine. Schools’ focus on racism and inequality “is coming at the expense of rigorous training in medical science. The prospect of this ‘new,’ politicized medical education should worry all Americans,” Stanley Goldfarb, a former associate dean at the University of Pennsylvania medical school, wrote in a 2019 op-ed in The Wall Street Journal . In a follow-up from 2022 , he warned of a “woke takeover of healthcare.”

Read: The French are in a panic over le Wokisme

What, exactly, makes a med school “woke”? Any physician can see that unevenly distributed wealth and opportunity play a role in people’s health, and that many illnesses disproportionately fall along racial lines. Doctors who learn about these topics while in school may be more cognizant of them in the clinic. Indeed, after Goldfarb’s first essay was published in the Journal , some physicians started sharing stories that could be taken to support this argument: Posting under the hashtag #GoldfarbChallenge, they described how trying to help patients navigate dire living situations is as much a part of the job as recalling the nuances of biochemistry.

Acknowledging inequality is not an entirely new phenomenon in medicine. Schools were already teaching classes on cultural competence and health disparities when I was a student at the University of Rochester a decade ago. What is different is the open endorsement of political activism—almost always from a left-wing perspective. I certainly attended my share of lectures on how to care for patients from different backgrounds, but I don’t recall witnessing any lecturers leading classroom chants of “ Free, Free Palestine ,” as allegedly occurred during UCLA’s first-year course this spring. Since I graduated, the AAMC has published a voluntary set of “ Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Competencies ” that encourage trainees to “influence decision-makers and other vested groups” by advocating for “public policy that promotes social justice and addresses social determinants of health.” The guidance lists “colonization, White supremacy, acculturation, assimilation” as “systems of oppression” whose impact must be remedied. This new pedagogical approach comes at a time when U.S. physician groups have taken vocal stances on controversial issues such as gun violence , transgender rights , and mask mandates .

I suspect this left turn in medicine was born of a feeling of impotence, rather than a Marxist conspiracy. Doctors have always been better at altering people’s physiology than fixing the social and economic circumstances of their patients. Perhaps medical schools now figure that health outcomes will improve if physicians become more involved in progressive politics. But whatever the intention, this approach will alienate a lot of patients. In recent months, some doctors have been disciplined for voicing pro-Palestine or pro-Israel stances—presumably on behalf of potential patients who might be offended by their politics. Maybe the same caution should apply to med-school lectures given at UCLA.

The push for improved student-body diversity has also grown in prominence. For most of the 20th century , schools encouraged applicants to fit the typical pre-med profile of a diligent lab rat. Over the past few decades, that attitude has changed. Now admissions offices are more comfortable with the idea that students who haven’t focused on the hard sciences or don’t have perfect academic records can still become successful—or might be even better—physicians.

I credit this shift for my own admission to medical school. I was a socially minded liberal-arts student who decided to study linguistics after a calamitous run-in with organic chemistry. By the time I applied, some schools had decided that MCAT scores were not the ultimate determinant of who will make a good doctor. My university was so interested in attracting the sorts of kids who might enrich the campus through what it now calls “the diversity of their educational and experiential backgrounds” that it allowed me to skip the exam altogether. I did end up having academic struggles, and passed anatomy by the skin of my teeth (having failed to correctly answer how many teeth humans have, among other questions). Now I’m a medical-school professor myself. It takes all kinds.

To this day, would-be doctors are expected to master an incredible amount of minutiae, but it is only through clinical practice that they figure out which facts matter most. Nothing is as clarifying as seeing patients live or die because of what you know—or, just as often, how well you communicate it. The Free Beacon article relayed an anecdote by a faculty member describing how a student “could not identify a major artery” in the operating room when asked. Being told to pick out an artery on the spot and failing at that task is, frankly, a rite of passage for medical students. But I’ve seen more people hurt by doctors who didn’t know how to speak Spanish or build rapport than by doctors who forgot the name of a blood vessel. If we keep arguing over what health-care professionals must know, it’s because the answers are as varied as our patients.

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eAppendix. Interview Guide

Data Sharing Statement

• Preventing the Demise of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion JAMA Network Open Invited Commentary June 13, 2024 Kathie-Ann Joseph, MD, MPH; Renee Williams, MD, MHPE

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Esparza CJ , Simon M , London MR , Bath E , Ko M. Experiences of Leaders in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in US Academic Health Centers. JAMA Netw Open. 2024;7(6):e2415401. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.15401

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Experiences of Leaders in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in US Academic Health Centers

• 1 Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, University of California, San Francisco
• 2 School of Medicine, University of California, Davis
• 3 Storywalkers Consulting, Davis, California
• 4 Division of Population Behavioral Health, UCLA Health, Los Angeles, California
• Invited Commentary Preventing the Demise of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Kathie-Ann Joseph, MD, MPH; Renee Williams, MD, MHPE JAMA Network Open

Question   What are the experiences of leaders in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) at US academic health centers?

Findings   In this qualitative study, 32 leaders described a considerable range of expected responsibilities. Institutional resources rarely matched stated goals, with limited use of evidence or standards, and participants from marginalized backgrounds expressed strong motivation coupled with exhaustion from the mismatch between demands and support.

Meaning   The findings of this study suggest that leaders charged with promoting diverse, inclusive, and equitable environments in academic health centers would benefit from direct investment in their efforts, guidance from policymakers and organizations, and assessment and dissemination of best practices.

Importance   The murder of George Floyd in 2020 spurred an outpouring of calls for racial justice in the United States, including within academic medicine. In response, academic health centers announced new antiracism initiatives and expanded their administrative positions related to diversity, equity, and/or inclusion (DEI).

Objective   To understand the experiences of DEI leaders at US allopathic medical schools and academic health centers, ie, the structure of their role, official and unofficial responsibilities, access to resources, institutional support, and challenges.

Design, Setting, and Participants   This qualitative study used key informant interviews with participants who held formal DEI positions in their school of medicine, health system, or department. Interviews were conducted from December 2020 to September 2021. Transcripts were coded using a phenomenographic approach, with iterative concurrent analysis to identify thematic categories across participants. Data were analyzed from January to December 2021.

Exposure   Formal DEI role.

Main Outcomes and Measures   Questions elicited reflection on the responsibilities of the role and the strengths and challenges of the unit or office.

Results   A total of 32 participants (18 of 30 [56%] cisgender women; 16 [50%] Black or African American, 6 [19%] Latinx or Hispanic, and 8 [25%] White) from 27 institutions with a mean (range) of 14 (3-43) years of experience in medical education were interviewed. More than half held a dean position (17 [53%]), and multiple participants held 2 or more titled DEI roles (4 [13%]). Two-thirds self-identified as underrepresented in medicine (20 [63%]) and one-third as first generation to attend college (11 [34%]). Key themes reflected ongoing challenges for DEI leaders, including (1) variability in roles, responsibilities, and access to resources, both across participants and institutions as well as within the same position over time; (2) mismatch between institutional investments and directives, including insufficient authority, support staff, and/or funding, and reduced efficacy due to lack of integration with other units within the school or health system; (3) lack of evidence-based practices, theories of change, or standards to guide their work; and (4) work experiences that drive and exhaust leaders. Multiple participants described burnout due to increasing demands that are not met with equivalent increase in institutional support.

Conclusions and Relevance   In this qualitative study, DEI leaders described multiple institutional challenges to their work. To effectively address stated goals of DEI, medical schools and academic centers need to provide leaders with concomitant resources and authority that facilitate change. Institutions need to acknowledge and implement strategies that integrate across units, beyond one leader and office. Policymakers, including professional organizations and accrediting bodies, should provide guidance, accountability mechanisms, and support for research to identify and disseminate evidence for best practices. Creating statements and positions, without mechanisms for change, perpetuates stagnation and injustice.

Following the murder of George Floyd, leaders in academic medicine announced new initiatives related to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) found that the percentage of institutions with dedicated DEI staff and offices rose from 75% in 2018 to 97% in 2021. 1 Nearly all (96%) reported having a senior-level DEI administrator (eg, assistant dean, chief diversity officer). 1

Despite the growth in DEI efforts, evidence on the expectations of, support for, or standards for DEI in academic medicine remains limited. A 2015 AAMC survey of DEI leaders found that more than half held a dean title, although their positions varied across units, from student and faculty affairs to community engagement and outreach. 1 Most reported they had less than 50% of their time allocated to DEI work, with budgetary support ranging from $0 to $1 million. Their main priorities included student diversity, meeting Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) diversity standards, institutional climate, and culturally competent care. 2 In a smaller 2018 survey, most focused on student recruitment and retention. 3 The LCME and the Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) have instituted diversity-related accreditation standards but not specifically for DEI administrators. The AAMC Group on Diversity and Inclusion published a toolkit to support new DEI leaders, and the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education developed professional standards, but it is unclear whether academic medicine institutions incorporate these guidelines for diversity leaders. 4 - 6

Researchers in higher education have found that diversity initiatives are often broad in scope, unclear in meaning, and limited in their effectiveness. Following legal and political constraints on affirmative action policies, university leaders embraced the cause of diversity rather than racial justice. 1 Subsequently, universities more often tasked diversity administrators with the discussion of diversity, including publishing statements and missions, rather than pursuing meaningful systems change. 5 Furthermore, repeatedly launching new initiatives can displace substantive reforms by rearranging priorities and failing to invest in existing work. 6 DEI leaders are often scattered in silos that preclude collaboration and communication. To work effectively, DEI leaders require equity-focused directives, sustained investment, organizational authority, coordination across units, and a commitment to reforming existing institutional structures. 7 - 9

Our objective for this study was to describe the experiences of leaders in US academic medicine who have a formal DEI (or similar) position, particularly in the context of the renewed calls for attention to racial justice in medicine. We conducted key informant interviews to explore participants’ motivations, responsibilities, and their experiences in conducting DEI work. In the absence of a clear understanding of what DEI leaders can or should do, academic medicine cannot evaluate the impact of these initiatives. Consequently, schools and health systems run the risk of expending opportunities without advancing structural change. 10 By exploring perspectives from DEI leaders, we can offer insights on strategies to support their success.

We used the Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research ( SRQR ) reporting guideline to prepare this manuscript. The protocol was approved by the institutional review board of the University of California, Davis. We provided participants with a letter of information upon scheduling the interview, reviewed the document with participants, and obtained verbal consent.

The lead author (C.J.E.) identifies as a Chicane nonbinary medical student at the time of the study, who has created and participated in institutional DEI and racial equity initiatives. The primary interviewer (M.S.) identifies as a White cisgender man and professional facilitator with expertise in diversity in higher education. Coinvestigator (E.B.) identifies as a Black cisgender woman physician researcher with expertise in racism in medical education and currently serves as a senior DEI leader for an academic medical center. The senior investigator (M.K.) identifies as an Asian American cisgender woman researcher who has served in multiple DEI positions. Coinvestigator (M.R.L.) identifies as a White cisgender woman medical student. The collective team background and experience fostered planning, analysis, and discussion from multiple perspectives. Our status as a multiracial, multi-ethnic team enabled inquiry and analyses that included racial and ethnic positionality-specific examination.

We used a phenomenographic approach to construct a representation of the variation in nature, positionality, and experience of those with DEI roles. We analyzed our topic within the multilayered context of academic medical institutions. 11

We recruited participants from US medical schools and academic medical centers who held, or recently held, formal leadership roles in an office of Diversity, Equity, and/or Inclusion, which referred to all administrative units whose primary intent is to foster 1 or more of these goals at their respective program or institution. Although we used the term offices, we noted potential participants held titled roles over many types of structures, eg, committee, division, or center.

At the time of the study, there was no national directory of DEI leaders, and as noted previously, this population was rapidly changing. We conducted initial recruitment via email through professional networks, the UC Davis Center for a Diverse Healthcare Workforce, and contacts from prior studies conducted by the team. We supplemented with snowball sampling and purposive sampling to ensure we obtained perspectives from different geographic regions (West, Midwest, South, and Northeast) and types of institutions (public and private; schools and health systems). Participants were assigned an alphanumeric study identifier (ID) at recruitment.

We conducted video interviews from December 2020 to September 2021. Interviews lasted approximately 1 hour and were digitally recorded and transcribed using Zoom services. We labeled speakers with participant study ID prior to recording and labeled files by study ID. Two authors (M.R.L. and C.J.E.) then reviewed transcripts to correct errors and remove identifying information, including regional (eg, city, county, and state), institutional, and programmatic details.

No interviews were discarded. We were unable to collect data on nonparticipants, other than name and institution, so we were unable to discern patterns of nonparticipants related to individual characteristics.

Critically, we conducted interviews early in the COVID-19 pandemic, shortly following the murder of George Floyd in the summer of 2020. Therefore, our data and analyses reflected the co-occurrence with these events. Discussions explored DEI structures (eg, roles, placement within institutions, formal resources, and level of influence) as well as participants’ personal experiences (eg, motivations, challenges, and emotional hurdles). The full interview guide is provided as the eAppendix in Supplement 1 .

We used a phenomenographic approach with concurrent analysis to identify thematic categories across participants, rather than a focused analysis of singular experiences. Two authors conducted preliminary independent review of 5 transcripts (C.J.E and M.K.) to identify initial categories. Following review and full team discussion, 1 author (C.J.E.) reviewed the remaining transcripts to further develop and revise codes. In instances of differences of opinion, the team discussed and developed an agreed-on code and/or set of codes for the lead author to review and apply. The full team reevaluated the subsequent coding structure an additional 2 times, and then 1 reviewer (C.J.E.) conducted the final analysis and coding to produce final themes. We used Dedoose version 9.0.107 for initial code development, followed by hand-coding of transcripts to produce final themes. To enhance trustworthiness, we created an audit trail of detailed memos and used investigator triangulation of experiences in DEI roles for verification and context.

Our final sample consisted of 32 participants (18 of 30 [56%] cisgender women; 16 [50%] Black or African American, 6 [19%] Latinx or Hispanic, and 8 [25%] White) from 27 institutions ( Table 1 ). More than half held a dean position (17 [53%]), and several held 2 or more DEI roles (4 [13%]). Two-thirds identified as underrepresented in medicine (20 [63%]) and one-third as first generation to attend college (11 [34%]). Regional distribution somewhat favored the eastern United States, with more than one-third of participants in the South.

Participants described responsibilities spanning clinical to biomedical to public health areas ( Table 2 ). All reported formal goals of increasing workforce diversity and improving institutional climate. Many shared overlapping objectives, such as increasing capacity, broadening reach, and building credibility.

Responses indicated a broad range in authority, leadership endorsement, and resources, even when participants held seemingly similar roles. For example, among 3 participants with associate dean titles, ID62 reported 20% full-time equivalent (FTE) allocation to chair the antiracism task force and conduct oversight of medical school metrics, training, and policies, with 4 staff and a $1 million budget. ID11 had 30% FTE to oversee undergraduate medical school curriculum as well as recruitment and retention of trainees, faculty, and department chairs, with no staff or budget. Meanwhile, ID94 described their time as 20% or 50%, depending on their leadership’s perspective, and supervised undergraduate pathway programs, curriculum, LCME and ACGME accreditation, and faculty diversity, with the assistance of 1 staff coordinator and federal grants. Those working at the department level had no staff and minimal compensation and funding.

Many reported a high level of autonomy, but nearly all preferred clearer, more structured expectations from leadership ( Table 2 ). Participants regularly juggled informal on-demand requests, such as providing emotional support following incidents of discrimination and crafting rapid institutional response statements. They described how complex reporting structures (eg, reporting simultaneously to school, health system, and university leadership) required them to expend time and energy developing and maintaining a broad network of connections.

Participants with longer tenure described institutional volatility in commitment and resources. Many reported that expectations increased following the renewed racial justice movement but questioned whether these changes merely reflected a temporary institutional response vs sustained effort. Furthermore, institutions hired underrepresented individuals for DEI positions; this offered needed perspective but placed these individuals at heightened vulnerability: DEI failures could also be blamed on leaders from marginalized racial, ethnic, income, or gender groups.

Two participants (ID48 and ID62) expressed optimism because they had received new directives with clear expectations, appropriate staffing and budget, and institutional accountability. Their institutions required department chairs and division chiefs to prepare detailed faculty DEI plans and accountability incorporated into performance reviews, signaling DEI as an institutional priority. The DEI office provided data and programming support for these leaders, positioning the DEI administrator as a collaborative, rather than adversarial, partner.

Participants consistently described insufficient investment relative to institutional expectations ( Table 2 ). Investment consisted of both tangible resources, eg, budget, staff, time, and compensation, as well as intangible resources, such as authority and leadership endorsement. Most felt that senior leadership did not understand the level of support needed to pursue DEI goals effectively. Participant ID224 summarized, “They have high expectations, and the reality is that I am only one person.… Diversity is seen as compliance accreditation. [If] you’re really interested in changing the landscape… then you have to put money where your mouth is, to move the needle.”

Furthermore, participants had no consistent positioning within their organizations and often occupied a place in parallel to (rather than integrated in) main organizational units (eg, medical education, faculty development). Without the ability to directly guide operations, participants struggled to meet expectations. One participant (ID207) explained that they “do not have true power” but rather “power… by proxy.” Many characterized their institutional leadership as verbally supportive without concomitant sponsorship, thus hampering their abilities to advance organizational accountability ( Table 2 ).

The mismatch between institutional expectations and resources, particularly relative to investments in research and clinical activities, undermined participants’ trust in their institution’s commitment to DEI. They questioned whether they played superficial, rather than substantive, roles. One (ID11) worried that the creation of the DEI office allowed their institution to absolve other units of accountability. Institutional devaluation further amplified racial prejudice from peers and staff, who perceived DEI leaders as less capable.

Participants felt that the absence of structured institutional expectations increased the difficulty of their work ( Table 2 ). They perceived that leadership frequently operated by reactionary response to an event, such as LCME accreditation or a major news crisis, that resulted in “clamoring for activities, statements, and webinars” rather than addressing “real concerns [such as] structural racism” (ID239). Participants noted the lack of root-cause analysis also contributed to the perception of institutional DEI as performative rather than substantive. As ID236 explained, DEI work required new expertise—otherwise, there would be no need for change. Several endorsed “that nobody knows how to do it” and wished for more scholarship on DEI practice in academic medicine.

The limited evidence base contributed to inconsistency in measurement and accountability. Participants expressed uncertainty around how to demonstrate success, which undermined their confidence and ability to advocate for DEI to institutional leadership. Some perceived LCME and ACGME accreditation as diversity compliance, but others felt the threat of losing accreditation at least motivated small steps toward reform.

Without a strong base of theory and scholarship, participants described a vacuum in expertise to assess qualifications for DEI positions. Participants explained that given that the majority of academic medicine faculty are physicians, most lack training on organizational development theory, implementation science, and historical and current systems of oppression in medicine. Instead, ID236 reflected, the lack of physicians with appropriate training contributes to the problems that DEI work is supposed to fix.

Participants referenced personal sources of motivation, often arising from their own lived experiences with tokenism, discrimination, and mistreatment in academic medicine ( Table 2 ). Thus, despite the challenges described in the preceding themes, they held a strong commitment to support trainees and faculty from marginalized groups. As ID83 noted, “I understand the importance of my own presence in the territory, and try to share the values that I have developed over time with others, in a way that’s not combative but hopefully compelling.” Some reported leveraging their own marginalized identity to educate peers and leadership, putting a “personal spin on it” for people “to see the humanness.”

Many reported that the combination of personal and institutional marginalization contributed to deep professional isolation. Their DEI roles required them to serve as the face of their institutions in managing internal incidents of interpersonal discrimination and abuse yet also supporting trainees and peers. They also described the toll of leading institutional responses following highly publicized cases of racial and gender-based violence, while being chronically undersupported and unrecognized for their emotional labor. Participants reported growing burnout from the pressure of navigating the narrow space between institutional and community demands. Participant ID207 shared, “My job is to have hope, to absorb for everybody else, figure out what I can do after every kaboom to help the community heal…. But [I] don’t have time to heal or process [myself].”

Our findings offer insights into the experiences of DEI leaders in academic medicine during a period of heightened attention to racial injustices. The variability in roles and institutional investment reveal an overall lack of clarity on the aims and implementation of DEI initiatives. Furthermore, DEI work can occur at high personal cost to the individuals tasked with carrying it through.

Our findings are consistent with earlier studies that have found high variability in titles, scope, role, authority, and resources. 3 , 12 The ambiguity of DEI roles and responsibilities, and the mismatch between expectations and investment, are emblematic of decentralization, described by sociologist James Thomas as: “1) lack of/slow coordination; 2) absence of regulations and/or enforcement; 3) unresponsiveness; 4) poor observational capabilities; 5) shared belief that no matter what organizational actors do, the same outcome persists.” 6 Our participants’ guarded perceptions of new antiracism initiatives reflect the concern that academic medicine will remain unchanged. Recognizing this pattern is crucial, because some may conclude that the lack of progress suggests that DEI work cannot, or should not, be done.

Participants believed their challenges arose partly due to the absence of theories of change within academic medicine. Institutional leaders reference business and management fields to pursue clinical and educational reforms, but not for DEI work. 12 For example, the field of implementation science applies organizational behavior knowledge, yet no participants reported using implementation science in DEI. This may reflect institutional oversight, but diversity scholars argue that the overall lack of strategy is a feature, rather than a bug, in the system. 7 , 8 Under these conditions, DEI leaders run the risk of being perceived as ineffectual, and their own work as performative. 5

Our participants expressed exhaustion and burnout from compensating for DEI decentralization, which was further amplified participants from minoritized racial and ethnic groups by staging difference: “the constant push for new programs, managed by men and women of color,” to signal a “new” effort by the university. 6 Feminist scholar Sara Ahmed 5 raised the cautionary warning that racially and ethnically minoritized DEI professionals then embody DEI for the institution, at a steep cost to their personal health. Black DEI professionals are particularly exploited by institutions to address systemic problems (without systemic resources), serve as a buffer between leadership and their constituents, and use their own identity as a stand-in for entire communities. 13 , 14 Our participants detailed the fatigue that arises when they selectively express and repress aspects of their identities, without the structural or material support to change the very institutions that continue to harm them. Thomas 6 cautions that “rather than addressing structural inequalities, the performative culture of diversity reproduces and exaggerates them.” Staging difference reproduces DEI leadership churn, leading to failed initiatives and repeated calls for minoritized workers to lead the next new initiative.

Our study offers rich detail on how DEI leaders may be stymied in academic medicine; however, they also suggest opportunities for change. First, organizations such as the AAMC can support developing specific guidelines on DEI objectives and resources and invest in successful programs. Second, the LCME and the ACGME can institute detailed DEI standards, including requirements for clear expectations, measurement, and institutional investment in monitoring and evaluation. 15 The current diversity and inclusion accreditation standards created a theoretical structure for assessment, but measurement and evaluation remain vague and limited in fostering accountability. 16 , 17 Third, institutions can establish professional expectations for DEI leaders, such as training and experience in organizational behavior, power assessment, critical race theory, and historical understanding of structural inequities. Fourth, DEI leaders must be granted resources—including staff, budgets, and authority—concomitant with their objectives and scope.

These recommendations may be particularly challenging to enact as policymakers in multiple states have terminated DEI funding, programming, and positions. The current climate further demonstrates the need for greater specificity and understanding of DEI objectives in academic medicine. DEI work that is valued only for its appearance, and not the design and impact, cannot produce the changes necessary to create diverse, equitable, or inclusive systems of care for our communities.

The limitations of this study include the timing, in a period when medical institutions and organizations increased DEI resources. 18 However, as higher education and health care institutions experience growing staff shortages and public attention to racial justice wanes, institutional investment may be declining. Second, our recruitment process and stated aims may have selected for participants who were motivated to participate due to their personal challenges at work. As a qualitative study, we aimed for range and depth of experiences, rather than generalizability to the entire academic medicine population. We could not recruit from a national directory of DEI offices, leaders, or administrators in academic medicine. In 2018, Chen et al 3 identified 112 offices in 148 allopathic schools, but since then, institutions have created multiple offices and positions within schools and across departments. Third, we focused on those with formal titles, but effective DEI initiatives rely on the broader campus community, so our findings do not capture the experiences of other important actors. We interviewed only 7 participants with departmental-level roles, and thus may not sufficiently capture how these positions have expanded recently; systematic documentation is needed.

In this qualitative study, DEI leaders described multiple institution-level challenges to their work, including limited resources, unclear expectations, and a lack of evidence-based practices. While the transformation of academic medicine is long overdue, dismantling systems requires large-scale, sustained investment, grounded in theories of change, supported by evidence, and constantly interrogated for purpose, operationalization, and impact. Relegating the work to a handful of siloed individuals can set DEI leaders up for burnout and perceived failures. Recent events—from litigation against affirmative action to states’ efforts to eliminate DEI offices and related work on university campuses—reflect societal pushback against the (small) gains of the racial justice movements of 2020. 19 - 21 Sustained commitment to health equity, including the training and membership of the medical profession, is more important than ever.

Accepted for Publication: March 17, 2024.

Published: June 13, 2024. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.15401

Open Access: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC-BY License . © 2024 Esparza CJ et al. JAMA Network Open .

Corresponding Author: Michelle Ko, MD, PhD, University of California, Davis, One Shields Avenue, Medical Sciences 1C, Davis, CA 95616 ( [email protected] ).

Author Contributions: Drs Ko and Esparza had full access to all of the data in the study and take responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.

Concept and design: All authors.

Acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data: All authors.

Drafting of the manuscript: Esparza, London, Bath, Ko.

Critical review of the manuscript for important intellectual content: All authors.

Statistical analysis: Esparza, London.

Obtained funding: Ko.

Administrative, technical, or material support: Esparza, Simon, London, Ko.

Supervision: Bath, Ko.

Conflict of Interest Disclosures: Dr Esparza reported receiving grants from Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) during the conduct of the study. Mr Simon reported receiving grants from HRSA during the conduct of the study and outside the submitted work. Ms London reported receiving grants from HRSA during the conduct of the study. Dr Ko reported receiving grants from HRSA during the conduct of the study. No other disclosures were reported.

Funding/Support: This work was supported by the HRSA of the HHS as part of an award totaling $3 791 026 with 0% financed with nongovernmental sources.

Role of the Funder/Sponsor: The funder had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; and decision to submit the manuscript for publication.

Disclaimer: The contents are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of HRSA, HHS, or the US government.

Data Sharing Statement: See Supplement 2 .

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