Given the domination of the COVID-19 pandemic in daily life over the past couple of years, the rise of the COVID-19 essay prompt in medical school applications is no surprise. COVID-19 medical school secondary essays are med school secondary essays that medical schools may ask applicants to write as part of the medical school application process. These essays are designed to help medical schools gather additional information about applicants and their experiences, perspectives, and motivations for pursuing a career in healthcare. Additionally, COVID essays ask applicants how the pandemic has affected them and their application to medical school. It is important to note that some medical schools only asks about challenges and obstacles to your application in their secondary essay prompts. Other medical schools have a more open-ended COVID-19 secondary essay prompt.
Secondary Application Tip:
Most COVID secondary essays are OPTIONAL essays for medical school responses. However, our Cracking Med School Admissions team strongly encourages our students to answer all applicable optional responses – yes, this includes the COVID-19 essay. If you did not have any challenges during COVID, you can talk about how you helped your community. Did you volunteer for a vaccination clinic site? Did you volunteer for the Crisis Text Line? Did you start a new organization? Talk about what you did during COVID-19. You don’t have to focus on what you didn’t do.
COVID Essay Medical School Example
To better understand COVID medical school essays in secondary applications, let’s first take a look at the COVID question from Case Western Reserve University.
“The past year has reflected an unprecedented time in world history, and we are aware that many have experienced significant disruptions in numerous aspects of their lives. Please use the text field below to share with us how you may have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, including academic, financial, medical disruptions, etc.
If medically-related or patient-based experiences were interrupted, tell us how you were able to explore these areas in alternate ways.”
Please limit your response to 1 page (about 3,500 characters), and leave a blank line between paragraphs.
Breaking down the COVID secondary essay medical school prompt
This prompt gives you enormous latitude in terms of addressed how your life was altered due to the pandemic. If your health or a family member/friend’s health was affected due to the pandemic, this would be a great place to talk about those events’ impact upon you, if you are comfortable speaking about that. The prompt outlines academic, financial, and medical disruptions as fair topics so again, this might be a good opportunity to shed some light onto how the basics of your life may have substantially changed due to the pandemic and how this might have affected your journey to medicine, if applicable. If the pandemic did not pose great challenges to you and your well-being, it is advisable to address its overall personal impact briefly—you should instead focus your essay upon novel opportunities that arose for you during the pandemic.
This brings us to an important piece of the prompt—it asks you to share how your patient-based/medical experiences may have been impacted. Many students sought out novel opportunities during the pandemic, such as volunteering on call lines and COVID-19 vaccine clinics/testing centers—this essay is a great place to talk about such work. In detailing how your journey to medicine was affected by COVID-19, it is incredibly important that you discuss your personal experiences with patients through anecdotes.
COVID-19 affected everyone so while this tends to be an optional prompt, you should definitely answer this question—of course, even if it did not affect your personal well-being, it was a part of your path to medicine and thus should be meaningfully reflected upon in this prompt’s answer. Read one student’s answer below through our COVID essay medical school example!
COVID essay medical school Example answer:
While the pandemic rendered my academic and research work virtual, it gave me novel opportunities in patient care. I was able to serve as a clinical volunteer in a Neuro/COVID-19 ICU operating at the center of the pandemic crisis in Philadelphia. Here, I encouraged patients who were suffering the worst of COVID-19 symptoms through our patient call bell system and learned about complications of COVID-19.
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. I used parts of the conversation as points of commonality, then suggested he reflect upon his physical health and what he thought had brought him to this point of needing ICU care. 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 as a frontline healthcare provider. To promote patient trust in medicine and to address health disparities exacerbated by the pandemic, I will work to leverage community partnerships. 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 the neurological cases in the ICU. For example, I received a call from a neurosurgery patient who felt as though she was going to faint. As another nurse ran to find the patient’s nurse, I held the patient back from falling, asking her questions to assess her cognitive state and assuring her that I was there for her. After I worked with the medical staff to continuously reassess how she was doing, I learned more about post-operative complications such as cerebral edema. As a neurologist, I will be vigilant for signs of cerebral edema in my patients, including nausea, weakness, and loss of memory. This experience taught me the importance of being a reliable point of contact and source of comfort for my patients.
Analysis of the COVID Medical School Essay Example:
This writer addresses the impact of the pandemic (rendered academic and research work virtual) and then dives into a new role that she assumed during the pandemic. If you did not deal with substantial negative medical/personal disruptions due to the COVID-19 virus, it is completely okay to briefly mention the impact as is done above.
The writer also shares an anecdote relevant to the pandemic, touching on her experience with polarization in response to COVID-19. She then broadly connects this anecdote to how she aspires to practice as a physician. It is very important to use anecdotes and relate this to your larger narrative surrounding medicine.
This writer then shares another patient-focused anecdote. While this anecdote is not directly related to COVID-19, it derives from newfound opportunities that she was presented with as a result of the pandemic. Thus, it works really well in this essay. She also talks about new clinical and patient care knowledge that she learned as a result of her new role which is great as it underscores her proximity to and passion for medicine.
The COVID secondary essay will be one of many secondary essays in one school’s secondary application. If you were to submit an essay like the example above, you will provide more information about the strength of your candidacy.
COVID Secondary Essay Tips
Use patient-focused anecdotes
- REFLECT on these anecdotes and CONNECT them to your desire to pursue medicine.
- Portray yourself ACTIVELY in all of your anecdotes.
- Did your experiences teach you something new about medicine? Definitely include this in your reflection.
Discuss how COVID-19 affected your outlook on health care and how you want to improve it!
- It is okay to not have substantial negative disruptions to report in this prompt’s answer—this prompt is to discuss the overall impact of COVID-19 on your life, both positive and negative. You can address the negative disruption briefly (remote academic/office work, etc.). In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, medical schools may ask applicants to write essays specifically addressing how the pandemic has impacted their views on the health care field, their experiences with the health care system, and their commitment to serving others in the face of adversity.
- Describe what you learned through your pandemic experiences and how it has shaped you as a future physician.
Connect Your Essay to Your Overall Narrative
- If your experiences during COVID-19 substantially changed your research/academic interest for the future (for example, racial disparities in infectious disease spread, socioeconomic implications of quarantine, vaccine development, etc.), you can touch upon it here. But make sure you connect this to your OVERALL NARRATIVE surrounding medicine that you have crafted in your application essays.
What do students write about in their Medical School COVID Secondary Essays?
As we saw in the medical school COVID essay example above, the medical school applicant wrote about working in the busy neuro ICU. She discussed what she saw and how she helped the busy neuro ICU team. Additionally, she gave reflections about medicine. She covered a lot!
Other pandemic experiences that students have talked about in their application essays:
- Family members who became ill during COVID-19 and how that motivated them to pursue COVID-19 research or clinical experiences.
- Applicants who suffered from long COVID symptoms after a COVID-19 virus infection, and how they overcame these symptoms. They discussed what they better understand about unknown and scary medical conditions from the patient perspective, and how that will help them empathize and understand patients in the future.
- Volunteering for public health initiatives during the pandemic, including reaching out to homeless shelters to vaccinate patients and treat homeless individuals who are COVID-positive. They reflected on challenges in access to care for underserved populations and how they took initiative to improve access to care among these marginalized populations.
- Community members they met during volunteer opportunities at mass COVID-19 vaccination sites.
- Creating a website for individuals with disabilities and
- Founding patient support groups among immunocompromised individuals.
- Academic challenges, extra-curricular activity challenges, and professional barriers. This is most likely the only essay where you will have the space to elaborate any difficulties you had in academics or professional endeavors because of the pandemic.
- Memorable Crisis Text Line interactions, describing interactions ranging from individuals who felt trapped in abusive households to individuals who were suffering from suicidal ideation to individuals who felt anxiety about social distancing restrictions.
Medical School COVID Essay Prompts
While most prompts tend to follow Case Western’s basic format, here are some more, slightly tweaked examples of COVID-19 prompts:
Harvard Medical School COVID-19 Prompt
(Optional) The Committee on Admissions understands that the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted applicants in various ways. If you wish to inform the Committee as to how these events have affected you and have not already done so elsewhere in your application, please use this space to do so. (This is an optional essay; the Committee on Admissions will make no judgment based on your decision to provide a statement or not.) (4000 characters max)
Michigan State University College of Human Medicine COVID-19 prompt
Use the space below to reflect upon your COVID-19 public health crisis experiences, challenges, and/or insights. (500 words)
Stanford University School of Medicine COVID-19 prompt
(Optional) Please describe any lessons, hardships, challenges or opportunities that resulted from the global COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, describe how these insights have informed your motivations and preparation for medical school in areas of academics, research, employment, volunteer service and/or clinical experiences. (1000 characters)
University of Miami Medical School COVID-19 prompt
What have you done during the recent COVID-19 pandemic that will better prepare you to be a medical student and future physician?
University of Michigan Medical School COVID-19 prompt
How was your journey to medical school affected by the COVID pandemic? Please feel free to describe any positive or negative aspects. Do not exceed 2500 characters including spaces (about 400 words).
Wake Forest School of Medicine COVID-19 prompt
(Optional) If there is anything specific that you would like for us to know regarding how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected you and your application you may do so here. (Please do not repeat any information provided in your previous required responses.) (200 words max)
Some things to note:
- Most prompts will allow you to write about both challenges and opportunities during the pandemic (positive and negative experiences). Be careful, though. Some medical schools only want to hear about disruptions and negative effects about COVID-19. Read the prompts carefully.
- COVID questions are oftentimes optional essays in a medical school secondary application. Because we want to push you to submit stellar, robust, and informative essays like the COVID essay medical school example above, we encourage all students to answer as many optional essays as possible, including all optional COVID-19 essays. In general, we recommend students to answer all optional questions, including the optional questions about the pandemic.
[ Read more: ALL medical school secondary essay prompts by school ]
Other Ways To Discuss COVID in your Medical School Application
There are other ways to highlight your experiences during the pandemic aside from the official “COVID secondary essay.”
Primary Application
Often times, medical school applicants will not discuss the pandemic in their personal statements. Even though the pandemic was a big portion of current medical school students’ college and premed careers, we have found that premed applicants often have many other clinical experiences and life stories they want to discuss in their personal statement. And, even though in the beginning of COVID 19, it was hard to find clinical experiences, almost all med school applicants were able to find other clinical experiences in the later years of the pandemic.
But, there are other places in the medical school primary application where students will talk about experiences during COVID 19.
Extreme Hardship
Some individuals will use the “extreme hardship” or “extenuating circumstances” question on the primary application to discuss extremely hardship during the pandemic. For example, some students we have helped through our medical school application packages have talked about family members who have died, disabled, or extremely sick during the coronavirus pandemic. Other students have discussed have they themselves were debilitated because of a COVID-19 infection. Finally, some of our students have discussed financial
Work & Activities Section
Many people were inspired to pursue new activities during the pandemic. Definitely include these new activities as activities in your Work & Activities section! You may also want to include what motivated you to pursue these activities. For example, did you meet homeless individuals who did not have access to COVID-19 vaccinations and you tried to increase access to COVID-19 vaccinations?
Similar to the advice above, as much as possible, connect the work & activities descriptions on your AMCAS, AACOMAS, or TMDSAS with your overall narrative.
[ Read more: AMCAS Work & Activities Examples: How to Stand Out ]
Secondary Applications
There are many, many other secondary essays that you have to write throughout the application process! Sometimes, there is not an explicit COVID question on a school’s secondary essay. Other times, applicants have done A LOT during COVID-19 and then want to highlight several extra-curricular activities during that time period. Here are other common secondary prompts where medical school applicants discuss their life experiences throughout the pandemic.
Diversity Essays
Medical school secondary diversity essays are typically broad. Therefore, you will have the opportunity to highlight many COVID-19 experiences. Link your experiences to how you will contribute to the medical school student body.
[ Read more: Medical School Diversity Essay Examples and Tips ]
Questions about Leadership
Although it was hard to find clinical opportunities and all organizations went virtual during the pandemic, this difficult time period caused leaders to emerge. You can discuss initiatives and times when you became a leader during the pandemic in secondary essays asking about leadership.
Questions about Challenges
COVID-19 threw at us unparalleled challenges and difficulties. These were times when we had to show resilience and adaptability. If you think challenges you faced during COVID-19 highlight these personal characteristics, then definitely feel free to write about them in the medical school secondary challenges questions. For example, we have had students discuss challenges with their research projects because of the pandemic lockdown. In their challenge essays, these medical school applicants talked about how they a) changed the research question or b) collected data in a more innovative way or c) changed the experimental design. Walking the admissions committee members through the context of the situation and how you adapted shows a lot of positive personal characteristics, including adaptability, creativity, resilience, and awesomeness in research!
Read our secondary application tip right below to know what topic to avoid!
Other Helpful Medical School Application Resources
Cracking Med School Admissions has several free resources that help students stand out in their medical school applications!