'Patient interaction' - University of Chicago Medical school Secondary essay

This is a very (rough) rough draft of my essay. Here is the prompt and my response.

3A. At the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, we strive to identify students who will be a great "fit" with our medical school. Our Mission Statement is an expression of our core purpose and educational philosophy. Please reflect on its content and write an essay describing why you see yourself as a great "fit" for Pritzker. Please include examples of past service, community, clinical, educational, and research experiences. Please also discuss your future goals.

"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."

I have often driven pass University of Chicago on numerous occasions and thought about how I would fit in at the Pritzker School of Medicine, which has a reputation for being a school that has trained many world renowned physicians of different fields of medicine. One mutual endeavor possessed by Pritzker and I, is the desire to serve the community. The University of Chicago campus is positioned between two drastically different communities. On one end you have Hyde Park, an elite neighborhood that serves as home to some of the most prominent figures in the Chicago land area. Then on the other side, you have the Woodlawn community that is home to many low-income families. This unique situation makes Pritzker an ideal location to study medicine because it teaches medical students and future clinicians how to deal with and serve individuals from all walks of life. I myself have been placed in such a unique position as well. Working at Children's memorial Hospital as a researcher, I am constantly surrounding by individuals who are in the top ten of their field of study. I am continuously at the feet of distinguished laureates who take out time to share their own studies in hopes that it will be of help to projects of fellow colleagues. I am daily given the opportunity to persistently seek ways that I can improve my own project to determine the cause of febrile seizures through their findings. When I am not performing experiments, I love to spend my time volunteering at a free clinic. Many of the patients at the clinic are immigrants with low income jobs and are unable to afford health insurance. At this clinic I am given the opportunity to interact with the patient from triaging to performing lab work. I appreciate the experience I gain at community health clinic because when I do laboratory work, it can be a very solitary job, but at the clinic I am given the opportunity to put a face to the work I am doing and also to really see if this is the field that I am willing to spend the rest of my life working in.

Another Question: Is it better to have less word or should I try to get as close to the word count stated as possible. 3500

One mutual endeavor possessed by Pritzker and I, is the desire to serve the community.


it is best to not use 2nd person.

I think you should research more about the med school and write how something unique or specific about it will directly affect you. All this says is that you have experience in medicine but it doesn't really go in depth as to why this particular school is great fit for you (other than the location).

Please read mine

I assume you mean "driven past."
"Often" and "on numerous occasions" are redundant: choose one.
"In" not "of" different fields of medicine.


A "mutual endeavor" is something that two or more people do together. You and Pritzker have not done anything together yet. Furthermore, one cannot "possess" an endeavor. Also, an endeavor is an activity while a desire is an emotion.

From just these two sentences, we can see that indeed this essay is very rough. You will need to significantly improve your the coherence of your prose if you hope to get into any medical school. Think about what you are saying. Look back at a sentence after you have written it and ask: Does this make sense?


In general, it is better to use as few words as necessary to make one's points. However, in a medical school application, you will want to say as much as possible. Many of the things that you refer to only briefly here -- such as working at the free clinic -- ought to be the subject of several detailed sentences.

So EFSimone how am I suppose to go about making this essay better or at least come up to your standard, since both of my essays have received brutal reviews from you. I am a good writer, but I guess the pressure of wanting to get into med school is clouding my creativity. What should I do? I also notice when I talk that I lack coherence.

More likely, the pressure is making you try to write in fancy prose rather than simply saying what you have to say. That can interfere with coherence.

I meant my previous advice literally: Go through what you've written line by line, asking yourself: Does this make sense? Is it what I mean to say? Then, say what you want to say as simply and clearly as possible.

This is not, by the way, "brutal" advice. George Orwell advises all essayists to ask themselves always: What am I trying to say? How can I put it more shortly?