Secondary Applications
Secondary applications are institution-specific components of the admissions process that occur after submission of the primary application. Requirements vary by school but commonly include supplemental fees, letters of evaluation, additional essay questions, and situational judgment assessments.
These materials allow admissions committees to gain a deeper understanding of applicants beyond what is included in the primary application.
Secondary applications help schools evaluate an applicant’s experiences, motivations, values, and alignment with the institution’s mission and culture, assess key professional competencies, and ultimately determine which candidates will be invited to interview.
For a comprehensive overview of the secondary application process, please review our Secondary Application Workshop along with the subsections below!
After submitting your primary application, secondary applications are distributed by individual programs on their own timelines, often throughout the early summer months of the application cycle. Aim to submit secondary applications within two to three weeks of receiving them. For schools that include secondary questions within the primary application, aim to complete them within three weeks of your initial primary application submission. This timeline should take precedence over the official application deadline whenever possible. Remember, without a completed secondary application, you are unlikely to receive an interview invitation!
Secondary applications are often delivered directly to the email address associated with your application service account, so it is important to monitor your inbox regularly and check your spam or junk folders to avoid missing communications. It is also important to recognize that secondary applications are not always sent automatically to every applicant. Each institution establishes its own screening process, timeline, and criteria for distributing secondary applications, and some schools may choose not to invite certain applicants to complete a secondary application.
For some application services, particularly those using LiaisonCAS platforms, secondary application requirements may instead be embedded within the application itself under the “Program Materials” section.
Strategies for staying organized
Keep a spreadsheet:
Use your personal or the PreMed & PreHealth School List Builder Template to organize your schools and secondary applications. Remember to complete all necessary elements of the school’s secondary application process (e.g., fees, tests, etc.). Consider adding columns for:
- Pre-written essays
- Date secondary received
- Date secondary submitted
- Additional requirements (Situational Judgement Tests, fees, etc.)
Establish Priority:
Submit your secondaries based on the priority you give each of your prospective schools.
Within each priority tier (top, middle, last), you can prioritize by anticipated time it will take you to complete (e.g., if a school has few or no questions), but make sure you do your top priority schools first!
Many health professional programs charge a secondary application fee, though the amount varies by institution.
Fees can range from approximately $30 to $250, with most falling near $100 per school. Because secondary fees are assessed separately by each program, applicants should budget accordingly when applying to multiple institutions.
Applicants who receive fee assistance through a centralized application service, such as AMCAS, AACOMAS, or AADSAS, may also qualify for secondary application fee waivers. While policies vary by institution, many programs voluntarily waive secondary fees for applicants who have been approved for fee assistance through their primary application service. Applicants should review each school’s fee waiver policies and instructions carefully.
Letters of evaluation, whether submitted individually or as part of a letter packet, are generally considered components of the secondary application process, even though they are uploaded and attached to your primary application through the centralized application service.
As a result, applicants should think of letters of evaluation as supporting materials that complement secondary applications rather than requirements that must be completed before submitting a primary application.
Applicants can, and should, submit their primary application and enter the verification queue while letters are still being collected and uploaded. In most cases, admissions committees will not review letters of evaluation until after a secondary application has been submitted and the applicant’s file is considered complete.
Many schools include 3–4 short essay questions as part of their secondary application process, though requirements vary widely. Some schools may require substantially more essays, while others may not have secondary essays at all.
prewriting
To get ahead, after you’ve submitted your primary application, some candidates choose to pre-write their secondaries. Pre-writing allows you to draft school-specific or common prompts prior to receiving your secondary applications. Look up historic secondary application essays by visiting the Medical School Headquarters Secondary Application Essay Library.
writing strategy
- Carefully read the prompt to ensure you fully understand what is being asked and address the prompt thoroughly within the specified character limit.
- Reflect on why the school has chosen to ask this question—consider their mission, values, and institutional priorities.
- Tailor your responses to each individual program—avoid generic answers by making them specific to the program’s mission, values, and offerings.
- Reflect on how your personal values, goals, and experiences directly align with what the program prioritizes.
- Vary the content across a school’s different prompts to demonstrate the breadth of your interests and qualifications.
- Introduce new anecdotes or experiences that were not included in your primary application to keep your narrative fresh and multidimensional.
- Use competency-based language to clearly articulate the skills, qualities, and insights gained from your experiences.
- Proofread carefully for clarity, tone, grammar, and alignment with the school’s values.
common essay questions
- Why are you interested in our program? /What makes you a good fit for our program?
- Describe an obstacle you have faced.
- Please explain any inconsistencies in your academic performance and/or entrance exam scores.
- Describe your greatest achievements or experiences that you wish to highlight.
- Share an experience where you showed empathy towards another person.
- How have your experiences shaped your perspective of healthcare?
- What do you believe is your responsibility to your community as a healthcare professional?
- Provide a specific example of how you promoted diversity and/or inclusion in your community or school.
- Please use the following space to tell us anything additional that you believe is relevant to your application.
What Are They?
- Casper: An online test presenting realistic scenarios. You must explain how you’d respond to each.
- AAMC PREview: A multiple-choice test that asks you to rate the effectiveness of various responses to professional and ethical dilemmas in medical education and healthcare.
Why Do Schools Use Them?
Both tests assess core professional competencies important for future physicians, such as ethics, empathy, communication, teamwork, cultural competence. They complement academic metrics for a more holistic review of applicants.
Do I need to take them?
Yes, but only if they are required by the programs you’re applying to.
How Do I Prepare?
There are no right or wrong answers but familiarize yourself with the format at takecasper.com and aamc.org/preview to understand how responses are evaluated.
When Should I Take Them?
June-August (aligned with the submission timing of the rest of your secondary application); however, pay attended to program-specific deadlines!
Scoring
- Casper: Scores are automatically sent to designated schools. Casper scores are valid for one application cycle.
- PREview: Scores are released about 30 days after your test date and sent to selected schools. PREview scores do not expire.
Some secondary applications require applicants to identify which courses on their transcript fulfill specific prerequisite requirements. Because prerequisite coursework varies by institution and program, it is important to carefully review each school’s admissions requirements and determine how your completed coursework aligns with those expectations.
Course titles and curricular structures often differ between colleges and universities, so applicants should focus on matching courses based on content rather than exact course names. This is particularly important for students who have completed unique Northeastern courses, such as the one-semester Integrated General Chemistry sequence (CHEM 1161/1162), Basic Clinical Skills for the Healthcare Professional as a substitute for Medical Terminology, or discipline-specific statistics courses that may satisfy a general statistics requirement. These courses may not directly mirror traditional prerequisite titles or multi-semester sequences but may still fulfill program requirements based on their content and learning outcomes. Applicants can review the Northeastern University Coursework and Applicant FAQ webpages for additional context, course descriptions, syllabi, and institutional statements that may help explain select Northeastern courses to admissions committees.
Applicants should use their best judgment when selecting course equivalents, understanding that admissions committees make the final determination regarding whether coursework satisfies prerequisite requirements.
To help guide this process, the example below illustrates how a Northeastern applicant might match General Chemistry coursework to varying prerequisite requirements across health professional programs.
If you disclosed an institutional action on your application, some schools may request additional documentation from the institution where the incident occurred.
- For conduct violations, direct documentation requests to OSCCR: Authorization for Release of Information Form
- For academic infractions, direct documentation requests to PMPH@northeastern.edu.
Some programs may ask why you did not receive a Committee Letter. This question is not meant to suggest that a Committee Letter is preferred; rather, it is intended to better understand how you chose to engage with the advising resources available at your undergraduate/post-baccalaureate institution.
How to answer (adapt as needed):
If you are applying with a Letter Packet:
The Northeastern University PreMed and PreHealth Advising Program only offers a Letter Packet service and does not offer an additional Committee Letter service.
If you are applying with Individual Letters:
The Northeastern University PreMed and PreHealth Advising Program does not offer a Committee Letter service. I additionally chose not to participate in my institution’s Letter Packet process because I wanted greater flexibility and customization in the types of letters I submitted—an approach that differed from the standardized format required by my school’s letter packet.