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A BS/MD program is an accelerated undergrad-to-medical student track that high schoolers can apply to. There are a limited number of spots and a lot of applicants. BS/MD admissions committees ask you to write supplemental essays to differentiate yourself from the thousands of other candidates.
From an application committee’s perspective, standardized tests and GPAs may indicate your work ethic, but essays reveal your ambition, perspectives, and personality.
As long as you have a solid GPA and standardized test scores, essays are really going to be the “push” factor that helps you get a BS/MD interview.
Below, I’ve divided up the essay-writing process into three different parts — pre-writing, writing, and editing. I included some expert tips on what to do during each part to increase your chances of admission and lower your chances of mental burnout.
Based on my experiences and research, this guide should help you stand out from the crowd. Hopefully, you will find these tips as helpful as I did, so keep reading below!
MedSchoolCoach offers personalized support for high school students applying to BS/MD programs from Physician Advisors who have been on both sides of the process.
Pre-Writing: Laying the Foundation
The BS/MD essay process can take multiple months, but there are ways to make it less stressful or time-consuming. For BS/MD programs that often have earlier deadlines than most undergrad schools, the best way to set yourself up for success is by planning ahead and starting early.
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First, let’s cover what to do before you put pen to paper. Here are my top three pre-writing strategies.
1. Research the Program
You need to look up details about the BS/MD program you’re applying to. Every school or program has a unique mission statement, focus, and philosophy. They all have specific application requirements, timelines, and curricula.
When selection committees decide which applications to accept, they envision how well an applicant would fit into their campus community.
In your supplemental essays, it’s vital that you demonstrate how well your personal philosophy aligns with the school’s philosophy.
Researching BS/MD programs can be a little complicated, but I’ll help you better understand the process so there’s less additional stress. You need to research both the undergraduate school and the medical school, and you need to mention both in your essays.
Doing research can be an exciting process; it doesn’t have to be a drag. Think about it — this is the school you could potentially be spending the next 6-8 years of your life. Don’t you want to figure out what the people/location/classes are like?
Sometimes, while you’re researching, you may determine this school isn’t the best fit for you. Other times, research might get you excited because you realize how much you really want to attend there. Either way, research only ever helps you, so it’s mandatory.
Go More In-Depth: Preparing for Med School in High School
Research through the university website. If there are any knowledge gaps the program’s website doesn’t fill, send an email or a contact form to the appropriate person at the school.
Here are some tips to help guide you in your research:
- Home page: The most successful aspects of any school can be found just from the home page. Of course, every school wants to display their proudest accomplishments on their main landing page.
- Factual/statistical information: School websites typically cover the basics and most impressive stats. To find out more about the school’s ambience and philosophy, though, I recommend speaking to upperclassmen, which I talk about further down below.
- Unique offerings: Look into different departments and classes that the school offers. This could be key if you’re looking for a specific subject that maybe not a lot of schools offer.
My experience with researching programs: In my college years, I wanted to learn more about health policy. Unfortunately, that’s a pretty unique field of study. Not a lot of schools offer an entire major in health policy. The University of Rochester, however, did!
I also wanted to pursue neuroscience in both my undergraduate and medical school years. Through my research, I found out that Rochester’s Medical School invested a lot of money into their neurology department, which is, in fact, one of their most successful departments. So, for me, it was an ideal fit.
2. Read Successful Essays
When you start the BS/MD essay writing process, you may experience writer’s block or simply struggle to write those first words. The best way to fix that? Find inspiration from successful essays that got an applicant admitted into a BS/MD program.
There are plenty of books you can get from the library, or sample essays you can find online from students who successfully got into the top programs. Read as many of them as possible and figure out what they did well, then try to do it yourself. The more essay examples you read, the more ideas you get.
It’s okay if your words don’t seem to flow as well as theirs. At this point, your focus should be on getting all potential ideas on paper, not the fluidity of your writing. Editing comes later. For now, you’re gathering inspiration, brainstorming, and outlining.
Avoid plagiarism. Don’t lie in order to mold your thoughts and experiences to parallel those in successful essays. Instead, imagine how your voice can follow a similar layout.
Draw inspiration from the following qualities of others’ BS/MD essays:
- Storytelling structure
- The emotions they evoked
- The types of statements that stick with you
- How they aligned with the program’s mission
3. Talk to Upperclassmen
Seek out and ask questions of people who are already at the BS/MD school you’re applying to. Find them on forums, Reddit, or on campus while you’re visiting. Their answers will be more authentic than what you’ll find on the school website.
I always found that the best writing and application advice comes from older students who have recently and successfully gone through exactly what you’re going through.
Hindsight is 20/20, so why not take advantage of someone else’s lived experience?
You will find that people who are successful in their endeavors, whether that be acing a class or getting into their dream school, have been purposeful in their actions to ensure success. Find out exactly what they did and try to repeat it so that you, too, can succeed.
If the upperclassmen were unsuccessful while applying to a BS/MD, find out what they would do differently if they could go back in time, and avoid making the same mistakes.
Here are the sorts of questions you can ask the upperclassmen:
- What type of learning environment does the program foster?
- Do they encourage you to explore interests (both academic and otherwise) beyond medicine, or do they expect you to stick to science subjects?
- How hands-on is the program faculty, and how committed do they seem to your success?
- What is the program’s philosophy or outlook on medicine as a progressing field?
In my experience, there’s really no downside to talking to older, wiser, more experienced students. If you have the opportunity to do so, always go for it. Plus, they might share their essays with you to gain more insight.
Learn More: What Are the Best Pre-Med Schools
Writing: Crafting Your Essay
While the pre-writing stage is meant to equip you with information and lessen your stress, the actual writing stage is where you literally put pen to paper. Your BS/MD essays now need to take shape.
For me, writing essays was the most enjoyable aspect of the entire college application process. I’d get so absorbed in a thought and end up working till two or three in the morning. Being awake when everyone else was sleeping really got my creative juices flowing. (Find what works for you, and please get enough sleep.)
You can find generic writing tips with a Google search or by asking ChatGPT, but here are some curated tips from an expert who’s lived this experience and helped hundreds of students achieve their pre-med/med school goals.
1. Choose Unique Experiences
Given the number of essays you’ll write for BS/MD programs, there’s no way you can avoid writing about the activities you listed on your primary application. In fact, that should not be the goal.
However, you need to discuss at least one activity that is unique from the ones on your resume.
Some programs (such as Case Western’s PPSP) explicitly ask you to write about an activity that does not appear on your resume. Others may not specify. Either way, take the opportunity to talk about an achievement or extracurricular activity that you never mentioned on your resume.
With BS/MD programs, which sometimes garner 1,000+ applicants for a mere 5-15 spots, this focus on a previously unmentioned activity helps differentiate yourself from the crowd in your supplemental essays.
My experience with unique experiences: I recommend you find one activity that you thoroughly enjoy, which isn’t on your resume, and write about it. This will help BS/MD programs see you as more of a human rather than as just an applicant who exclusively does things for resume purposes.
I believe the following quote from one of Duke University’s prompts exemplifies this best: “Real people are reading your application, and we want to do our best to understand and appreciate the real people applying to Duke.”
What type of non-resume activity should you talk about? Think about what you do to relax. This is a great answer, especially for BS/MD programs. Of all the doctors and faculty I have ever spoken to, they all say to prioritize “me-time” and focus on restoring and revitalizing your energy.
By discussing a relaxing activity not listed on your resume, you show the admissions committee that you comprehend and prioritize mental health and work-life balance.
For me, personally, it’s baking. I find myself happiest and calmest when I make myself a home-cooked meal with raw, fresh ingredients. For some people, it might be running; for others, it might be yoga. Regardless, write about why it’s important to you and how it helps you restore your energy and reset your mindset.
2. Always Relate It Back to Yourself
A common mistake when writing your BS/MD application essays is that you can get so involved in the story you’re telling that you forget to relate an experience’s personal importance and relevance to your medical aspirations.
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Of course, we don’t go about our day experiencing different moments and consciously reflecting on how that moment impacted us. Instead, we usually just take note of the moment at face value and move on.
But that’s the exact opposite of what admissions officers are expecting you to do in your BS/MD essays. They want you to be introspective and recognize how different encounters have affected you as a person and as a future doctor.
Remember, you should always be the main character in your essays.
There might be one particular person you write about because they’ve had a strong influence on you. But in the end, it’s not about them, it’s about you.
Plenty of people say they want to work in the medical field, but the stories they tell are so often about other people. With every detail you include in your writing, ask yourself how it relates back to you and how mentioning it will help the reader better understand your perspective.
Of course, there are going to be some details you must include to help set the scene or to help the reader understand some background information. However, the core content of your essays should be about you and how an experience or activity changed your outlook.
3. Incorporate the Five Senses
When describing an experience in your BS/MD essays, you want the reader to have such a complete and thorough understanding of where you are and what you’re doing that they could envision it in their minds.
The best way to accomplish that? Imagery, as the English majors would say. Use all five senses to describe your environment and atmosphere. Yes, that includes touch and smell. Some senses are easier to write, but it’s those harder ones that really help paint a picture in your reader’s mind.
Ask anybody who has ever been on an application committee or who has ever worked with college applicants before, and they’ll say this:
The difference between an outstanding candidate who gets accepted and an outstanding candidate who doesn’t is always in the details.
When you’re reading successful essays for inspiration, you can better understand how imagery and using all five senses can transport the reader and leave a lasting impression. The best BS/MD essays weave details into the writing that stick out in a good way.
Don’t just go on thesaurus.com and use a bunch of adjectives and clichés. Instead, focus on using active verbs, little details, analogies, and metaphors that relate to your senses.
Bonus writing tip: Cut out filter words, like “I felt,” “I heard,” and “I see.” It lets/forces the reader to imagine the action and setting through their five senses, which is more powerful. It also has to do with “show, don’t tell” being better than just telling the reader what’s happening.
- Don’t say: “I could feel the sun warm on my skin.”
- Do say: “The sun warmed my skin.”
- Don’t say: “I saw children with rashes who just wanted their mom.”
- Do say: “Children scratched their rashes, crying for their mothers.”
- Don’t say: “I love to hear the pop in the microwave. It makes me think about watching movies with mom and dad.”
- Do say: “When the kernels pop in the microwave, my mouth waters, and my head fills with memories of me, mom, and dad burning through Redbox rentals.”
Editing: Refining Your Voice
Once you have an actual essay within the word count and containing a cohesive narrative that answers the prompts, it’s time to refine it and make it stand out from the rest.
Presentation is just as important as content, so give yourself time to edit and draft multiple copies of your essays. For one of my universities, I ended up with nine drafts! So don’t be afraid to go above and beyond with the editing because it really makes a world of difference.
Maybe you can find more basic tips with Google or Grok, but these editing tips are what I’ve found in my lived experience to be the most beneficial in helping to elevate my writing to the next level.
1. Sprinkle In Creative Analogies and References
Look at your essay draft(s). How many creative analogies have you included? How many metaphors and similes? How many literary references have you sprinkled in? Let’s add more of these to increase your chances of standing out from the crowd.
BS/MD admissions committees are not looking for a boring list of your accomplishments. They’re looking for a memorable story that sticks in the reader’s mind while demonstrating how the writer would make a holistically good BS/MD student.
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Below, I give three examples of how to edit in creative references and analogies. Keep in mind, the content is really the same amongst all contrasting examples, but you’ll notice a significant difference in how the same message is related to the reader.
Good: As I stand at the podium, palms sweating and heart racing, I feel the adrenaline rushing through my veins as I begin my rebuttal speech.
Great: The moment I step up to the podium, I really feel it. My blood is alive and electric, infusing me with so much energy that I don’t think I can contain it. I am suddenly an unstable plutonium isotope, about to violently explode in front of everyone.
The “Good” example is what a typical student might write when describing how nervous they felt in a specific situation. While there’s technically nothing wrong with it, there’s also nothing really special about it.
The “Great” example, on the other hand, stands out more because it makes use of a simile, which is more original and creative. It’s unlikely for other students to compare themselves to something like a plutonium isotope, so this type of contrast is more likely to catch the reader’s attention. e
Good: When the young boy first saw me, his eyes lit up with joy as he immediately reached for my shiny necklace.
Great: When he spotted me, his face broke into a huge smile, revealing a set of crooked baby teeth, accompanied by the forward thrust of his torso and the jerky flailing of his hands. I bent forward and pinched his puffy cheeks as he grabbed onto my heart-shaped necklace that had hypnotized him with its diamond-like shine.
The main difference between these two examples is the depth of the details. Sure, the first example is descriptive, but the second one goes above and beyond to describe the same situation in a much more comprehensive manner.
You should always try to avoid having the reader fill in the blanks with details. You should paint a picture so clear for them that nothing can be left up to the reader’s imagination. The more specific, the better.
In addition, try finding creative ways to say the same thing. For example, the second example uses words such as “hypnotized” and “diamond-like” to further elaborate on the simple idea that the necklace was shiny.
Good: And right then and there, I was presented with a daunting task that by no means was I ready to take on.
Great: At that moment, I was asked to take on a task just as impossible as resisting the temptation to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden.
Here, the second example makes use of literary references. In fact, referencing scientists, mythological characters, literary characters, or even biblical ideas shows a greater depth of knowledge.
Be judicious with where and when you place these references. If you throw them around too often, their significance drops. If, however, they are strategically placed, they can add a great deal of value to your essay.
Let’s say that you’re writing an essay about the role religion has played in your life. If you decide to use the second example as opposed to the first, it makes a strong connection in your reader’s mind. By no means is the biblical reference necessary to convey the message, but it adds an element of surprise that elevates your writing.
2. Vary Sentence Structure
You don’t want your sentences to all read the same. Change it up. Use different-length sentences, phrases, and clauses that vary the sentence structure. Keep it interesting and show you’re a capable writer.
Variation in writing helps avoid monotony and is more likely to keep the reader hooked.
I’ve always thought it’s unfair that, for nearly 17 years of your life, you’ve been taught to write essays in a specific format, and now, all of a sudden, you’re being expected to completely disregard that style and write in a different fashion for your BS/MD essays. But that’s just how it is.
So let your imagination run wild, and try out some of these tips to edit in variety:
- Use all those italics and exclamation points and parentheses — show your personality.
- Start sentences with “and” and “but” and “because” — even if it’s not always grammatically precise, it’s how people actually talk.
- Use short sentences. And use really, really, really long sentences (as long as they’re not run-ons, of course).
- Sometimes, use a simple sentence. Other times, use a complex sentence (with a dependent clause), and now and then, use a compound sentence (with an independent clause).
Finally, this is a chance to break those MLA rules you’re constantly forced to obey. Don’t get too casual, but loosen up a bit to show some personality. Vary your sentences to find your voice. Use the English language to your advantage.
Your BS/MD essay should flow smoothly. Don’t let it be a headache to read through. There should be a method to your madness.
3. Get Feedback From a Trusted Core Group
Editing yields better results when you outsource feedback. Your eyes are used to this BS/MD essay, and you’re going to miss things. Grammarly and ChatGPT can only get you so far. Instead, seek feedback from a trusted core group of peers and mentors.
My experience with getting feedback: I recommend showing your essays to a maximum of 5-7 people. You should determine one main person whose advice you value most, and show them every draft of your essay to ask for input.
Here are the types of people you might ask for feedback on your BS/MD essay:
- Counselor (typically, this is who your main feedback giver will be)
- Upperclassmen
- Teachers
- Parents
Show these trusted people your most updated draft every few weeks to confirm that any new ideas you’ve added or changes you’ve made are for the better and that your thought process makes sense on paper.
Lastly, at least one new person should review your final draft to catch any spelling or grammatical mistakes. A fresh set of eyes is best for this. It’s fine to use AI or apps like ProWritingAid to proofread for errors — please don’t get AI to write it all for you — but a real person should be your final proofer.
Don’t always feel obligated to make changes that your people recommend. If you try to please everyone, you risk losing your own voice. And sometimes, people have personal preferences that they mistake for writing rules. Nevertheless, be grateful they took the time to give you feedback.
Putting It All Together
The three steps of BS/MD essay writing should work together in the following ways:
- Pre-planning, brainstorming, and outlining early will increase the quality of your essays, reduce the time required for editing, and lower your overall stress.
- Essays should demonstrate personality, self-awareness, and fit for the program. So you need to research the school before writing any supplemental essays.
- Combine unique experiences not found on your primary application with imagery-rich writing to leave a lasting impression of your story on the reader.
- Allow enough time for reflection, multiple drafts, and revisions. Don’t cram the editing process into a couple of days.
- Prioritize authenticity and have fun while pre-writing, writing, and editing. Your genuine voice is what will make your essay stand out.
You’ve got this! There are a lot of people competing for just a few spots, but no one is exactly like you. So be yourself, and make sure you come across in your essays. With this guide, you should stand out from the crowd. Best of luck!
In junior or senior year of high school? Let us help you get into the pre-med program of your choice! Our medical professional advisors are ready for you.
FAQs
Getting into a BS/MD program can be extremely difficult, with acceptance rates as low as 1%. Typically, thousands of applicants are applying to fewer than 15 spots.
Stand out from the crowd. You’re off to a great start reading this guide. You can also seek physician advisors who can help edit your essays and give you personal advice on increasing your odds.
BS/MD essay questions typically cover medical college admissions essay topics like “Why medicine?” and “Why this program over any others?”
Essay prompts can cover a wide variety of medical education and personal subjects. Still, combined undergraduate-medical programs are trying to figure out if you have what it takes to embark on an accelerated healthcare career track.
Personal statement essays are critical to BS/MD admissions because they reveal your personality, motivations, and character beyond grades and test scores.
A strong essay allows admissions process officers to assess your unique fit for their program and your passion for medicine that will carry you through the 6-8 years of rigorous BS/MD coursework.
Get Comprehensive BS/MD Application Support
Going through this guide was a great first step in standing out from the crowd through the specific essays that BS/MD programs will ask of you. Now take the next step in increasing your odds.
Physician advisors at MedSchoolCoach are ready to help high school students realize their pre-med and BS/MD dreams.
Kachiu Lee, MD
Dr. Lee specializes in BS/MD admissions. She was accepted into seven combined bachelor-medical degree programs. She graduated Summa Cum Laude from Northwestern University and proceeded to Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, IL. After completing a dermatology residency at Brown University, Dr. Lee pursued a fellowship in Photomedicine, Lasers, and Cosmetics at Massachusetts General Hospital and was a Clinical Fellow at Harvard Medical School. Academically, she has over 100 peer-reviewed publications and lectures internationally.
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