The "Right" Essay Topic

<p>I have a question regarding accelerated ba/bs/md program admissions:
does the common application essay (choice #6: topic of your choice) need to be about medicine? </p>

<p>I know it is better to tie the short answer essay about the meaningful ec to med, but is it okay if the 250-500 word essay does not go into what you want to do and instead reflects who you are as a person?</p>

<p>sounds fine to me</p>

<p>um yeah....adding more chars</p>

<p>
[quote]
I have a question regarding accelerated ba/bs/md program admissions:
does the common application essay (choice #6: topic of your choice) need to be about medicine?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Nope, this can be about anything meaningful. Mine was not about med.</p>

<p>most ba/bs/md programs have their own separate applications in addition to the common app, which will most likely require an essay about medicine, so in that case, it wouldn't be necessary to have your common app essay be about medicine</p>

<p>Why does the essay say in the instructions to be 250-500 words. then it states that you can't use more than 6000 characters (which is about 1000 words). Would it be better to write a long 1000 word essay which exceeds their 500 word recommendation?</p>

<p>no, keep your essay to a max of 550 words. They can tell when you exceed 500 and they will just stop reading it. The 6000 character thing applies to the 500 word rule (assuming you use large words with many characters).</p>

<p>My common app essay was a little over 750 words and I still got into Rice undergrad, Duke, Johns Hopkins, and BU 7-year program.</p>

<p>foodisgood: thanx 4 the advice!</p>

<p>kpphy88: WOW! Congrats on the awesome acceptances....what did you write about?!?!</p>

<p>I wrote about a sports injury that ended my competitive Taekwondo career and the trials and tribulations I encountered in dealing with it. Incidentally, this injury is what sparked my interest in medicine, specifically orthopedic surgery and sports medicine. So, basically my common app essay and the medical program supplements were written on essentially the same topic.</p>

<p>However, my short answer essay was on Taekwondo, and how it's affected me.</p>

<p>wait, so if you exceed the word limit, what happens?
They just stop?
for example if my current essay is like 800 words, what do i do to shorten it?
I feel that cutting some words in my essay loses some important insight about by character</p>

<p>well granted if its a really good essay they'd prolay read all of it. But if the essay is average, I've heard that they stop (and it hurts). Remember, they have a ton of stuff to read and every extra word is a burden. Perhaps get someone to judge it before u submit?</p>

<p>up to a certain amount, they won't really stop (like 600ish), but if the essay is noticeably different than a 500 word essay( like that 800-worder for instance) than they will frown upon it, unless of course the essay is star quality</p>