by Cydney Foote
University of Washington School of Medicine Secondary Application Tips and Deadlines [2024-2025]
Historically ranked among the country’s very top medical schools for primary care by U.S. News & World Report, the University of Washington School of Medicine (UWSOM) looks for applicants who have demonstrated a strong interest in patient education and community health. It is committed to serving the needs of the citizens of Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho through its WWAMI program. If you are from Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, or Idaho, you will receive an automated secondary after the school screens for your address. Washington residents complete an additional residency questionnaire before receiving a secondary. All other applicants undergo additional screening to determine their fit for UWSOM.
To learn more about UWSOM, check out our podcast interview with Associate Dean for Admissions Dr. LeeAnna Muzquiz.
UWSOM Secondary Application Essay Tips
The UWSOM aims to build a diverse class of students to enrich the field of medicine. What perspectives, identities, and/or qualities would you bring? (250 words)
This essay prompt is asking you to consider how you might contribute to the diversity of the school’s next incoming class. You should consider diversity in terms of both background (e.g., cultural, ethnic, linguistic) and experience (e.g., dealing with mental illness, experiencing loss). Explain how your background will be of value to your fellow students and what you can bring to the class. In your response, focus on emotional and mental maturity, and reflect on how that will enable you to work with or understand others.
What obstacles have you experienced and how have you overcome them? (250 words)
In answering this question, choose setbacks or life experiences to discuss that will allow you to show how much you have grown and changed. Be sure to highlight challenges that you actively worked to overcome, and maintain a positive focus. The bulk of your essay should explain how you overcame the challenge and how the skills you used or gained will help you in medical school. It can be helpful to establish a cause-and-effect relationship between your efforts and the net outcome. What approach did you take to address the issue(s)? What were the results? If possible, select challenges where the stakes were somewhat high, for either yourself or someone else.
How have societal inequities in the U.S. affected you or people you have worked with? (250 words)
This question is asking you to discuss your experience working with people who belong to an underserved community or your own experience as a member of an underserved community yourself. Provide a specific example from your personal life or your clinical or other volunteer/work experience. Then explain what social inequities you encountered in that scenario and how they affected you or the others in your story. You also want to briefly conclude by explaining how you will handle these inequities as a med student and physician.
Describe your competency by explaining how you have explored and come to understand issues in the social sciences and humanities as they relate to the practice of medicine. (250 words)
To respond to this essay prompt, try to offer a small lesson about the value of life, such as the regard for critical illness or the particular path to embrace healing for a population or group associated with a disease entity (e.g., breast cancer, glioblastomas), that sheds light on lived experience and what we can learn from it.
Reapplicant Essay: From your most recent application until now, how have you strengthened your application? (250 words)
As a reapplicant, you are demonstrating the depth of your determination to attend medical school. Reiterate that determination in your response to this question. Strategically focus on the improvements you have made to your application – your new GPA, MCAT score, and life experiences. Focus on how the time you have spent improving your application has made you a better and more focused applicant. Motivation and your specific interest in medicine are essential, and you should show how these have guided your recent activities.
The Casper test is also required.
UWSOM stats
UWSOM average MCAT score: 512
UWSOM average GPA: 3.7
UWSOM acceptance rate: 4.51% overall
Since 2001, Cydney Foote has advised hundreds of successful applicants for medical and dental education, residency and fellowship training, and other health-related degrees. Admissions consulting combines her many years of creating marketing content with five years on fellowship and research selection committees at the University of Washington School of Medicine. She’s also shared her strategy for impressing interviewers in a popular webinar and written three books and numerous articles on the admissions process. Want Cydney to help you get Accepted? Click here to get in touch!
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