Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California Secondary Essay Prompts
Avg GPA
3.91
Avg MCAT
517
Class size
120
SJT required
None
The 2025-2026 prompts
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Collected from public applicant reports. Prompts occasionally change mid cycle, so confirm against your own secondary portal before you submit.
- 01
The following questions allow the Admissions Committee to become acquainted with you as an individual. Please answer the questions in 3-5 sentences. (max. 1000 characters). What is the most fun you've had lately? If you had to give yourself a nickname, what would it be? What are three things you don't care about at all? Describe a situation in which you didn't get something you felt you deserved.
3-5 sentences, max 1000 characters - 02
Is there anything else you would like us to know?
200 words or less (max. 1,400 characters)Optional
How to write these well
- Turn secondaries around within 7 to 14 days of receiving them. Schools read speed as interest, and slow essays land in a bigger pile.
- Pre-write the universal question types (diversity, challenge, why us) once, then adapt per school. Adapting is rewriting the school specific half, not swapping the name.
- Name real programs. A why us answer that cites a specific clinic, track, or community partnership reads ten times stronger than praise for reputation or location.
- Stay under the limit without padding to reach it. Readers are working through thousands of these; a tight answer is a kindness they remember.
Draft your Keck secondaries in your own voice
You write your life story once. MedCoach drafts every school's secondaries against their actual prompts, referencing their real programs by name, so each essay sounds like you and lands in days, not weeks.
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