University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine Secondary Essay Prompts

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.

1. 01

   Applicants are interviewed by invitation only. Interviews are scheduled from October to mid-February (days vary). For the 2025-26 interview season, we will conduct interviews via zoom. If you will be out of the country, provide additional info below (e.g. dates, best way to contact, etc.)

   300 charactersOptional
2. 02

   If you wish to update or expand upon your activities, you may provide additional information below.

   500 wordsOptional
3. 03

   If you are 2024 or earlier college graduate, please use the space below to tell us what you have done since completing your undergraduate degree.

   350 wordsOptional
4. 04

   UCSF PRIDE* values serve as a guiding light for institutional life and activities. Briefly describe how you will contribute to and support our PRIDE values consistent with your goals or life experience.

   500 words
5. 05

   Candidates and current students must meet the ethical and legal standards to be licensed to practice medicine in the State of California as well as the standards of the UCSF School of Medicine. Accordingly, candidates for admission must acknowledge and provide written explanation to the School of Medicine of any felony offense, misdemeanor offense, and institutional action taken against them prior to matriculation. This disclosure is required of all charges and convictions, including expunged and diverted offenses that have not already been reported in the primary AMCAS application. Failure to disclose prior offenses can lead to disciplinary action by the school that may include dismissal.

   No stated limit

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.

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