University of Florida College of Medicine Secondary Essay Prompts

The 2026-2027 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

   Non-Florida residents, please describe your association with the state of Florida if you selected Other above. For all other selections, feel free to expand your answer here as well.

   No stated limit
2. 02

   If you are not a full-time student during this application cycle, in particular at any time between July 2026 and July 2027, please detail your current and planned activities below. If your plans are not confirmed or if they change, please update us later in the cycle via the User Profile: Updates section.

   250-500 words
3. 03

   Reflect upon your life experiences and values. Do any or all of these help frame how you envision your future contributions to the health and wellbeing of others as a physician and if so, how?

   250 wordsOptional
4. 04

   If you are a reapplicant to UF COM, please briefly describe your approach to preparing for a new application and specific changes from your previous application.

   500 words
5. 05

   This question is for those who applied via AMCAS ("Other Special Program") to the Jacksonville clerkship track only: The Jacksonville regional medical school campus seeks individuals with an interest in practicing in underserved communities. The program aims to supplement UFCOM's core medical education with clinical, research, and other experiences designed to provide in-depth, longitudinal learning opportunities in addressing social determinants of health, engaging community resources, and improving population health outcomes. Please tell us about your interests and experiences that motivate you to apply to this program.

   250-500 words
6. 06

   The medical profession is frequently described as being both a science and an art. One could summarize this by saying that patients must "be well cared for" (science) but they must also "feel well cared for" (art). We work to teach our students not only the scientific principles of medicine, but also the core values of medicine, often called "professionalism." Toward this end, we keep patients at the center of our education and often reflect on their stories with our students. In fact, the UFCOM version of the Hippocratic Oath includes the following affirmation. "I will remember with gratitude and humility those whose illness or injury provided examples from which I learned, and, in their honor, I will continue the pursuit of knowledge." At the UFCOM, we have many strategies to equip our students to preserve their own humanity and that of their patients. One of the most important is the ability to make connections with and get to know their patients. Frequently such connections become the student's first taste of the joy of medical practice, a joy that can be a bulwark against burnout. As Dr. Fred Griffin has observed: "It is physicians' good fortune to spend their lifework engaged in a profession where, hand in hand with developing proficiency in helping others, they may deepen self-understanding, increase their own humanity, and learn how to grapple with the dilemmas that they too must face in life. When physicians are willing to engage in this process, they are much more likely to find their work meaningful; they are less likely to become burned out by the daily impact of the suffering of their patients and of the emotional demands placed on them. This statement is only apparently paradoxical." Fred Griffin: Literature and Medicine vol 23 No2 pp280-303 Students at UFCOM regularly write about and discuss encounters with patients that shape their professional identity and help them become better physicians and human beings. Please download here two such reflections from our third-year students, each describing interactions where they grew and learned while they were caring for patients. Read and reflect on both and then choose one and describe how the writer, in the words of Dr. Griffin, deepened self-understanding and increased their humanity.

   525 words
7. 07

   What does it mean to be present for the patient? Advances in medical science and technology have generated astoundingly effective treatments for once-incurable illnesses. Options we take for granted such as operating room techniques, advanced computational support and an array of new drugs and biologics would have seemed miraculous to earlier generations. These tools have restored countless patients to health, and we are appropriately grateful for the science of medicine. Yet the modern healthcare system has become a vast bureaucracy that, while claiming to serve patients, prioritizes efficiency and revenue, leaving both patients and physicians feeling like little more than cogs in the machine. To preserve medicine's human dimension, we must purposefully be attentive to each patient for whom we have the privilege to care. French philosopher Simone Weil observed that, "attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity." In striving to be genuinely present with our patients, we have the chance to make this generosity abundant rather than rare. Most doctors enter the field of medicine with a spirit of service and dedication to the patient, grounded in the principles of the Hippocratic Oath. This perspective places the individual patient at the center of learning and growth throughout medical school, residency training and medical practice. In taking the UFCOM Hippocratic Oath, future physicians commit to "practice medicine with conscience and humility, and act with enduring respect for the dignity of human life. Foremost in my mind will be compassion, respect, and impartial care for my patients." Central to this commitment is the idea of being fully present with each patient. Dr. Francis W. Peabody in "The Care of the Patient" wrote: "The good physician knows his patients through and through, and his knowledge is bought dearly. Time, sympathy and understanding must be lavishly dispensed, but the reward is to be found in that personal bond which forms the greatest satisfaction of the practice of medicine." Modern medicine presents real world obstacles to this mission. Pressure to see more patients in less time from behind a computer screen detracts from what matters most to patients, a physician who sees, hears and understands them in the moment. An important question emerges: how do we free ourselves from the distractions imposed by the healthcare system so we can fix our attention on the patient in front of us? Describe an interaction you've witnessed in which the physician or other health care professional was fully (or not fully) present for the patient. How has this shaped your understanding of what it means to care for another person in medicine?

   525 words
8. 08

   If you think there is any additional information that would help the admissions committee in its review of your application, please use the space below.

   5000 charactersOptional

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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