University of New Mexico 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

   At the UNM School of Medicine we are committed to building a dynamic, productive and positive learning environment in addition to promoting cross cultural and cross racial understanding among students of diverse talents, experiences, opinions and backgrounds. Describe the effect that your experiences with engaging diversity have had on your own growth and development. Provide an example and describe how it will impact your career in the medical profession.

   2000 characters
2. 02

   There are multiple paths that lead to medical school and many obstacles along the way. Please describe the unique path that has led you to medicine as well as any obstacles or adversity that you had to overcome in achieving this goal. How will this experience affect your career as a physician?

   2000 characters
3. 03

   While providing healthcare as a physician is often a rewarding career, it is also a profession that entails addressing constant challenges. Imagine you are a physician at a local institution and you notice on 18 occasions in the past week, patients were not administered the correct dose of a medication. When looking into it further, you learned that 17/18 cases occurred right after a physician handoff (defined as the process of transferring role and responsibility for providing care from one physician to another). Given this scenario, what are the initial steps you and your institution might take to improve the situation?

   2000 characters
4. 04

   There is a physician shortage in New Mexico. What is your understanding of the contributors to this problem, and what ideas do you have to address it?

   2000 characters
5. 05

   Teamwork is integral to training and the career of a physician. This kind of work setting entails addressing constant challenges in task execution, communication etc. What is an issue you have encountered working on a team and how did you address and resolve this issue?

   2000 characters
6. 06

   Please describe how COVID-19 has affected your preparation for applying to medical school. Describe any academic, personal, financial, or professional barriers/disruptions that COVID-19 may have triggered.

   2000 characters

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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