BS/MD Programs / BS/MD Essays
BS/MD Essays: What Programs Ask and How to Answer
The essays answer one question for the committee: does this student understand what a physician's life is, and want it anyway?
Updated September 28, 2026 for the 2026-2027 cycle
The six essays
Why medicine?
The central essay. Show what you saw, what it taught you, and why you stayed. Usually 500 to 650 words.
Why this program?
Name features of the curriculum and the medical school that fit your goals. Generic praise is easy to spot.
Why now?
Explain why you are ready to commit at 17. Point to sustained experience, not to certainty.
Background and perspective
What you bring to a small cohort: language, community, family, work, or a way of seeing.
Most meaningful activity
One experience, told closely. What you did, what was hard, what changed.
Challenge or setback
A real difficulty, your response, and what you do differently now.
A structure for the why-medicine essay
One specific scene
Start inside a moment you witnessed or took part in. Avoid opening with a childhood wish to be a doctor.
What you did next
Show the steps you took after that moment: volunteering, shadowing, research. Each one should deepen the picture.
What you learned about the work
Show that you have seen the hard parts: long hours, uncertainty, patients who do not get better.
Where you are headed
Connect what you have done to the physician you hope to become. Keep it modest and concrete.
The interpreter line was busy, so the nurse looked at me. I was sixteen, a volunteer who restocked gloves, and the only other person on the floor who spoke Spanish. For ten minutes I carried questions back and forth between a physician and a man holding his bandaged hand. I understood every word and almost none of the medicine. I went home wanting to understand both.
This sample is an illustration written for this guide. Your own essay must describe your own experience.
Prompts you are likely to see
- Describe an experience with a patient that shaped your interest in medicine.
- What will you contribute to our entering class?
- Tell us about a time you failed.
- Which problem in health care would you most like to work on?
- Why an accelerated or combined program instead of the traditional route?
- Describe an ethical question you have faced or witnessed.
- What would you study in college if you were not going into medicine?
- How do you handle sustained pressure?
Do and do not
Do
- Use specific moments, names of places, and what was said.
- Reflect: say what the experience changed in you.
- Research each program before writing its supplement.
- Answer the question that was asked.
- Ask two readers for comments, then revise.
Do not
- Rely on the phrase that you want to help people.
- List activities that already appear elsewhere.
- Reuse a supplement with only the school name changed.
- Use medical terms you cannot explain.
- Go over the word limit.
Write it yourself. Committees read thousands of essays and interview the students who wrote them. An essay that does not sound like you in the interview room hurts the application.
Writing schedule
| When | Work |
|---|---|
| April, junior year | List ten moments from your clinical, research and service work. |
| May to June | First drafts of why medicine and most meaningful activity. |
| July | Revise. Draft why now and the challenge essay. |
| August | Program supplements as they are released. |
| September | Final edits and proofreading. |
| October to November | Submit a week ahead of each deadline. See the timeline. |