Tips for the Application Cycle

Making a School List - Primary Essays - Secondary Essays

Writing the “Why X?” Essays - Interviews - Letters of Recommendation

Making a School List

Perhaps the question I get asked the most: how did you make a school list?

Many people use MSAR (subscription required) to guide their process of making a school list. For MD/PhD, however, I believe that the schools you apply to should be places where you can envision yourself having a successful research career. Hence, I prioritized research fit heavily when making my school list.

At baseline, not all programs offer trainees the opportunity to complete a PhD in the social sciences. I utilized AAMC’s List of MD/PhD Programs as a “master list of all MD/PhD programs” of sorts. I then went to every program’s website to find the list of MD/PhD-affiliated graduate departments. If the school had a graduate affiliate in public health, health policy, health economics, or even epidemiology, I put it on my application list. This left me with about 35-40 schools.

Next, I went through the faculty at each of the graduate departments affiliated with each MD/PhD. I listed out faculty names whose work I was interested in and who might serve as mentors to me in graduate school. If I found fewer than three faculty members at a given institution, I removed it from my list. This narrowed me to about 30 schools.

Lastly, I removed schools with school-specific requirements that I would not be able to meet. For example, Johns Hopkins requires two science letters of recommendation, which I did not have. Columbia requires public health trainees to have an MPH, which I also did not have. Dartmouth and BU are not fully-funded, so I removed those programs. Though you should not be too picky about location, remove any places you know you would not be happy living in——for me, this was Boston, so I removed Harvard from my list.

This left me with exactly 25 schools where I submitted primaries. You should expect to receive a secondary from every school; I feel that 25 secondaries was manageable enough to complete without going fully nuts by the end. Don’t underestimate the time it takes to complete secondaries. Each essay requires considerable thought, planning, care, and revision, and there’s only so much you can reuse from school to school.

Primary Essays

There’s a lot of information out there on how to write these statements, so I won’t spend much space on this subject. I strongly believe that for MD/PhD, your “Why MD/PhD?” is more important than your “Why MD?” essay. Your “Why MD/PhD?” should tell a story about how you realized that there is knowledge to be gained at the intersection of research and clinical medicine, and that you see this knowledge as enriching your future career. In contrast, the “Why MD?” should be dedicated to clinical interests, as you have plenty of space to discuss research in other essays.

My essay was about a paper that I read as it related to a clinical phenomenon I observed firsthand. I aimed to be honest about my experience and deeply reflective of how a social science PhD can benefit a practitioner and vice versa. Furthermore, I discussed the ways in which I saw my career as a social science MD/PhD progressing, specifically through uniting nontraditional stakeholders in healthcare. With my background working for the government and with nonprofit organizations on research initiatives, I had come to appreciate the incredible value research has for practitioners outside of the traditional academic sphere.

I had a number of research experiences I wanted to discuss in my Significant Research Essay. Accordingly, I numbered my research experiences (#1 - #5) and discussed each separately. I made sure to emphasize my role in each project and how it bolstered my interest in pursuing an MD/PhD.

Here were some examples of “Why MD/PhD?” statements and other tips for essay-writing that I found helpful.

Jake Khoussine, MD/PhD. See the posts describing how to write each of the three MD/PhD essays——he does a fantastic job describing how to answer each prompt directly and write concisely. There are other posts with information about the rest of the application and on MD/PhD training, more generally.
Hanna Erickson, MD/PhD
Joshua Willms, MD/PhD
JHU Sample Essays

Essays are available upon request.

Secondary Essays

By far the worst part of the cycle. You’re constantly writing and editing and feel like you’re in a never-ending tunnel. But once it’s finally over, the fun (interviews!) finally begins!

Again, there’s a lot out there on writing secondaries, so I won’t say too much. Stay organized; I had a large spreadsheet with dates so that I didn’t turn anything in too late. Most of my secondaries were turned in within three weeks, unless there was a two-week deadline specified. I tried to be creative, but honest, with my responses and write from the heart throughout. Grammarly Premium was a lifesaver as I wrote, and I’d highly recommend paying for it (and canceling your membership as soon as you’re done). I had my parents and a couple friends edit most of what I wrote in real-time to help with clarity of message and conciseness. When I was lost for ideas, I didn’t hesitate to reach out to friends who helped me brainstorm and flesh out my ideas. Secondaries was where it really “took a village” to help me reach the finish line, and having a support system was key.

Fun fact: At the end of the cycle, I combined all of the final secondary essays I wrote into one document. It ended up as nearly 100 single-spaced pages.

Writing the "Why X?" Essays

I followed a pretty standard format with these: state my aims as a physician-scientist and how they parallel the MSTP’s mission/goal, mention research topics I was interested in and specific investigators I would want to work with, discuss ways in which my clinical training would complement my research training at that institution (i.e. I’m interested in studying how veterans make healthcare decisions, and attending clinic at the VA would help gain real-world insight into their decision-making), close with a statement of how training at X would make me a better physician-scientist.

I kept track of school-specific facts (programs, investigators, resources) in a separate document throughout the cycle. This list came in handy during interview preparation, where I wanted to make it abundantly clear that I had done my homework on X when I interviewed there.

Interviews

Interviews were, by far, the most enjoyable part of the cycle, especially once you work through the initial nervousness that comes with talking about yourself for 30-45 minutes. There were three main kinds of interviews I had: 1. interviews with MD/PhD Steering Committee faculty, 2. interviews with PIs in my field, and 3. traditional “MD-style” interviews.

Interviews with the Steering Committee usually consisted of questions about why I was interested in MD/PhD, a summary of my main research experiences and what I had learned from them, how I envisioned my future career, and what I was doing during my gap years. Here was where it was most helpful to have a practiced “Why MD/PhD?” spiel——I fully recommend practicing this one with friends and family beforehand. Going in, I was nervous to be grilled on my motivation toward MD/PhD. However, my experience was that the vast majority of MD/PhD interviewers just want to see the “real” you, the person that was behind all of your written application materials. I tried to take “Be yourself!” to heart as much as I could throughout my interviews and believe that doing so contributed greatly to my success.

Interviews with PIs were the most enjoyable parts of interviewing for me. Pre-interview, I would do some research on the PIs I was scheduled to speak with (you’re usually informed in advance), read a couple of their abstracts, and draft some questions about their work I wanted to ask. Every interviewer will inevitably save some time at the end for questions from you, so my prewritten ones were used nearly every time. Occasionally, I would have interviews where I was not told the name of the interviewer in advance. In these circumstances, I resorted to a standard list of questions I had prepared about research, life in that institution’s city, mentoring, a career as a physician-scientist, etc.

Traditional MD-style interviews included MMIs and questions about my motivation and intentions toward clinical practice. There’s a lot of information on how to best prepare for these interviews on the internet. Like any other repetitive exercise, there is a learning curve to interviewing. I remember how nervous I was before my first one—–I woke up early, practiced my responses, re-reviewed my primary and secondary essays, and paced around my room. However, I definitely relaxed more as the interview season went on. I learned to speak more naturally, go with the flow of my story, and share my genuine excitement for research and being a physician-scientist. I loved having conversations with faculty (both within the basic sciences and in health policy) from across the nation and sharing my story and experiences with them. I learned a lot from these conversations and will certainly remember them as I embark on my journey to become a physician-scientist.

From a logistics standpoint, interviews can be challenging as each one requires two days of uninterrupted time. If you’re interviewing while working, I recommend having a conversation with your PI early on to discuss expectations for absences. I let my PI know when I would be out from work as early as possible (usually a couple weeks ahead of time, or as soon as I had the interview scheduled), and he was understanding about me being missing for two-day periods when I was interviewing. If you receive additional interview invitations after receiving acceptances you’re happy with, kindly decline the interviews out of respect to other applicants. You’ll be giving yourself a much-needed break, too.

You can track interview dates throughout the application cycle using the MD-PhD Interview and Revisit Calendar.

Letters of Recommendation

None of my recommendation letter-writers were MDs or MD/PhDs, and most of them had not previously heard of MD/PhDs. Therefore, I took it upon myself to tell them a little bit about the MD/PhD pathways, career outcomes, my goals, and motivation toward an MD/PhD.

I compiled a deck of slides on the following topics:

What is the MD/PhD training path like? What careers do MD/PhDs usually go on to pursue?
How did I get interested in doing an MD/PhD?
What are the qualities of doctors and scientists that I admire? What do I think makes a successful physician-scientist?
What do I hope to accomplish as a physician-scientist?
What does the application process look like (timelines, deadlines, etc.)?
Examples of programs I was interested in, and the profiles of trainees & investigators (MD/PhD) whose careers I wanted to emulate.

A couple of months before submitting my primary applications, I set up individual meetings with each of my letter-writers and presented my slides, taking the time to discuss exactly what I hoped their letter would convey about me and why I would make a successful physician-scientist. I shared my essays with all of my recommenders so that they could better understand my story and journey to an MD/PhD. Looking back, these conversations helped me ensure that my letters would emphasize my individuality, story, and vision for my career, which I believe led to subsequent success during the application process.

Keeping Sane

Waiting is excruciatingly difficult. No matter what anyone else tells you, it’s harder than you think it is.

I’ll reiterate what many others told me and what I found out for myself during the application cycle: hobbies and having a strong support system keep you sane. It’s impossibly difficult to not check Reddit or SDN, so in your free time, it’s imperative that you engage with everything non-application-related as fully as possible. I’m incredibly thankful for my family, friends, peers, and mentors for cheering me on and believing in me throughout this process, and for serving as a listening ear when all I wanted to do was complain about how long the past year had been.