Secondaries: Why would you like to come to ___ school?

[mrbadgradesbut]

A lot of secondaries have the why you want to come to our school in common. Do you think it's a good idea to use this question to say which faculty members you are interested in working with and why/what you would like to do with them. Or should this be answered more broadly, as in why do you want to attend the medical school and not list specific mentors you are interested in working with?

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[Maebea]

Our admissions committee notes when specific faculty are mentioned in this statement. They believe it demonstrates a greater level of effort (if not interest) to take the time to visit the program's website. The only time this backfires is when the faculty listed are widely disparate with no conceivable scientific commonality. It is particularly irksome when the list contains only department heads or HHMI investigators.