I'm also having this same issue. Did you end up reaching out/did they give any info?

I emailed today

Duke has a lot of prompts but I think for the most part, they tend to be pretty straightforward. I would simply tackle them one by one - I don’t think you necessarily need to bring every answer back to medicine or back to why Duke. I don’t think it hurts you either though. At the end of the day, this is a medical school application. Personally, I’d say I ended most of my prompts with a Takeaway about medicine or just interacting with others in general.

I find the most applications in general tend to have some degree of redundancy. I think thematic redundancy is OK. What is not OK is using I realized or I understand or I learned over and over and over within the same essays. You don’t have to say, I realized that the system is broken. You just have to say the system is broken.

I personally hate the idea of using the optional prompt as a why Duke. I really regretted it because I feel like I could’ve said something more interesting. Having read a few last year and this year, they basically all sound the same. If you do want to write why Duke, you absolutely have to mention the 3rd year and how it’s a research year. Yeah don’t get me wrong. Duke is pretty holistic. But it’s still a very research heavy school. We have a whole year for research like it’s just kind of a given. If I could go back and do it, I would talk about something interesting on my application that I didn’t mention it anywhere else like my Lego business.

The interview is a brutal probably the most brutal MMI. It’s like 10 stations with very minimal breaks. Lots of different scenarios and topics. Everybody was super friendly though.

As for why I chose Duke - I’ll be upfront. I had much cheaper options than Duke. Duke is about 70 after my merit and need Bass scholarships. Hopkins was free, UPenn was around 40k, Yale was around 40k, and UF was free. I chose Duke for a few reasons. For one, I think the value of the build in research year is crazy since that’s the potential to save a whole year if I do a competitive specialty. Two, I think Duke is by far the most chill school. Despite how condensed the curriculum is, none of the students I talked to really felt extremely hyper stressed. I would argue the vibes at Duke were even more chill than they are at Yale. Everyone at Yale kept talking to me about how stressed they were and I think part of it was because they were super unprepared ( Which is probably why Yale is basically a five-year program).

Did they end up fixing it for you?

No response. Emailed saturday

I'm having the same issue :(

They just did today

Thank you for the insight, Pain! This is probably the most daunting secondary to write lol, so I genuinely appreciate all the tips. Hearing that some redundancy is okay is a huge relief. I feel like I am practically repeating myself despite attempting to make a new point about interacting with others and medicine or something.

TYSM and good luck with MS1!

I am also having the same issue. Emailed today about it

if any current students are on here, can you do community-based research during 3rd year if you're not in the PCLT? interested in community health & public health + advocacy but not planning to pursue hospital medicine not primary care. but still want to do a lot of community-engaged work!!