Introduction

Learn the Yale Medical School acceptance rate, admissions requirements, and strategies, plus YSM secondary essay examples. Established in 1810, the Yale School of Medicine is known as one of the oldest medical schools in the United States, as well as one of the best. It currently sits at #10 on U.S. News and World Report’s Research rankings, and its daunting admissions standards reflect its illustrious reputation.

With well over 6,000 applicants vying annually for about 100 slots, aspiring Yalies must put their best feet forward. To help make your application to Yale as competitive as possible, we’ve assembled a comprehensive guide to acing your Yale secondary application, including a program overview, admissions statistics, and strategies (with examples) for tackling Yale’s daunting secondary essays. 

Yale School of Medicine MD programs

Yale School of Medicine offers four tracks of study for its students to achieve their MD:

• The traditional, four-year MD program
• The MD/PhD program
• The MD/MPH Program 
• The MD/MHS Program 

In addition to these MD programs, Yale also offers a number of dual-degree programs in conjunction with other schools at Yale. Yale medical students can earn an MD/JD, MD/MBA, or an MD/MDiv.

Yale Medical School tuition and scholarships

If you want to know more about the Yale Medical School tuition and scholarships, read further to get more information. Yale School of Medicine’s tuition, clocking in at $66,160 during 2021–2022, is steep. Adjusting for fees and cost of living, Yale currently advises its students to budget up to $97,349 for the first year of attendance.

Because Yale is a private institution, you won’t find any in-state perks. However, the School of Medicine offers generous, need-based financial aid.

In 2019, Yale announced that students receiving financial aid would be expected to borrow just $15,000 per year going forward, reducing its “unit loan” by 50 percent over two years. As a result, students eligible for financial aid take out fewer loans and receive more institutional scholarships, and they should graduate with no more than $60,000 in debt. In comparison, the average medical school debt in 2021 is $215,900.

How hard is it to get into the Yale School of Medicine?

Yale Medical School admissions statistics

With an acceptance rate of 6.2 percent, Yale School of Medicine is highly selective. Let’s take a look at the admissions statistics for the class of 2025:

• Applications: Over 6,200
• Matriculants: 104

While Yale hasn’t shared further details regarding its most recent class, statistics for the class of 2024 illustrate Yale’s high expectations when it comes to academic achievement:

• Median GPA: 3.85
• Median MCAT: 519

Yale Medical School admissions requirements

To apply to Yale School of Medicine, applicants must fulfill the following coursework requirements, complete with lab:

• General biology or zoology: 2 semesters
• General chemistry: 2 semesters
• Organic chemistry: 1 semester
• Biochemistry: 1 semester (laboratory recommended, but not required)
• General physics: 2 semesters

Furthermore, to apply in the 2021–2022 application cycle, you must submit an MCAT score from an exam taken between January 2018 and the final test date in 2021.

(Suggested reading: Medical School Requirements: The Definitive Guide)

Yale Medical School application timeline

You’ll submit your Yale School of Medicine application via AMCAS. Here are the dates and deadlines to keep in mind during the application process:

• May 3, 2021: AMCAS application opens
• May 27, 2021: AMCAS application can be submitted
• Late July 2021: Yale secondary application opens
• August 1, 2021: AMCAS application deadline for Early Decision
• August 31, 2021: Yale secondary application deadline for Early Decision
• August 2021–February 2022: Interview invitations sent out
• October 1, 2021: Early Decision applicants notified of admissions decision
• October 15, 2021: AMCAS application deadline
• November 15, 2021: Yale secondary application deadline
• March 15, 2022: Applicants notified of admissions decision by this date

As is the case for all medical school admissions, we advise you to submit your AMCAS primary as soon as possible after the system opens. Yale typically sends out secondary applications within a week of receiving your AMCAS primary, beginning in late July when the secondary application becomes available. They’ll consider applications on a first-come basis, so timeliness in returning your secondary can be key to your success as well.

(Suggested reading: The Ideal Medical School Application Timeline)

Yale Medical School secondary application essays (examples included)

Like any other medical school, Yale will first take into account your personal statement and AMCAS Work and Activities section, as well as your MCAT score, GPA, and recommendation letters. But when it comes to secondary applications, Yale also gives applicants a lot of space to communicate who they are narratively — more than most schools allow—giving you the opportunity, hopefully, to stand out from that crowded applicant pool.

Don’t be intimidated by the length of this secondary. Instead, see it as a chance to more fully communicate with the admissions committee. Below, we’ve broken down each secondary essay prompt and provided guidance on crafting responses that will allow you to shine.   

Question 1: Yale School of Medicine values diversity in all its forms. How will your background and experiences contribute to this important focus of our institution and inform your future role as a physician? (500 words)

Fortunately, this is your standard “diversity prompt.” Take a look at our deep-dive into how to ace diversity essays, which includes an example essay you can use as a guide. 

The goal with this prompt, as with all diversity prompts, is to show what makes you unique (culturally, intellectually, geographically, skill-based, etc.) and how your unique background and perspective will allow you to add (in a way only YOU can!) to the future of medicine. 

Remember to connect your diversity answer back to Yale if you have any extra room, explaining how you’d bring your own unique personality, background, and experience to the Yale campus and to New Haven. 

Question 2: Please answer either one of the following questions. (500 words)

1. While there is great emphasis on the physician-patient relationship. Yale School of Medicine also emphasizes the importance of training future physicians to care for communities and populations. Describe how your experiences would contribute to this aspect of the mission of the Yale School of Medicine. 
2. Research is essential to patient care, and all students at Yale School of Medicine complete a research thesis. Tell us how your research interests, skills and experiences would contribute to scholarship at Yale School of Medicine. 

Before diving into approaches for tackling these prompts, let’s talk strategy for which prompt you should choose. 

Some applicants who come to medical school have made great strides in the field of research, either throughout their undergraduate science education or post-grad in a professional lab. On the other hand, some applicants have chosen more patient care, volunteering opportunities, and other clinical experiences. If one of these paths better reflects how you’ve devoted your time and energy in the years leading up to medical school, then your choice is pretty obvious. 

If, however, you feel that you’ve devoted equal amounts of effort to research and patient care, the choice becomes a bit trickier. In this case, we advise you to take a step back from the prompts and work through the below checklist:

1. Where have you had more of an impact? In patient care, or in research? Consider whether you have gotten quantifiable results (publications, awards or accolades, promotions to higher positions, etc.) but also how meaningful your contributions are to the greater scientific community. Does your research make meaningful strides toward solving an important medical challenges, or can you see how it plugs into a major movement or challenge in the medical community? Or does your experience working with patients speak to a larger passion that you’ll follow in the future (i.e. your work with underserved communities and the specific needs therein)?
2. Which path speaks more profoundly to what YOU care about?Here, it’s important to think about the overall argument you’re making through your application as a whole. If in your personal statement, for example, you discussed your overarching vision for increasing equity in healthcare through working with rural populations, but your past research was geared toward genomic study of primate evolution, then you should probably go with the second prompt because (no matter how impressive that research was) the second prompt’s response will go farther in cementing your application’s core argument!
3. Do you need to round out your application? Maybe you covered patient care in both your personal statement and your “most meaningful” Work and Activities sections, and you’re feeling all tapped out on that topic. Or perhaps it’s the opposite, and you’ve exhausted yourself in the discussion of your research. If you find that your other application components are a tad lopsided, you can use this choice of prompt to even things out. 

Once you’ve decided on which prompt to tackle, it’s time to get down to business. Let’s go through each prompt.

Choice 1: While there is great emphasis on the physician-patient relationship. Yale School of Medicine also emphasizes the importance of training future physicians to care for communities and populations. Describe how your experiences would contribute to this aspect of the mission of the Yale School of Medicine.

Key in this prompt is the following words: physician-patient relationship, communities, and populations. If you’re tackling this prompt, you can expect to speak not just about service in general but to the values of community and public health, and the physician’s role in society.

Here’s our advised structure: 

• Anecdote, or narrative opening: Consider beginning this essay by giving us a scene or anecdote—hook us with a story. You might offer a glimpse into the first significant moment that sparked your understanding that serving the individual patient meant serving a larger community. Maybe you volunteered at a free clinic and realized that many struggle to obtain equitable healthcare. Alternately, choose another situation where you’ve worked on health from a community and population level. You might show us the place you’re working now—in harm reduction on your gap year, or at Planned Parenthood—and work backwards from there. You’d opt for this route if your current work is compelling and clinically relevant, and if you haven’t already written about it in your personal statement. 
• Relevant past experience working with patient populations: Once you establish that you’re aware of a problem for a certain patient population, show us what you’ve done in the past to work with that population and alleviate the obstacle. Without an MD, there’s only so much you can actually do to help, but through detailing your commitment to the field, you can persuade your readers to believe you actually do care and have gained either skills or a more nuanced understanding to better address the problem in the future.
• Potential solutions for identified needs/future goal: After establishing your commitment and budding expertise, make a case for your long-term professional goal, which should ideally be a solution to the problem plaguing the above patient population. Whatever you see that problem as being, you want to argue that you’ve got a plan to fix it, and that you’ll devote your future medical practice to doing so.
• Future intentions: Finally, conclude this essay by looking ahead to Yale. You know the problem, you’ve got an idea for a solution; so, what are you going to do at Yale School of Medicine to help you accomplish that long-term vision? 

Here’s an example that responds to this prompt:

Having had the privilege of attending quality schools all my life, I’m almost embarrassed to admit how little I knew about the obstacles facing the youth of Dallas’s inner-city public school system. During the summer of my sophomore year, however, I worked as a tutor for StudyWell, a nonprofit focused on increasing educational opportunities for grade-school students in my hometown of Dallas. While teaching math and science to my young students, I realized that the barriers to their education extended far beyond the classroom—many of their parents were unable to afford transportation to get them to and from school in a timely manner, meaning some kids had to commute on buses for up to two hours each way. Seeing these bright young kids be forced to work twice as hard to overcome the adversities facing their education opened my eyes to the other disparities in quality of life all around me, and my lifelong mission to use my position to mend these gaps through healthcare took hold. 

Texas is home to many immigrants, and because the lack of access to health insurance disproportionately affects these communities, many rely on free clinics to receive primary and urgent care services. To learn more about the specific trials these communities face and what I can do to address them, I took on a shadowing position at Care Clinic in downtown Dallas, where I’ve volunteered the past three years. At Care clinic, I’ve worked as a Spanish-to-English translator for hundreds of patients, and through literally standing between these patients and their healthcare, I’ve learned that a large portion of Texas’s immigrant community lacks the ability to access preventative care, which may mean waiting until their symptoms have progressed before seeking medical help.

As the doctors at Care worked tirelessly to treat the patients’ ailments, I decided to utilize my past tutoring work to help educate our patient population on preventative care offerings provided for free by the clinic. Through consulting with the doctors, I designed Spanish-language pamphlets that detailed not only the services we could provide, like check-ups and screenings but also common signs to watch out for in health (such as fevers or rashes) and seek a doctor’s opinion immediately rather than waiting for their symptoms to worsen. I’ve also begun negotiations with the city’s public transportation services to provide ride vouchers for patients who need to visit the clinic but cannot afford the transportation costs to do so. 

In the long term, I aim to utilize my medical career to help bridge the systemic gaps in healthcare access affecting underprivileged communities. To gain the skills necessary to do so, I’ll take part in Yale’s initiatives such as HAVEN, the student-run free clinic, and supplement my medical education with elective courses through the School of Public Policy to learn how to tackle non-health-related obstacles that currently prevent disadvantaged populations from accessing care. 

Why does it work?

• This applicant grounds herself in what she cares about most and thoroughly explains the work she’s done to fully understand the issue of healthcare inequality. 
• Not only is her commitment time-tested, but she shows that she’s gone the extra mile and taken the initiative to do everything she can in her roles as a volunteer to help address and alleviate the problems she’s discussing. 
• She also effectively communicates her plan to utilize Yale’s unique offerings to help further her experience and skillset in this area. In short, she explains why she cares, what she’s done, and what she’s going to do in the future to serve communities in need, which is exactly what this prompt asks for. 

Choice 2: Research is essential to patient care, and all students at Yale School of Medicine complete a research thesis. Tell us how your research interests, skills, and experiences would contribute to a scholarship at Yale School of Medicine.

Again, we’ve provided an advised structure to help you nail this essay:

• Past research aims: Begin your essay by explaining your past research experience. What was the goal? What was the hypothesis? Most importantly, stress why this research mattered, both to you personally and to the scientific (hopefully also medical) community overall. We not only want to see what your research was, but (more importantly) why you chose to devote yourself to it. This setup should feel personal. Lead us into your body paragraphs with a clear understanding of what question you were trying to answer and why. We’ll say it again: this is not an abstract for a research paper. You should be able to write about your work for a near-lay audience—not because your admissions committee is lay, but because doing so proves you can discuss complex medical concepts with patients. Also, the committee wants to know that you actually know what you were doing and why it matters, and that you’re not just spitting back out some jargon you overheard in lab. If you’re struggling to nail that balance between demonstrating your scientific expertise and writing clearly, read some science journalism in popular magazines and newspapers. You should be going for that kind of tone: smart yet extremely clear and accessible.
• Methodology and skills: Next, get into the how. Process is vital to the scientific method and future patient care, so prove to the admissions committee that you’re deft at solving complex problems and designing an elegant approach to doing so. These skills will pay off in your future as a medical practitioner, so here’s your chance to show the admissions committee what you’ve got!
• Impact—on the scientific community, and on you: Show us your results. Did you reach an answer to the question you posed in your introduction? If not, did you take vital steps that future researchers can use to continue? Moreover, what’s the larger impact of having completed this research? What did it teach you that you’ll carry with you?
• Future contribution: Finally, it’s time to look ahead to your future at Yale. Is this past research something you want to continue through a specific YSM lab? Do you plan to utilize what you’ve learned when working with patients in the future? How about coursework—will you focus your intellectual and academic exploration toward learning more about the central question that guided this past research? We want to see how this past experience will push you forward, and specifically how you’ll make use of Yale’s offerings to continue this vital work that you’re so passionate about.

Here’s an example that works:

Growing up in rural Appalachia, I often thought of my sleepy mountain town as a Rockwell-esque painting. It wasn’t until the summer after high school, when three of my peers overdosed on narcotics over the course of two months, that I realized my hometown, which lacked economic opportunity or much in the way of educational advancement, suffered from a debilitating opioid problem. To learn more about opioid addiction on a biological level, I majored in neuroscience and joined a lab through which we investigated the neurological mechanics for drug dependency; however, I soon realized that there was only so far my pipetting work behind a lab bench could take me in making real change for people suffering from addiction like those in my hometown. So, during the past three years, I’ve undertaken a clinical research project through my university’s hospital to gain an applicable, workable understanding of how we can best serve patient populations seeking recovery from opioid dependency. 

To design my clinical research project, I began by consulting leading addiction specialists to collaboratively design a questionnaire that aimed to gather demographic data from our participants. To better understand how certain recovery care plans worked on patients of various backgrounds, we sourced information on housing status, familial affiliation, education, etc. From there, I also designed a questionnaire for addiction treatment specialists to fill out upon each patient visit to understand how the recovery process was progressing and cross-referenced this information with my demographic information to assess program efficacy across participant types. Ultimately, we found that patients who reported having either strong community support networks, demanding jobs, or high familial affiliation (i.e. dependents like children or spouses) were deemed by the recovery specialist (who was blind to their demographic classification, thereby limiting bias) to be progressing at a faster rate than those who reported living a more isolated lifestyle. 

The results of my clinical research stress the importance of taking into account factors involved in recovery outside of direct treatment. By coupling addiction recovery therapy with whole-life support, such as support groups, educational or economic advancement, or family involvement, we could potentially increase the efficacy of our rehabilitation efforts for those suffering from opioid addiction. Though my research is forthcoming in a reputable science publication, my work toward advancing recovery tactics is just beginning. At Yale, I’ll take part in the YSM Addiction Recovery Program where I’ll not only contribute what I’ve learned through my research to my peers but also take part in the unique opportunity to work directly with patients in recovery at community physicians’ offices, emergency departments, and primary care and rehabilitation facilities. Yale’s tailored program devoted to training and educating the next generation of doctors to tackle crises in addiction like the one facing my hometown is the number one reason why YSM is my top-choice program. 

Why does it work?

• This applicant uses her essay to demonstrate a deeply personal drive toward becoming an expert in a field that matters to her. 
• She clearly explains past research that reads as impressive in its scope and methodology, and she includes results that are both quantifiable (a forthcoming publication) and show promise for her future approach to medicine. 
• Finally, she ties all this in with a direct link to Yale-specific offerings and argues how attending YSM will help to propel her from her past research experience into her future contributions to the field at large. 

Question 3: This section is optional. It should be used to bring to the attention of the Admissions Committee any important information (personal, academic, or professional) not discussed in other sections of your Yale Secondary Application. If you are a recent graduate, please also list your post-graduation plans/activities in the “Additional Information” section and submit any relevant updates for finalized plans/activities as the application year progresses. (500 words)

For Yale’s final secondary prompt, you might wonder, “Is it really optional?” The answer, quite frankly, is “no.” You should answer it.

Why? This “Anything else?” prompt provides you with the opportunity to cover a passion or particular interest/skill that you haven’t yet demonstrated in the rest of your application. Don’t squander the opportunity to further introduce yourself to the admissions committee.

It’s important, before diving in, to take some time to recall what the admissions committee will already know about you—your personal statement and activities list, the previous secondary prompts—and take stock of what other personal attributes will best round out your application. Think through the types of qualities medical schools look for when making their admissions decisions and try to isolate which of these (leadership, collaboration, service, cultural competency) you still need to exemplify.

Many applicants will take this as one of those “excuse any shortcomings in your application” prompts in which you’re supposed to explain why your GPA is low or your MCAT didn’t meet your expectations, but we advise against doing that here. With 500 words available, there’s more important work to be done. 

Here’s the biggest tip we can offer for this prompt: make your own prompt, and explain that prompt when you write the essay. You don’t want the admissions committee reader to be scratching her head the whole time she’s reading your essay, wondering, “Why is this applicant telling me this?” 

Make it clear why you’re choosing to write about a topic by leading into the essay with something like, “In the rest of my application, I’ve discussed how my commitment to X thing (underserved population, research, etc.) will inform my future medical practice; however, I have not yet had the opportunity to convey my passion for Y (the subject of this essay, which you chose to round out your application.)” 

Though what you actually choose to write about in this section (and how you structure your essay) will vary greatly between applicants and depend solely on what else you’ve included in the rest of your essays, by using this simple framing device up-front, you can effectively design your own prompt and then use your essay to create an argument accordingly. 

You should also do your best to use the end of this essay to argue “Why Yale,” as Yale, unlike many programs, doesn’t explicitly provide a secondary essay prompt through which you can argue why their program is the best fit for your goals. Whatever unique trait or passion you argue in this essay, end your response by finding specific ways in which Yale’s mission, culture, and unique offerings cohere with your own values and goals. 

Example:

In the rest of my application, I tried to convey how my past commitment to researching preventative care methods will guide my future medical practice; however, I have yet to be able to discuss my life-long passion for service. I first realized how much serving others meant to me during my undergrad days, when my biggest commitment besides my coursework took place outside of the campus’s walls. I remember learning in a freshman seminar that despite the dozens of top universities in Boston, the city’s public schools in lower-income neighborhoods were short on volunteers to run extracurricular activities such as pre-professional clubs like HOSA (Health Occupations Students of America.) As president of my high school’s HOSA chapter growing up in Texas, I got to meet doctors and nurses who showed me science wasn’t an abstract discipline but a tool to save lives. That knowledge helped me delve deeper into my science education in order to turn those options into a reality. I hoped introducing young high school students to future career possibilities, especially in communities with low graduation rates, might go a long way in inspiring them to complete their education.

I first canvassed freshman biology courses at Dorchester High to garner interest in a student-led HOSA chapter. Once I recruited over a dozen students, I worked as their sponsor to help register their club with the national organization and structure their vision for what they wanted to learn and achieve as a group. From there, I drew on my university peers and educational network to organize guest lectures, a CPR course, and other activities the HOSA chapter wanted. My service to these kids was rewarding, as was seeing how my service propagated more service work as the HOSA chapter began volunteering at the local hospital, assisting with the Boston Marathon, and even joining the efforts of other HOSA chapters to increase support of their volunteer projects.

Seeing how I could lead by example—how through one service initiative, numerous others came about—I came to understand a core aspect of why medicine as a profession is so important: in providing health and wellbeing to one person through medical care, you’re also able to positively impact all the people that person touches and the community those people serve, and this is exactly the kind of work I hope to continue at Yale.

 At Yale, I’ll join the “New Haven Cares” initiative already underway with the program’s Public Health Club, in which I’ll utilize my background working with underprivileged teens in Boston to provide health education to the city’s homeless youth population. I also hope to volunteer with Yale’s “Wellness and Community” program to help educate the greater New Haven area’s unhoused youth on STD testing, needle exchange programs, and other initiatives to improve their quality of living and empower them to lead healthy happy lives. Yale’s commitment to community service is just one of the many reasons the program is my top choice.     

Why does it work?

• This applicant uses his essay to demonstrate a passion for service, an ability to take initiative and collaborate, and a savvy for leadership. All medical schools want you to be excited about patient care; top medical schools often expect you to couple that interest in patient care with an understanding of how healthcare fits into society, intersects with inequality, and can have a multiplier effect.
• This student used his personal statement to talk about his commitment to preventative care, which meant that focusing primarily on service here rounded out his application. He set his essay up on solid ground by communicating exactly that to the admissions committee—he had an area of passion that they needed to know about, and he hadn’t yet gotten to demonstrate it elsewhere.
• Finally, note how he ties in that his commitment to service will contribute to Yale’s culture and that being in New Haven provides unique opportunities to work toward his long-term goal of increasing access to healthcare for all.

Yale Medical School interviews

Just a fraction of applicants receive invitations to interview at Yale, so if you do, take pride in having made it to this stage of the application process. In the 2021–2022 application cycle, all interviews will be held virtually.

Your Yale School of Medicine interview day will consist of an orientation meeting with the Director of Admissions, one 20–30 minute interview with either the Director or Assistant Director of Admissions, and two 45-minute interviews with Admissions Committee members. You’ll also get to attend two meet and greets—one with a YSM faculty member and one with current students—as well as a financial aid presentation.

Prepare to ace your medical school interview by reviewing the interview feedback on Yale’s Student Doctor Network page to learn what interview questions you might face, and be ready to answer common questions such as “Why Yale?” and “Why medicine?” Additionally, know your own application materials forward and backward, and be prepared to discuss anything you’ve mentioned in them, such as your extracurriculars, coursework, or essay subjects.