6 prompts in the 2025-2026 cycle
Greatest Challenge: The Admissions Committee is interested in gaining more insight into you as a person. Please describe a significant personal challenge you have faced, one which you feel has helped to shape you as a person. Examples may include a moral or ethical dilemma, a situation of personal adversity, or a hurdle in your life that you worked hard to overcome. Please include how you got through the experience, how you handled the uncertainty or stress, and what you learned about yourself as a result. (2,000 character limit)
Gap Year(s) if applicable: If you will have a time gap between college graduation and medical school matriculation, please tell us why you made this decision and what you will be doing or have done during this time. (1,000 character limit)
Additional Information Response: Is there any further information that you wish to share with the Admissions Committee that may not be captured in the rest of your application? (2,000 character limit)
Personal Growth: Based on your current maturity and wisdom, reflect upon an experience from the past few years that you would handle differently today. (1,000 character limit)
Research/Scholarly Work: One of the four pillars of the Western Reserve2 Curriculum is Research and Scholarship. Although research is not a prerequisite requirement for the University Program, if you have participated in research or other scholarly project (capstone project, honors thesis, etc.), please reflect on the experience, including how you learned from it, what challenged you, and how it may have impacted you educationally and professionally. Describe your experience, including the question you pursued and how you approached it, your results and interpretation of the results, and most importantly, any thoughts about what this experience meant to you. Remember that research is broad-based and can include such projects as a senior capstone or a thesis and can include both medical and non-medically-related investigations. If you have not completed research or scholarly project, please indicate that in the text box below. (2,500 character limit) If the details of your project are included elsewhere in your application no need to repeat them here. We are interested in learning what you took away from the experience(s). If you are applying to both the University Program and the Cleveland Clinic Lerner Program, the research response will default to the Lerner College Program required response.
Context of Care: Social and structural factors can influence health outcomes and impact how healthcare is delivered within communities. Briefly describe an experience that has broadened your perspective or increased your understanding of people whose life experiences, backgrounds, or circumstances may differ from your own. How did this experience shape your views on health, healthcare access, and/or healthcare delivery? (1,500 character limit)