If medical school applications are in your future, Georgetown University School of Medicine (GUSOM) may be on your list. Georgetown boasts a curriculum based on cura personalis—care for a patient’s mental and spiritual well-being in addition to their physical health—plus plenty of enviable research opportunities due to its status as one of only three medical schools in Washington, D.C. Georgetown also has one of the lowest medical school acceptance rates in the country, which means that getting in poses a challenge for even the best applicants.
In this guide, we’ll cover all the information you’ll need to submit a successful application to Georgetown’s medical school, including how to write stellar secondary essays that will make you stand out among Georgetown’s tens of thousands of applicants. Read on to find expert advice and real-life Georgetown med school sample essays, plus Georgetown’s admissions requirements, statistics, and other information you’ll need to apply.
First, let’s go over the programs that Georgetown offers. There are several different ways you can get an MD through GUSOM:
As you might expect based on its prestige and selectivity, attending Georgetown isn’t cheap. The cost of first-year attendance in the 2024–2025 academic year is billed at $74,133 for tuition and fees alone. With fees, living expenses, and other costs, GUSOM projects their total first-year cost of attendance to be $110,917.
With an acceptance rate of just 2.84% for the class of 2026, admission into GUSOM is highly competitive. Here are admissions statistics for the 2023 entering class:
Furthermore, Georgetown states that a “highly competitive applicant” will have a GPA over 3.6, while a “non-competitive applicant” will have a GPA under 3.0. Similarly, an MCAT section score under 125 is considered non-competitive. Use this information as a barometer to determine if Georgetown is a reach, target, or undershoot school for you.
Additionally, Georgetown notes that the following coursework, though not required, is considered useful:
Beyond coursework, Georgetown also looks for applicants to demonstrate hands-on experience in clinical settings, research, and service to underserved communities, as well as leadership.
To apply to Georgetown, you’ll need to have taken the MCAT sometime in the two years prior to the year you apply. For example, if you’re applying in the 2024–2025 cycle, you can submit an MCAT score taken between January 2022 and September 2024.
In order to apply to GUSOM, you’ll need to submit your application via AMCAS. Let’s take a look at Georgetown’s application timeline:
*These dates are based on the 2023-2024 cycles as new dates have not yet been released for the 2024-2025 cycle. We will update this guide with new information as soon as it becomes available.
Georgetown employs rolling admissions. Thus, we advise you to submit your AMCAS application during early summer in order to move onto the secondary application phase as soon as possible.
Because Georgetown does not pre-screen AMCAS applications, everyone who submits an application to GUSOM will receive a secondary application. Again, responding quickly is important to demonstrate your interest and to take advantage of rolling admissions. The earlier you submit your application, the fewer people you are competing against for the greater amount of spots.
If you submit and have your AMCAS application verified before July 1st, you should expect to receive your secondary application invitation within the first 5–7 business days of July. If your AMCAS application is verified on or after July 1st, your invitation should arrive 5–7 days after verification.
If you make it to the next stage of the application cycle, you’ll be invited to interview at Georgetown with approximately 4–6 weeks’ notice. In past cycles, interviews for the MD program have been conducted between August and February, with offers of admission issued between October and July.
Georgetown’s secondary application consists of three essay questions, two of which are limited to 1000-character responses—around two paragraphs—so remember that brevity and clarity will be key. The final question gives you a bit more space to be expansive.
Let’s take a look at the questions and some example essays.
Question 1: Are you/will you be enrolled in any program during the 2023-2024 academic year?
Question 2: Have you ever completed one of the following Georgetown Programs? (check all that apply):
Question 3: The Georgetown University School of Medicine (GUSOM) strives to ensure that its students become respectful physicians, with cultural humility, who embrace all dimensions of caring for the whole person. With our Jesuit values of Cura Personalis, People for Others, and Community in Diversity, we are steadfast in our commitment to racial justice and to addressing the health inequities exacerbated by the recent pandemic. Please describe how your values, life experiences, and your identity will contribute to these GUSOM priorities. (1000 characters)
This question asks for a variant of the diversity essay, which we’ve covered extensively in our guide to medical school secondary essays. Head over there for more insight on writing convincingly about how your unique characteristics or background will contribute to Georgetown.
It’s worth noting that the question explicitly mentions Georgetown’s mission of cura personalis and its emphasis on “all dimensions of caring for the whole person.” You’ll want to make sure that your essay can convince its readers that whatever aspect of yourself that you choose to write about will contribute to this specific mission.
Since I graduated from college four years ago, I’ve been a mental health services coordinator at a nonprofit serving unhoused women in Los Angeles. Despite its challenges, I’ve found this job extremely rewarding. I’m able to help women access the mental healthcare that they need to improve their lives. This work has shown me how consequential it can be to nourish and care for elements of our health beyond our physical bodies. As I’ve gotten to know many of the women who seek help, it’s also become clear that a lack of access to mental health services can often be a factor in one’s path towards housing instability. This work has made me reconsider many common assumptions, which I too held, about poverty and mental illness, and has helped me develop a greater sense of empathy and open-mindedness. I believe that these qualities will be an asset as I embark on my journey through medical school, and I hope to be able to share all I’ve learned with the Georgetown community.
What works in this essay?
Question 4: Is there any further information that you would like the Committee on Admissions to be aware of when reviewing your file that you were not able to notate in another section of this or the AMCAS Application? (1000 characters)
Question 5: Why have you chosen to apply to the Georgetown University School of Medicine and how do you think your education at Georgetown will prepare you to become a physician for the future? (3000 characters)
