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If you are looking for guidance on the Queen’s Health Sciences supplementary application, including application essay essay examples and templates, then you’ve come to the right place.
This Application Prep guide is fully updated with this year’s 2022/2023 application (i.e. for applicants planning on starting the program in Fall 2023).
IMPORTANT: The Queen’s Health Sciences Supplementary Essays will be available starting November 1, 2022. This year’s application will ask students to write 2 SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAYS from 3 randomly selected questions. Keep reading to learn how to approach these.
Before you dive in, it’s important to understand that the admissions committee receives thousands of applications every year. To help you stand out from the crowd, you need to demonstrate a clear sense of self, strong life experience, and exemplary communication skills.
Our ‘full student’ coaching process does exactly that. If you’re not working with a coach, be sure to read our Self-Awareness, Goal-Setting, and Interview Prep Skills Guides.
The Narrative Communication Approach™ is a particularly useful storytelling framework that helps you tell a clear and concise story, while creating an emotional connection with the reader. We typically use this approach for personal/moral essay questions, like those from Queen’s. All of our Queen’s Health Sciences essay examples and templates use this approach.
However, we know that you’re applying to a Health Sciences program, and you’re probably used to STEM problem-based essays where you make data and evidence the stars, not personal connections. Our Deductive Communication Approach™ will help you write compelling essays that present a straightforward hypothesis and then provide compelling arguments and data to support it.
You can use either one of these approaches for your essays, but make sure you connect with a coach to make sure you’re choosing the right approach for unique interests and experiences.
For more information about Queen’s Health Sciences, check out this page and don’t miss our Queen’s Health Sciences Program Guide.
Similar to last year, the 2022/2023 Queen’s Health Sciences Supplementary Application is made up of 3 randomly generated questions. You must answer 2 of the 3 questions.
Each essay must be 2,000 characters or less (including spaces).
On October 1, 2022, you can start applying to Queen’s through the Ontario Universities Application Centre (OUAC) (and you must complete your OUAC application by February 1, 2023).
The deadline to submit the 2022/2023 Queen’s Health Sciences Supplementary Application is February 15, 2023.
You are also encouraged to complete and submit your Equity Self-Identification Form by February 15th.
REMEMBER: Queen’s Health Sciences no longer follows the previous November, December, and January submission cycles as it did for all applications before 2021.
You will have 30 days from when you access the questions on SOLUS to complete and submit your essays. If you do not submit the first randomly generated set of questions by 30 days, another set of 3 questions will appear for you to complete.
IMPORTANT: The last day to submit your essays is February 15, even if you received the questions less than 30 days before that (i.e. if you got the questions on January 30, the deadline is February 15, February 29 even though that’s 30 days).
You can see how many days you have left to complete the questions on SOLUS, shown here:
Many students ask us how the Queen’s Health Sciences Supplementary Application is evaluated.
Similar to last year, Queen’s Health Sci makes their evaluation rubric public to all applicants so that they can submit the strongest possible application.
You will see that there are 3 main evaluation criteria, each of which are rated across 4 possible scores (Distinguished, Capable, Basic, and Unsatisfactory):
Here’s what the evaluation rubric looks like:
There is also a final evaluation area, called ‘Communication Clarity’, rated either Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory. Improving real-world skills like communication is an essential part of our ‘full student’ coaching methodology. To make sure you get a ‘Satisfactory’ on the Communication Clarity part of your evaluation, read our Narrative Communication Approach™ Guide and our Deductive Communication Approach™ Guide.
The courses and assessments in the Queen’s Health Sciences (BHSc) program focuses on teaching students a set of 7 key skills (or ‘core competencies’) to help their graduates be better healthcare providers.
These core competencies are:
So, what does this mean for your Queen’s HS application? You want to show your potential in as many of these areas as possible, through your experiences, interests, skills, goals, etc. This will show the admissions committee that your values are aligned with their teaching philosophy and that you have the potential to excel in the program.
For example, when discussing your experiences, you could talk about a time when you had to go above and beyond to collaborate effectively with a team (i.e. the ‘collaboration’ competency), like a group project at school or as the captain of your school’s debate team. Or, you could talk about how you developed your leadership skills (i.e. the ‘leader’ competency) while volunteering at your local hospital and you took the initiative to create a support group for patients and their families on the floor you are working on (i.e. the ‘health advocate’ competency).
You don’t have to be an expert in all these areas, but the important thing is to show that you’ve thought about them and are already making the effort to develop each core competency.
Want to learn how to articulate how your unique skills, interests, and experiences are aligned with these evaluation criteria? Connect with a coach for support.
Below are Queen’s Health Sciences SE questions. The questions you receive will be randomly generated.
As you’ll see, most of the questions can be separated into 2 types of questions: Personal Questions and Moral Questions.
Personal questions focus on you: your experiences, the people you know, your interests, etc.
Moral questions prompt you to discuss issues like diversity, inclusion, injustice, and equity, and discuss how your experiences, learnings, and identity influence your opinions, beliefs, and biases.
IMPORTANT: While the questions come out in a random batch of 3 questions from the above list, we notice applicants will almost always receive 1 Personal Question, 1 Moral Question, and 1 either Personal OR Moral Question.
Having trouble choosing an experience, interest, person, or issue (depending on the question you’re asked)?
Select questions that will allow you to:
Keep reading for breakdowns/tips, templates, and examples for both types of questions. If you have questions about this year’s application and need help writing your essays, connect with a coach for 1-on-1 support.
If you’re applying to Queen’s University for the Bachelor of Health Sciences (BHSc), or you’re simply interested in learning more… Read more
The Personal Questions are all open-ended and are designed to help the admissions committee learn more about you and your experiences, values, skills, interests, and goals (learn more about how to answer personal questions in our Interview Prep Guide here — these can be used for written or video/in-person questions).
As mentioned above, some of Personal Questions include:
Remember that your reviewers only know the surface level information, like your name and high school grades — they know nothing about who you are as a person, where you come from, and how your experiences have shaped your personality, interests, and goals.
These questions are your chance to make a lasting first impression and show what makes you unique and a perfect fit for the Queen’s BHSc program.
You need to go beyond the surface and provide deep insight about who you are. The admissions committee wants to see that you know where you’ve come from (and where you want to go). You might not realize it, but displaying your strong self-awareness will help set you apart from other applicants — that’s why we’ve written a whole blog about it here.
If you have completed your Student Identity Blueprint™ and gone through the Discovery phase of our coaching process, these types of questions will be easy for you to answer (if you haven’t, connect with a coach to get started).
The most important thing to remember when writing these essays is to constantly refer back to the Supplementary Essay Rubric we discussed above. Your essay must have all three evaluation criteria: Positionality and Lived Experience, Connection, and Personal Growth.
Using these criteria, the Personal Questions should draw upon a significant life experience, circumstance, or person that helped you form your identity (Positionality and Lived Experience) and impacted your life to such an extent you experienced deep learning (Connection) and set yourself on the path to where you are today to accomplish your personal, academic, and career goals (Personal Growth).
If you need help answering a Personal Question and creating an essay that gets you a “Distinguished” mark in these three criteria, connect with a coach now (and keep reading for templates and examples to help you as you’re writing your essays).
Here’s a Queens Health Sciences SE template for the question: “Tell us about an experience that shaped who you are today.”
COACH’S TIP: While each template will change depending on the question, you can easily form your own template by reading our Narrative Communication Approach™ and breaking down the question into the 5 components listed below. Connect with a coach to talk out your storyline and get started on your template and essay.
As mentioned above, if you prefer to use a more problem-based approach, use our Deductive Communication Approach™. Before getting started on your essay, connect with a coach to determine which approach is best for your interests, experiences, and goals.
Here’s a sample Queens Health Sciences essay example response for the question: “Tell us about an experience that shaped who you are today.”
REMEMBER: This is an EXAMPLE ONLY and is NOT meant for you to copy. Why? First and foremost, this is plagiarism and is a serious offense. Plagiarizing these essays will result in immediate disqualification from the admissions process. This can be easily detected using technology and application reviewers are usually trained and/or able to spot when an application isn’t original and does not align with an applicant’s background, personality, values, etc.
The moral questions give you the opportunity to discuss your worldview and beliefs.
They are meant to gauge how you interact with others, question and challenge certain assumptions, and apply your beliefs and values to your experiences and use them for personal growth.
As mentioned above, some examples of Moral Questions include:
In your personal questions, you talked about your experiences and relationships, and learnings/growth you’ve had from those. The moral questions take it one step further to see how these things have shaped your actions, identity, and outlook over time. The admissions committee wants to know what your position in life is (and how it’s different from other applicants).
Just like the Personal Questions, you want to make sure your answers focus on the Supplementary Essay Rubric. Your essay must have all 3 evaluation criteria: Positionality and Lived Experience, Connection, and Personal Growth.
Using these criteria, the Moral Questions should draw upon a significant experience, circumstance, or dilemma that shaped your identity (Positionality and Lived Experience) and caused you to form, change, or reinforce your beliefs and/or values based on what the impact it had (Connection). These beliefs have shaped how you interact with the world and have influenced the personal, academic, and career path you want to take (Personal Growth).
If you need help answering a moral question and creating an essay that gets you a “Distinguished” mark in these three criteria, connect with a coach now.
Here’s a Queen’s Health Sciences template for the question: “Describe a time when you witnessed something unjust. How would you respond to that situation now?”.
You’re investing a TON of time, money, and energy towards your future. You’ve gotten the grades, done a bunch of… Read more
Here’s a sample Queen’s Health Sciences essay example response for the question: “Describe a time when you witnessed something unjust. How would you respond to that situation now?”.
REMEMBER: All of the examples in the guide are EXAMPLES ONLY and they are NOT meant for you to copy.
While preparing to submit your university application can seem super stressful, just remember that all this hard work will totally pay off once you get that acceptance letter!
To help get you a bit more excited about possibly attending Queen’s Health Sciences, Youthfully Insider, HanShu, created this Day in the Life of a Queen’s Health Sciences student. Check it out below!
If you are looking for guidance on the McMaster Health Sciences (BHSc) Supplementary Application, as well as essay examples and… Read more
For over a decade, we have worked with thousands of students to help them achieve more than they ever thought possible.
Our coaches have a strong success rate supporting students as they apply to Queen’s Health Sciences, among other top university programs.
Our 1-on-1 Youth Coaching fills that gap that most high schools miss. We can help you build self-awareness through probing questions and assessments, set bigger goals to elevate your extracurriculars and future career plans, and improve skills that matter on supplementary applications, such as interviewing, written communication, critical thinking, and creativity.
We use a coaching methodology, called ‘full student’ development, that’s been proven to increase your chances of admission to top-tier universities and obtaining competitive jobs/internships.
So, what are you waiting for? Fulfill your post-secondary potential with the mentorship and coaching you’ve always wanted! 🙂
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IMPORTANT: Want to share information and/or images from this resource on your own website, blog, article, etc.? Please ensure you reference content of any kind published by Youthfully Inc., in whole or in part, using the following statement: (1) Our Organization (Youthfully Inc.); (2) The title of our content/resource; and (3) the URL to our webpage where the content was originally posted. For example: “Sourced from: Youthfully Inc., ‘Queen’s Health Sciences: Supplementary Essay Examples and Templates’, https://www.youthfully.ca/queens-health-sciences-supplementary-application/.”
Not doing so is an infringement of copyright and is illegal. We spend significant time developing resources for students, so please take a few seconds to ensure they are referenced properly.
DISCLAIMER: While the information in this blog is considered to be true and correct at the date of publication, and although our team makes every attempt to ensure that the information is accurate and vetted by university staff, Youthfully is not in any way liable for the accuracy of any information printed and stored or in any way interpreted and used by a user.
Youthfully is the world's most committed organization to youth coaching and undergraduate admissions support. We empower students to unlock their full post-secondary potential through a holistic coaching approach we call 'full student'.
2022/2023 Essays
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