<p>I'm sure this question comes up once a year, but I haven't found a definite answer for it.</p>
<p>Should I put something in the additional information section? I've heard that either a) if you have nothing to add, you're only wasting the readers' time, and b) you can put a why MIT essay here to show your true passion for the school.</p>
<p>Can any previous admitted students (or parents thereof) give advice on what they did? Thanks.</p>
<p>I used the additional section to explain why I did so poorly on my physics SAT II. I got deferred from EA. Then on my mid year report I sent in a “WHY MIT” essay. I felt that from all my essays that one was my absolute best. I also took the Chemistry SAT II in January, improving my scores and got accepted on Pi day 2013!</p>
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Neither of these is exactly the right angle. You should put something in the additional information space if you have something that you feel is worth putting there. It’s not because it’s wasting the readers’ time to put something useless, exactly – their job is to read the application that you craft.</p>
<p>But the readers do have limited time, and you have limited space, so you want to be sure that everything you put in the application is advancing your case in some way. You want the application to be powerful, and diluting the impact of the application as a whole by putting in some optional filler is not ideal for you. </p>
<p>So there’s no one-size-fits-all answer to the question “should I put something in the additional information space?” You should put something in if you feel like you have something worth putting in, and you shouldn’t if you don’t.</p>