<p>Is it pretty much recommended to do all three optional statements (short essays) for the application? Or would it be okay to do 1 or 2 of them?...</p>
<p>FYI- as an engineering applicant, son hates to write. He did not do any optional essays/statements on any application to any school and did the minimum allowable in terms of length also. He was accepted at every school he applied to (some with honors program, many with merit).</p>
<p>I guess it’s the overall application/recs that count.</p>
<p>From what I’ve heard though the essays have changed recently. I’m a current senior and when I applied there was only one short essay and the prompt was something like “How will you bring diversity to VT.” I left it blank and was fine. If you think you have something good to write for the short essays I’d say go for it, it certainly can’t hurt and it could make the difference in getting you in.</p>