<p>as it turns out, the short answer portion on the brandeis app is optional. i have plenty of supplement essays to write as it is, so i currently plan on not doing it at all. but will this diminish my chances of admission? how important is it to do the essay? i mean i guess i’ll end up doing it if its really significant</p>
<p>Brandeis, like most universities, wants to know the most that it possibly can about its applicants. You can’t be there in person to make your case as to why they should admit you, so you have to let you application and your essays speak for you. If you don’t write their essay, you’re essentially leaving a part of yourself out. If your grades are equal to those of another student, the admissions officers will turn to the essays and if yours isn’t there and the other student’s is, then you’re out of luck. So my advice is to write the essay if you actually want to go to this school. Btw, it doesn’t even take that long because it has a maximum of 250 characters or something… its a paragraph… just write it lol.</p>
<p>I’d write it… Brandeis really values level of interest, so for 250 words, I think it’s definitely worth the hour at most that it’d take.</p>
<p>Plus it’s fun imho!!! They had really good questions!!!</p>
<p>Yeah it’s a max 250 words. I don’t like the prompts tho. Especially the would you rather be raised by aliens or robots. I’ll give one of the others a shot</p>
<p>Remember there is no such thing as an “optional” essay.</p>
<p>I don’t get it. Are you trying to say I should write the essays no matter what?</p>
<p>shulie26, shut up</p>
<p>Yes, I mean I haven’t seen the application this year, if it says pick one then you pick one. But last year it was just a “Why Brandeis” optional essay in addition to your regular essay. If it’s the former then nevermind, but if it’s the latter then a good rule of thumb is that there is no such thing as an optional essay. It can do nothing but help.</p>
<p>Well it’s a pick one of the following three type of deal.
I don’t remember all of them off the top of my head but I know the third one is would you rather be raised by aliens or robots.</p>
<p>i did the robots vs. aliens vs. dinosaurs one. definitely the most fun i’ve ever had writing a supplemental essay. i was just so sick of all the “why [insert school name here]?” essays. there was also another interesting one about which law you would change and why.</p>
<p>Yeah I know the prompts are cool, but I have no idea how I’d go about responding to them…that’s why I don’t really want to do them</p>
<p>honestly, if brandeis is a school you’re really serious about, i would suggest writing the supplement. in my opinion, leaving something like that empty kind of makes you come across as lazy and not serious about applying. it’s only 250 words, anyway. and like i noted before, just have fun with it. this is your chance to really be creative with something. and if you’re not a creative person, then i get how this can seem like somewhat of a burden. but again, it’s only 250 words. just churn something out.</p>
<p>…even if it’s not the best thing they’ll ever read? It’s probably not going to come out that great</p>
<p>if you really feel it’s necessary, you can have it edited by friends, family, whoever. but again, it’s only 250 words. if you think your stats are strong enough to get into brandeis, then i wouldn’t worry too much about writing it. but if you’re one of those students who could possibly be on the edge in terms of getting accepting, i would suggest just writing it.</p>
<p>I’m in the latter category. Brandeis is one of my reach schools. I’ll give it a shot I guess =/</p>