Two of my top schools have no required supplemental essays, only optional ones. I don’t want to send in bad essays, but I also don’t want to not write any essays if that’ll hurt my application. Are optional essays really optional or is it better to write them anyways?
The more selective the school is, the less “optional” the essays really are.
The application is your one and only opportunity to convince admissions that you are right for their school. For the life of me, I cannot imagine why any applicant would not want to make his/her application as strong as possible.
An optional essay is real estate. You have little opportunity in the application to help them get to know you, so another essay is a valuable space to give them a view of you from another angle. Your goal is to be 3D, interested, and interesting. Do the optional essays.
At colleges that use level of applicant’s interest in admissions, whether you do optional essays is an indicator of how interested you are.
Well, only if it’s written on something relevant, informative in the right ways. Just producing any old optional essay isnt going to show interest. And what makes relevant is key in showing interest. You’re either interested enough to understand what matters to that school…or not.
Our state flagship (which is not super competitive) said in their info session that “optional” essays are never really “optional.” So my son is planning to do the optional essays and/or personal statements on his apps.
I don’t think there’s any such thing as “optional” in college applications.
They have a limited number of seats. They will choose the applicants with the strongest applications. Knowing what separates you from others with identical statistics strengthens your application.
If your essay would hurt your application, it’s simply a sign of a poor essay. Write one that helps, rather than hurts, your chances for admission.