<p>Is it okay to attach another essay in this space?</p>
<p>yes, it is.</p>
<p>Is it ok to respond in that space or are readers looking for you to mail something separate (as in on a different piece of paper)?</p>
<p>I personally have a ~350 word essay in that part of my application.</p>
<p>Would a 700 word essay be overkill?</p>
<p>Probably. That’s longer than my Common App Essay lol.</p>
<p>I have heard that often times these “optional” sections are not truly “optional”. Does anyone know if this is the case with MIT? Are there any more examples of what people have put in this space?</p>
<p>I think you can put research project abstracts in here. Is that true? Should I put my abstract in here, another essay, or can I do both?</p>
<p>
The optional sections on the MIT application are certainly optional from MIT’s point of view, but from your point of view, they’re like extra credit – not required, but potentially quite helpful to your application. You shouldn’t write something there just to have something there, but you should think about what your application might be missing, and how to fit that in.</p>
<p>
Sometimes people use the space to expand on an extracurricular activity that they weren’t able to explain elsewhere in the application. Sometimes people explain something weird about their school’s grading system, or about their education. Sometimes people include another essay. And, often, people write nothing at all. It’s really just a free-form space for you to include whatever you think needs to be included.</p>
<p>
You can put anything you want in this space. The admissions officers have mentioned before that they often find descriptions of research (what you’re doing, how you got into it, and what you’ve learned) more useful than project abstracts.</p>
<p>@Bomal: When I applied there was an actual optional essay prompt (“Tell us about something you created.”) which I think has since been removed. There was either a 1000 word limit or none at all. I submitted an 850 word essay.</p>
<p>The format and prompts for this section has since changed somewhat since then, but I would guess that a 700 word essay would still be okay.</p>
<p>i was wondering if it was okay to put a a small essay on the prompt tht mit used to have “tell us about something you have created” in the optional section or should i try an weave it into the extra curricular activities description??</p>
<p>I think the length cutoff is about 600 words now. Not sure tho.</p>
<p>^ Yes, from what I tried the cutoff seems to be about 600 words, which is a major bummer if your abstracts (or essay contextualizing the research) exceed the length. Molliebatmit, PiperXP said to stick to this limit, but is it okay to fax additional stuff that exceeds the limit? P.S. Sorry for the piggyback…</p>
<p>It’s not entirely clear to me what the current policy is on supplemental information. It used to be that any and all additional information could be mailed or faxed, but I am not sure that is still the case.</p>