<p>So i emailed Brown admissions asking to clarify the optional paragraph–i basically wanted to know if i could use the space to highlight something else about me, and not just for crazy things like arrests or something</p>
<p>and this is the response i got…</p>
<p>"The optional essay section is a chance to explain unique circumstances, or disclose other important information. There’s no need to use the space for information that can be accounted for elsewhere in the application.</p>
<p>Best wishes,</p>
<p>Brown Admission Office"</p>
<p>That didn’t really clear it up for me lol…what are you guys doing with the space?</p>
<p>I feel like it's only for things that are REALLY important. Maybe extenuating circumstances for bad grades or whatev. Or, like you said, explaining arrests (or disciplinary action in school.)</p>
<p>It's for people that want to write about something really significant that happened to them. Something like a death in the family or illness or something like that which could have impacted their grades or performances at school.</p>
<p>yeah even i am really confused about this. Does it have to be about something that affected your grades or performance? like does it have to be an explanation or justification of some sort or can you just write about any one thing that basically impacted your life in a non-academic way?</p>
<p>Like the others said, it's not necessarily somewhere where you need to write anymore about <em>yourself</em>; you have the rest of the application to talk about you. For instance, my father was addicted to drugs and alcohol since I was in 7th grade and he was arrested and sent to prison during my sophomore year. During that time period there was a noticeable decrease in my grades. There's really no where else in the application where I can talk about this so I'm writing about it in that box.</p>