<p>I completed my application and sent in my maker portfolio just yesterday. I did not write anything in the optional section as I felt I had answered all the questions truthfully and I believe those are the things MIT wanted to know about me.</p>
<p>However, I am seeing threads saying that it isn't really optional and we should write it. Should I write an additional essay and ask for it to be included in my application?</p>
<p>Thanks people :)</p>
<p>I felt the same way as you did and didn’t write anything in my optional essay. If you think of anything later that you want to add, as I did, you will have another chance when you send out your midyear report.</p>
<p>
These threads are wrong. The optional section is fully optional, and you shouldn’t feel pressured to put anything there if you don’t want to.</p>
<p>Thanks Mollie! 
But just wondering, generally, would submitting an essay give you an edge? Considering that it is extra information. (or might it hurt you?) I was thinking along the lines of since MIT has emphasized and reemphasized that they want to know about the most important things to us, giving them extra information that are considered “less important” might just hurt us in that sense :)</p>
<p>It’s hard to say in any specific case.</p>
<p>In my opinion, you want to present the strongest case for yourself that you can, and you want to do that in the most direct, clear, easily digestible way possible, since the readers only have limited time to read and understand your application. So in that sense, you want every piece of the application to be as strong as possible, and to contribute to a coherent overall picture of you. To the extent that extra material isn’t as strong, or it is confusing or unclear, I think it can dilute that strong picture and hurt your application.</p>