<p>Started on my Stanford app. The first 350 word essay on
'career interests' seems optional. Is 'undecided' acceptable?</p>
<p>Is any optional piece on an app ever really optional?</p>
<p>to answer your 2nd question, "optional" is a code word used by adcoms that means "weed out those who aren't dying to get into our school". Sure you can skip the optional parts, and if your dad lives in the White House or you're all-state in a big-time sport it probably won't matter. But for the rest of us mere mortals, devoting as much time to refining "optional" parts of the apps as you do to the stuff shareable among other apps is time wisely spent.</p>