<p>Does it look bad if there is no supplemental essay?</p>
<p>yeah, it shows you don't care.</p>
<p>plus, on their site, where they give "advice for applying" they say "The Yale application tries to get at the personal side of the applicant through the use of two essays," which sort of implies they're expecting both.</p>
<p>Untrue. If you have a strong application without it, you'll just weaken it by adding on a not good essay. There was someone on here last year who got in without one, as have many in the past.</p>
<p>i dunno I've heard conflicting advice about this. Someone on this site who applied EA had a regional representative who said that the optional essay is not really "optional" if u wanna get in. On the other hand, people who haven't written it seem to have gotten in last year. It's up to u, but I wouldn't write it unless it shows a side of u that cannot be seen ne where else in ur app.</p>
<p>write it...definitely shows you care</p>
<p>i think i said this before, but do you really want to wonder if you could have avoided deferral/rejection by writing that extra essay? it's one more oppurtunity to show them why they should take you. i wouldn't squander any oppurtunity given me.</p>
<p>from the yale website:
"You should think carefully before submitting supplementary material. There are many successful applicants who submit only the items that we require. There are also cases in which mediocre submissions or too many extra items can work against a candidate."
if it wasn't optional they wouldn't call it that...it's not like a hidden test to measure how much you care.</p>
<p>theres a big difference bw supplementary material and the "optional" essay. my regional rep basically said that its NOT optional.</p>
<p>Yep, the adcom at my info session said the same thing. This is NOT supplementary information. It's basically a mandatory essay. Apparently you stack the odds against you if you don't submit if. Why even do that to yourself?</p>
<p>I truly truly chose the most important thing I had to say for the primary essay. Thus, I am having trouble thinking of a topic for the second that wouldn't be repetitive. That's why.</p>
<p>Honestly, Yale's supplement is the best. its actually an OPTIONAL essay, unlike harvard and princeton's stupid topics. harvard's are especially bad</p>
<p>Harvard lets you write anything you want for your essay, so does Yale's. What's the difference?</p>
<p>harvard and yale are the same. princeton just has two short essays... not that bad!</p>
<p>That's weird...the Yale rep who came to my school said the optional essay = completely OPTIONAL. He's the one who'll be first to read my application anyway, so I guess I should trust him. Maybe it depends on the regional representative and not Yale in general?</p>
<p>That scares me to death. My admissions rep. said it was optional, too - hopefully I can trust him enough to take the process literally. I think that if Yale meant for the optional essay to be required, they would call it the "Optional Essay for Serious Applicants."</p>
<p>My main essay is so good that I wouldn't want to write anything else! haha</p>
<p>It really depends on who is reading your application. All yale admissions people don't think of the application the same way, no matter what they say.</p>
<p>I don't get why people are worrying about this...</p>
<p>Control+ C, Control+ P other essay from other school...</p>