<p>IhDCpage06.. if it's one of your first choices, why wouldn't you do the optional essay? You must have reasons why you like Duke. To anyone with common sense, optional is not optional in this circumstance if you want to maximize your chance of admission. As was said, maybe leaving it blank won't count against you, but doing it could work for you. It's all in their wording and I question why you wouldn't do the optionaly Why Duke? essay.</p>
<p>ok seriously. you can't take 30 minutes of your time to write a 300 word short answer on why you want to go to Duke. Seriously, i could write a page of why i want to go to duke in like 10 minutes. just do it. stop worrying about it and do it.</p>
<p>I'm a procrastinator, and I had 12 schools to apply to. :( Not a good excuse, but their "Not doing this essay will not count against you" or something like that looked so convincing then.</p>
<p>Well in case anyone cares, I did eventually write my optional essay</p>
<p>I applied RD and did the research summary but not the Why Duke essay. I didn't think that my Why Duke essay would have stood out from all of the others, so I didn't bother.</p>