<p>Are they really optionaL? Will you most likely not get interviews if you choose not to fill them out?</p>
<p>Yes, they really are optional. You are much more likely to not get an interview for writing an essay which is not justifiable put in the optional space than for not putting anything.</p>
<p>Usually optional essays are for things like hardships, specific circumstances like applying with a spouse, etc.</p>
<p>Hmmm, my DD looked at them as a place to help the adcoms get to know her better, unless there was some special designation like hardship.</p>
<p>I agree with MCD’s analysis.</p>
<p>Write all essays, unless it would be inappropriate to do so. For example, I always skipped the “diversity” essay and the “hardship” essay if they were option. My life has not been all that hard, so writing a hardship essay would constitute whining. And nor am I all that diverse by academic admissions standards, so writing a diversity essay would demonstrate that I misunderstood what they were looking for.</p>
<p>However, I wrote all other essays. This is particularly important for school interest essays. “Why do you like Mt. Sinai in particular?” This is the equivalent of a girl asking you why you want to take her to prom. You’d better have an answer, and you’d better have a good one.</p>
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<p>Will this work: ‘Because she’s drop dead gorgeous and every other guy will be jealous as heck?’ :D</p>
<p>Where it’s true, those girls usually don’t ask that question. You will notice that HMS doesn’t have such a question on its secondary.</p>
<p>LOL. BDM’s answer, once again, strikes to the heart of the question. I like this way of thinking about the question. Seems like a lot of the schools I applied to had inferiority complexes.</p>
<p>another unrelated question. How do you let schools that don’t have secondaries know you are really interested in them? I am applying to quite a few schools with no essay secondaries that interview a very small percent of applicants. Would sending letters/updates/calling them to show interest be looked on favorably to get to that point?</p>
<p>Cornell has such a question and they didn’t care too much for my blunt answer. NYU liked it though, interesting these two ladies.</p>
<p>Yeah, you need to be careful about telling them they have a great group of friends (are located in a nice city). Obviously that’s nice, but the question will then be: so why not take one of them (apply to a different school in the city)?</p>
<p>On the topic of Cornell, I mentioned how I liked their location in New York, but I also mentioned how their unique curriculum is effective and makes medical education less boring. However, I still had the feeling that I was merely regurgitating information from their website, and 200 words is not a lot to fully express myself. Obviously it is too late now, but what tips do you guys have on how to approach questions like these?</p>
<p>I mean, again the analogy holds. You can’t just go off of her yearbook page. You have to take what you learn from that page and really think about it. If she quotes from her favorite book, you have to talk about another book from the same author. Or at least a different quote from the same book.</p>
<p>More importantly, you have to apply it to yourself. It isn’t “you’re good for me,” it’s “we’re good for each other.”</p>
<p>And of course, the most poignant narrative would be: “I’ve been waiting for you all my life.” And when you show her that the quotes on her yearbook page align exactly with the extracurricular work you’ve been doing all along? Bang.</p>
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My D’s experience went like this…If she had nothing to say, she didn’t do that good a job saying anything. Schools she was excited about, she had no problem finding something to say. Unfortunately for her, I think the also-ran schools saw it that way, too. But it worked out great in the end.</p>
<p>to BDM …what about when the “obstacle/adversity you have overcome” question is not optional. I too consider myself to be fortunate, fairly well-off and not disadvantaged in any way. I have no real obstacles that I really had to overcome, other than some academic ones where i withdrew from a course here or there…how does one go about answering this question on a secondary if it is mandatory question?</p>
<p>Unfortunately you simply have to make something up for that. “While my life has been extremely fortunate, I did experience one moderate difficulty – largely of my own making. When I examined the situation, I chose to respond with x, y, z – and to do a, b, and c to ensure that it never happened again.”</p>
<p>If you can come up with a way to work in one of my favorite quotes from a work of great literature, you can: Some use privilege as a way to evade our responsibilities. I hope to use privilege as a way to expand mine.</p>
<p>–Okay, this isn’t an exact quote.
–Okay, it’s not really great literature, either. But I like the Bourne Ultimatum!</p>