I know a few people have asked versions of these question, but I was looking for some more insight into optional essays.
I know “it depends” on the school, but I’m having trouble distinguishing when optional essays would be useful for my application vs when it’s not worth it to include one vs. when it would be a bad look not to submit it. Would someone who submits a (good) optional statement be at an advantage compared to my application if I didn’t submit one?
And how do we format these essays if the schools don’t specify?
Some specific examples:
BU has a diversity statement that would be a mediocre essay from me at best. If I don’t submit a response, would they interpret that as “I’m not diverse”?
GW has an open-ended optional statement. I have some other essays I could recycle, but is that even necessary? They’re not bad, but it’s nothing overly convincing.
Thanks everyone!
1 comments
Good question, @ducky!
You've probably seen me comment on a few other posts of this nature but just to say some general advice out loud just in case:
Optional is optional. If a school wanted to make a question required, all they had to do when creating their app was check off a box next to the question. That's it! So if they didn't do it, it's really not required nor would it look bad not to answer it.
But optional is also an opportunity. The greatest complaint from applicants is that they feel like admissions is all about stats. My counter is that I can only use your stats if you don't tell me a whole lot about yourself. The optional docs are an opportunity to tell me more.
And in the case of these docs, my opinion is that:
The BU optional statement is a VERY specific prompt: "Consistent with the American Bar Association, Boston University School of Law believes that knowledge about bias, cross-cultural competency (ability to understand people from different backgrounds and engage with them effectively), and racism are central to the legal profession. Please tell us how your education, training, or experience has deepened your knowledge about "bias, cross-cultural competency, and racism" and/or prepared you to explore these topics at BU Law." It's not about you being or not being diverse. It's specifically about your education/training/experience in bias/cross-cultural competency/racism. Not everyone has direct experiences in those areas and that's alright.
GW's optional statement is really open ended: "You are welcome to submit a free-topic optional statement, which may cover any subject not discussed elsewhere in this application." If you've written a statement of perspective or diversity statement for another school that's somehow about you, your background, the forces that have shaped you, etc, it would be totally appropriate to include that here. And if you haven't written one of those statements yet, you should because that's the most common optional statement you're going to run into.
I hope that helps!