Optional essay

 

icedcoffee13
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You do not need to write the optional essay if you have nothing else to explain. Sometimes, people who otherwise have an excellent profile but feel that their sectional scores do not accurately reflect their abilities use the optional essay to explain this because they have nowhere else in the application to talk about it.

I understand that most applicants address profile shortcomings in the optional essay, such as gaps in the resume. But if I were advising an applicant, I would not limit the discussion of the gaps to the optional essay. Instead, I would integrate them into other essays, explaining the rationale in the personal narrative essay and perhaps adding more in the extracurricular activities section, outlining the activities I pursued and the growth and development of perspective I experienced during that time. Unless the gap is related to a serious health issue, the best B-schools want to understand how an applicant used that time purposefully. Personally, I think it's better to be proactive about an area that might raise questions in order to manage this in the application.

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Best wishes
Aanchal Sahni (INSEAD MBA alum, former INSEAD MBA admissions interviewer)
Founder, MBAGuideConsulting 
LinkedIn |WEBSITE: https://mbaguideconsulting.com/| Message(WA): +91 9971200927| email- mbaguideconsulting@gmail.com­