Most MiM applications end with a quiet, easy-to-misjudge prompt: “Is there anything else you’d like the admissions committee to know?” — sometimes labelled the optional essay, the additional information box, or the “anything else” question. It looks like a throwaway, and applicants split into two camps that both get it wrong: those who ignore it when they shouldn’t, and those who cram it with recycled material when they shouldn’t bother. Here’s how to tell which camp you’re in, and how to use the optional essay well when you do. (Schools phrase and cap this prompt differently and change it each cycle, so confirm the current wording and any word limit on each programme’s application page; this is about how to think about it whatever the format.)
What the optional essay is actually for
The optional essay exists because the structured application — your CV, your career-goals essay, your “why this school”, your contribution essay — can’t anticipate everything. It is a deliberate open slot for the two things the fixed prompts miss:
- Context the reader needs to read your file fairly — an explanation for something that would otherwise look like a problem.
- A genuine dimension of you the structured essays left no room for — not more achievements, but something that changes the picture.
That’s the whole job. The word “optional” is honest: if neither of those applies to you, the right move is to leave it blank. Schools include it so that applicants without something extra don’t have to invent it — not as a hidden hurdle everyone must clear.
When to answer it
Answer the optional essay when you can give the reader something specific and useful. The clearest cases:
- You have a red flag to explain. A weak semester or a dip in your grades, a gap on your timeline, a reapplication, a test score below the school’s usual band, a non-standard or hard-to-read transcript, a course you failed and retook. Left unexplained, these invite the reader to guess — and readers guess uncharitably. A short, honest note defuses them.
- There’s real context behind your path. A personal or family circumstance that shaped your choices, a responsibility you carried alongside your studies, a reason your career took an unusual route — anything that makes an otherwise puzzling file make sense.
- A genuine dimension got squeezed out. Occasionally the required essays simply didn’t have room for something central to who you are or why you want this degree. If it’s real and it matters, the optional essay is where it goes.
In each case the test is the same: does this make the reader understand something they couldn’t have known from the rest of the application? If yes, write it.
When to skip it
Skip the optional essay when answering it would only pad. The most common mistakes are all forms of saying nothing twice:
- Restating your CV — listing achievements the reader already has in front of them.
- A second career-goals or “why this school” essay — repeating, in weaker form, what your required essays already argued.
- Manufactured depth — inventing a hardship or a passion because the box is there. Readers see straight through it, and it costs you more than a blank would.
A clean, coherent file with strong required essays and an empty optional section is completely competitive. Filling the slot for the sake of it can actually hurt: it signals you couldn’t tell the difference between adding value and adding words — exactly the judgement a pre-experience degree is trying to assess.
How to write it well
If you’ve decided you have something to say, write it like a scalpel — one job, done cleanly.
To explain a weakness: state the context briefly, take responsibility, and spend most of the space on what you did about it and what changed. The structure is here’s what happened → here’s what I learned or fixed → here’s the evidence it’s behind me. Avoid two traps: the long defensive narrative that protests too much, and the excuse with no ownership. A reader forgives a clearly-owned, clearly-resolved problem far more readily than a hidden one.
Weak: “I would like to explain that my second-year grades were lower than my others. This was a very difficult time and the marking was harsh, but I am a hardworking student and I am confident it does not reflect my true ability.”
Strong: “My second-year average dipped while I was working 20 hours a week to support my family after my father’s illness. I restructured my final year around that lesson — dropped the side work, and my final-year average rose to a first. I mention it only so the dip reads as a circumstance I managed, not a pattern.”
The second version owns it, explains it, and proves it’s over — in three sentences.
To add a dimension: make one focused point with a concrete example, the same way you’d build any profile story — what you did, specifically — rather than a list of adjectives. Then stop. One real point lands; three thin ones dilute each other.
Whatever the job, keep it short. The optional essay rewards brevity more than any other part of the application: if the school caps it, respect the cap; if it doesn’t, treat the restraint as part of the signal.
Keep it consistent with the rest of your file
Two cautions before you submit. First, the optional essay still has to fit one coherent story — your CV, goals, “why this school,” “why you” and this note all pointing the same way. A contradiction here is more visible, not less, because the reader is paying fresh attention. Second, don’t undo the work of the required essays. If your file is strong and self-explanatory, a confident blank is a better answer than a nervous paragraph. Anything you write here you may also have to stand behind at interview.
The bottom line
The optional MiM essay is a judgement test disguised as a free text box. Answer it when you have a real, specific reason — a weakness to own, context to supply, or a genuine dimension the structured prompts missed — and write it short, honest and consistent with the rest of your file. Skip it without worry when your application is clean and complete. The skill isn’t writing the optional essay; it’s knowing whether to.
That’s the approach. When you sit down to write the essays that aren’t optional, the essay section of the Ultimate Guide gives you ready-to-use outlines for the core MiM prompts — one for each of 20+ questions, with the frameworks behind them and what a jury wants to see. For how the prompts fit together, see how to write your MiM application essays; for the writing craft, the essay-writing tips; then map your rounds on the deadline tracker.
Sources & how to confirm
This guide describes general, well-established best practice for the optional / “additional information” admissions essay — using it to explain a genuine red flag or add a missing dimension, and otherwise leaving it blank rather than padding. Whether a programme offers an optional essay, how it is worded, and any word or character limit are set by each school and change every cycle — confirm the current prompt on each programme’s own application page. Nothing here asserts a fixed per-school requirement. Last checked June 2026.