Every year, students repeat misconceptions and bad advice about how to write a personal statement. The internet is awash in videos and articles by amateur experts who just finished their admissions process and are trying to advise anxious students about how to write the “perfect” essay to get into colleges. Students often find their peers compelling, especially when those peers giving advice got into some fantastic colleges themselves. The reality, however, is that there is no secret to the perfect essay.

Really, those students don’t actually know why they got into a particular college—even a highly selective one. Colleges are not in the habit of telling students why they were accepted. Students just find out, “hey, I got in!” (cue excited screaming and IG/snap stories). It may have been the essay, or it may have been their GPA, extracurriculars, or a clutch recommendation. More likely is a combination of all of these.

The “additional information” box is used differently by so many colleges, it can be tricky to understand what constitutes an appropriate use of these boxes. This section is truly optional. There is no reason to fill out this section if you have nothing relevant to add.

But if you do have something that might be relevant to share, let’s talk about the Additional Information section. There are a lot of tabs, sections, and subsections to the Common App, so we will start by telling you where to find the Additional Information tab and what’s in this section. Then we’ll talk about some things that you might put into the Additional Information, and some things to definitely leave out of this section.

How long will your student’s application be looked at? Fifteen minutes, tops. Maybe as little as eight minutes. Considering there is demographic data, transcripts, letters of recommendation, and activities to contend with, too, what about the essay? How long does that get? Try two, maybe up to five minutes.

Two to five minutes. Students will agonize for two to five months over something that will be read in two to five minutes. Granted, it will often be read by multiple people at each college. And it will be read at each college your student applies to. But still… two to five minutes.