This piece — "A Pandemic College Essay That Probably Won't Get You Into Brown" (satire!) — has me flashing back to a dad, a total stranger, who called me out of the blue years ago, wanting me to persuade his (grown) son to write an LSAT addendum because the son had taken the test in the air conditioned comfort of some room at Penn but had experienced a bad hemorrhoid flareup.

Yes, a hemorrhoid flareup.

I told him,

"You know I just got off a Skype call with a military guy who sleeps in a container in Djibouti — look it up — and he took the LSAT where things go BOOM, and he's not writing an LSAT addendum … and if you were the admissions officer reading those files, what impression do you think that hemorrhoids addendum is going to make? Who do you think will do better in law school, in legal practice, and in the world?"

I bet the son didn't even know his dad was calling total strangers to talk about the son's hemorrhoids.

With any non-required piece of writing that you want to include in your applications (or that your dad wants you to include in your applications), ask yourself what impression that is likely to make. Sometimes a non-required piece of writing is helpful, but more isn't always more. 😬