overthinking the importance of the optional essay

[Jean-Ralphio Saperstein]

i didn't write the optional essay as part of my application because i had a good personal statement and i didn't want to drag it down with a sub-par essay. will this negatively affect me?

i have a cGPA of something like a 3.79 (on the 4.33 scale) and a 165 LSAT. 

[Pendragon]

33 minutes ago, Dee said:

i didn't write the optional essay as part of my application because i had a good personal statement and i didn't want to drag it down with a sub-par essay. will this negatively affect me?

i have a cGPA of something like a 3.79 (on the 4.33 scale) and a 165 LSAT. 

Yes. Your GPA and LSAT score is below the median and the optional essay is not really optional, especially if you are a borderline candidate. 

[scooter]

If you're looking for reassurance, sadly I don't think you'll get it here. Yes, you probably should have written the optional essay. It's not necessarily a negative mark against your application on its own, but you gave up an opportunity to further differentiate yourself from the competition. Your application is being judged relative to everyone else, and most people probably used the additional 2500 characters to further strengthen their application.

btw, OLSAS uses a 4.0 scale so it would be more helpful to include your OLSAS GPA rather than a 4.3 scale GPA in your posts.

[Yogurt Baron]

2 hours ago, Dee said:

i didn't write the optional essay as part of my application because i had a good personal statement and i didn't want to drag it down with a sub-par essay. will this negatively affect me?

i have a cGPA of something like a 3.79 (on the 4.33 scale) and a 165 LSAT. 

Why assume your essay would be subpar before you'd written it?