There are two optional secondary questions that are common to most applications, one that you can always answer and one that you should only answer if it is appropriate. We covered the former yesterday and the latter below.
Have you experienced any hardships?
If you have experienced hardships regarding your health, family, finances, or any significant interruptions to your education, share them here.
If you have not experienced such hardships, don't exaggerate a small hurdle or massage any facts to answer this question. A hardship prompt is different from an adversity prompt. We've all faced adversity in our own way. But an optional secondary question about hardships is exactly that —optional.
We once had a client write in a draft that she lived in a medically underserved area. Her home state was in the top 10 medically underserved states, but this description applied to rural parts of the state and areas of her city deeply affected by poverty—not where she lived. We counseled her to remove that answer from her application and we routinely caution against using embellished responses to prompts and interview questions.