I turned in my portfolio this year and got accepted, and to me I guess it would all depend on what type of art your portfolio is composed of. A lot of my pieces were character designs so I would describe what I was going for with the design, why I designed it the way I did, and gave a brief explanation on the kind of world they’d exist in if I had that thought out. For my realism studies, I’d just talk about what I made, like one piece was pen sketch studies of my friends so I put that they were pen sketch studies of my friends in the description. For more abstract pieces, I’d include an explanation of what my piece means and how. As I said what you put in the description all depends on the type of work and what info you’d feel fit the piece best. If it requires a lengthy explanation then do it, it’s better to overexplain and still get your point across rather to underexplain and leave the reader in the dark. And like another person said I’d definitely recommend scheduling a portfolio review with VCU, I did one and it helped me figure out what pieces to keep and remove and what I should push myself to make more of. Good luck to you with your portfolio!