include one, it will help to organize your portfolio and you can key the projects back to it for easy reference. Its good to present the admissions committee with a brief overview of the projects they will see, maybe including dates completed and studio level. Many MArch admissions portfolios can have up to 8 projects....don't think the format is that restrictive that a table of contents is useless. Remember, the portfolio is also for you, as a published narrative of your work. Don't always be a slave to their format.

I was on an admissions committee at my grad school...

it's easy to pass over the Table of Contents. If there is a page limit I wouldn't waste valuable pages on something someone will not even look at. Also, when I was applying I was told by my profs to limit to 4 solid projects (there are always exceptions), and I agree - I would rather see 4 well-developed, well-represented projects rather than 8 weak ones.

Good luck!

Just because there are 8 projects in a portfolio does NOT mean they are weak. You should never include weak projects but don't feel restricted to just 4. If admissions officers want to pass over the table of contents, that is their right but it doesn't mean that you shouldn't put one in to organize your book. How often do you read the table of contents in other books? Does that mean it shouldn't be there? After all, if someone is going to sit there and count the pages in your portfolio and that one extra page is going to make a difference, you've got bigger problems than the table of contents. I hate to see architecture students being mindless slaves to admissions officers without thinking through the process. The book is for you just as much as for them. Organization and creativity are both good qualities and they will be recognized.

If you're still not sure about taking up the space for a TOC, there are other ways to divide and organize your projects than merely listing them. I've seen people with a key on one side of the page which is distributed throughout the book...or maybe some kind of visual graphic on the side of the book (with numbers or colors or icons) which you can view when you flip through it. A little bit of graphic ingenuity can go a long way!