A lot of people are having problems understanding this word limit thing (as did I)
heres few "tips"
1) If you're sending your essay via internet (common apps for example) and the word limit it says is 150 words or less. The limit that the site will accept is 1500 letters. This could mean you max you can write is 130 words or 180 words (depending on the length of your words etc) But generally, you will be able to write more than 150words.
If the limit is 300 then the site will accept up to 3000 letters (including spaces btw)
another type is things like minimum 200 words. yes this means you can write a lot but doesn't mean you can write 1600 word essays. No matter how interesting your topic and how great your writing might be too much is not good. Best range is 600-800. This should be enough to introduce your story/idea and discuss the impacts on you etc.
2) If you're sending it via paper then don't worry so much about the word limits. This way you will be able to write much more than 150 words but not too much. The admissions officers have done this long enough to see that 150 word short answer has been turned into 500 word essay. But you can write more than internet generally.
Just another tip. All essays must have at least half, if not majority talking about yourself and how you have changed for the better because of your experience etc. A lot of people (esp for important people and their influence) talk a lot about the external important person or the event or the story itself and not enough evaluation about how you have changed as a result etc. The admissions officers wants to know about you not about Abraham Lincoln or September 11.
Anyway I hope that clarified for you somewhat. I'm not a great writer as I'm still struggling with my essays. But I hope I was of some help.
Enjoy!
:)
If I've written a 174 word Common App short answer essay, do you think I should try and cut it down?
Good job with the tips btw - I'm pretty sure 600-800 is the safest too. I mean if you were in their shoes would you really want to read hundreds and hundreds of 2 page essays? :P
don't worry about the words, its about the letters. On your word checker, look for the letter count including spaces and if thats above 1500 then you should cut some down.
and thanks!
But I think that the common application's short answer has a limit a 150 exactly, or you wouldn't be able to send it. I tried that before, click save instead of save and next, and it will tell you how much you are over the limit.
However, it's kind of weird cause my personal essay is 5 page and I know that's way too long, but I don't know how to cut it and i sent it just like that. Hope university would accept that.
nah its 1500 letters, because mine was more than 150 words and it still sent. And they can't count how many words you have on the internet, rather how many letters. So everything you send is counted through letters not words. for the personal essay, you're just uploading it so they don't know how long that is. Just the university's job to work it out
its 1000 characters including spaces
yeah 1000 my bad
but you get the point :)
wow thanks for the advice, this is really helpful!
oh gosh its 1000 characters?? mine's 1005! argh. ><
gotta get cutting then i guess...
thanks for the heads up guys!
