College Essay 500 Word Limit Text

One of the most common questions we get from applicants is, how strict are schools about word limits in their admissions essays and personal statements? while the answer itself is rather straightforward, we often encourage applicants to stop focusing on the number, take a step back, and consider what admissions officers are really communicating when they put forward a word limit. First, well answer the question directly: schools are not out to reject you for going over a word limit by a small amount. One rule of thumb that is frequently tossed around is 10%, although its worth noting that admissions consultants tend to promote this rule more than any admissions officer does. However, if you can stay within 10% of the word limit for an essay, you probably are okay. Having said that, we rarely encounter an essay that we dont think can get down to the word limit.

This is where an extra pair of eyes can be extremely helpful someone else can look at your essay and give you an objective point of view about which details are truly necessary and which ones can be left on the cutting room floor. But, if the limit is 500 words and youre at 530, then your time may be better spent on things other than trying to hack another 30 words from your essay. Now that weve covered that, lets think about what admissions officers are saying when they assign a word limit to an essay. In essence, theyre saying, after reviewing thousands of applications, were very confident that you can thoroughly answer this question in this many words. Even though you know yourself far better than the admissions officers do, they know the process very well, and theyve heard it all. They really do want to get to know you well, but they only have so much capacity, so they need their applicants to communicate their stories as efficiently as possible.

As an applicant, if you know this and understand the challenge that admissions officers face, then thats what will guide your decision. Questions such as is 525 words more okay than 535 words? suddenly seem moot compared to is an admissions officer going to feel like i wasted her time when shes done with my essays? the former question is the kind of down in the weeds issue that the uninformed applicant will focus on the latter is the kind that a smart, prepared applicant will ask. Its sort of like watching a movie if you dont like a movie and its longer than two hours, you will probably mention the length of the movie when you tell youre friends not to bother seeing it. That movie was unrealistic, boring, and way too long! but, if its a great movie, the length will never come up. You wont even notice the length youll just know that you enjoyed the story and were glad that you made the journey with the main character.

You dont have carte blanche the word limit that admissions officers provide isnt an arbitrary one but the quality of your essay is more important than the actual length. If it does its job well by answering the question and helping admissions officers then admissions officers wont think about the word limit nearly as much as the content. On the other hand, if theyre halfway through your essay and theyre already thinking to themselves, how much longer will this go on? then you know that the essay missed the mark. Again, having excellent content does not allow you to flagrantly disregard word limits. Were saying that admissions officers, based on their considerable experience, know how long an essay needs to be to be great. A shorter essay can also be great, and so can a longer one, but one that is too long risks boring or annoying tired application readers. One final note: you would be amazed at how accurately application readers can estimate an essays word count just from one glance.

Yes, they read enough essays every year that they can tell whether you went over the word limit just by looking at the essay on the page or, increasingly, on the screen. Around the offices here at veritas prep we find that we can usually guess an essays word count within about 25 words, just by looking at it. Admissions officers will still read your essay even if its long, but know that they may already start to form an opinion about you before theyve read the first sentence! if youre ready to start building your own application for ross or other top mba programs, call us at 1 800 925 7737 and speak with an mba admissions expert today. You'll be able to access the story from your reading list on any computer, tablet or smartphone. The common application widely used for college admissions by high school seniors has set a 250 500 limit for the essay as part of the 2011 12 college admissions season because essays written without any limits had become too long and poorly written, the organization said.

Some counselors complained about the change on an e list used by college admissions counselors at high schools, saying they are worried that students will not have enough room to adequately display their writing abilities. But officials for the common app which is accepted by 415 college and universities say the change is only a return to a practice that had been used for 31 years before the unlimited essay experiment started four years ago, and that kids will be helped by the limit. Executive director rob killion and director of outreach scott anderson sent an e mail to the e list explaining the decision, and here’s part of their response to complaints about the change: to give you some history regarding how we arrived here: after a four year experiment with no maximum essay size, we are simply returning to the practice of the prior 31 years in specifying a 500 word maximum.

Our board of directors re instated this maximum word limit at the unanimous recommendation of our counselor advisory committee and our member advisory committee. Both groups indicated that the lack of any guidance regarding a maximum size over the last four years had led to essays that were far too long, less well written, and, at the end of the day, often skimmed rather than read by admission officers. In addition, the absence of a maximum size proved to be confusing for students particularly those without access to counseling who simply did not know when to stop writing.

Any maximum size we might have chosen 500, 750, 10 would have been subject to criticism in some quarters as arbitrary either too short or too long. Since there is no magic number that would be acceptable to all, we returned to our historic 500 word limit, which allows an applicant approximately two double spaced pages to express their thoughts and writing skills. Colleges that want longer writing samples can ask for them on their supplements, as many of them already do.

Finally, the additional information section/upload remains available for students to use as they wish. The essay prompt says: please write an essay of 250 –500 words on a topic of your choice or on one of the options listed below, and attach it to your application before submission. This personal essay helps us become acquainted with you as a person and student, apart from courses, grades, test scores, and other objective data. It will also demonstrate your ability to organize your thoughts and express yourself. That has had an influence on you, and explain that influence. a range of academic interests, personal perspectives, and life experiences adds much to the educational mix. Given your personal background, describe an experience that illustrates what you would bring to the diversity in a college community or an encounter that demonstrated the importance of diversity to you. follow the answer sheet every day by bookmarking valerie strauss covers education and runs the answer sheet blog. Should i stop at the 500 word limit? last year the common app changed the word limit on the main essay from no limit to 250 500 words.