<p>d’smom: It’s not 500 words, it’s only 500 characters</p>
<p>by the way, yours are invaluable pieces of advice : )</p>
<p>Try not to exceed by 10% of the word limit.</p>
<p>OOpps! Sorry, nguyenminhhieuh. You are correct it’s 500 characters. I meant to write characters. I think my son did go over the five hundred character count, but he really tried to make each word count. Originally before he realized the characters available were only 500 he wrote about a one thousand word essay and just kept paring it down until each sentence really was powerful. </p>
<p>I think it’s very difficult writing something of substance when you are only given 500 characters, especially when the question is asking for multiple points of input i/e history, principles, current environment etc…I can see where it would be frustrating for the responder to try to answer all the parts of the question with only 500 characters. I am guessing that many applicants uploaded documents as it says you can do that and it does not say how many words you must keep it to. </p>
<p>I wonder if most stuck to the 500 characters or uploaded a document???</p>
<p>I’m uploading a document. It’s within the word limit but I figure a properly formatted document would look nicer, esp. since I’m doing a ‘top 5’ list. But honestly I would fill up that 500 word limit with ease.</p>
<p>What are your mascot suggestions by the way? You don’t have to reveal the specifics. Mine is a bird species. And no it’s not the eagle.</p>
<p>^When an upload option is provided, I assume that the very small character limit is intended to encourage applicants NOT to type it directly into the box, but to upload. I ended up not doing the CA supplement for Grinnell, though, so I can’t recall exactly how the prompt was worded.</p>
<p>so is everyone writing from 500-550 characters ? Thats only about 115 words!
Is that what everyone is doing?</p>
<p>my S fit it into the box they provided.</p>
<p>I fit it into the provided box as well. I figured if they gave a character limit, they intended for students to follow it. I could be wrong though.</p>
<p>I did not. One is 530, second approximately 600. I know it is a bit more than the box limit, but as someone has already said, it shouldnt be a problem if you upload it.</p>
<p>I managed to fit both. My first one actually turned out to be quite small initially and I had to kinda lengthen it. The mascot question I had to excise a bit.</p>
<p>Hey since the deadline has past, what did you guys put as the mascot?</p>