200 words or 750 characters???

Colleges and Universities A-Z California Institute of Technology
1

<p>Hey Ben: </p>

<p>Sorry if this has been answered before, but I don't see it on the active threads-
The summer acitivities portion of the application asks for around 200 words but the field on the web form only allows 750 characters, including spaces and punctuation. So my son just killed time trimming his 190 word response down to the character limit. Ideally the character limit should be increased; failing that shouldn't the word limit on the form should be decreased or at least the character limit should be made explicit in the question?</p>

2

<p>I'll have a better answer for you soon, too, but part of that is controlled on the Common App side and there are certain technical constraints (like how much text fits on the paper). But I will get on it and let you know the outcome.</p>

3

<p>My suggestion is to use the supplementary information field to continue any answers that are hard to fit adequately in the space. And if something on the app doesn't make sense, your son should always feel free to call admissions or email them. They're extremely friendly and can help out in a jiffy.</p>

4

<p>Hi Ben, thanks both for the specific advice and the suggestion to contact admissions, both make sense. But the main point of my post wasnt to ask advice, but to get you to get Caltech to improve the wording on its common app questions to take into account the character constraints the app imposes; my son was annoyed to write a 200 word essay as per spec and then find that the word limit isnt the biding constraint. He had his wisdom teeth out yesterday and has thus taken a break from the applicaiton-writing, but it's almost done and he should be able to wrap it up tomorrow.</p>

5

<p>Isn't it a bit late to change the box seeing that probably over half of the applicants have already submitted?</p>

6

<p>Well, presumably for next year. I've passed the suggestion on to be looked at, we'll see what happens.</p>

7

<p>I had the same difficulty with the summer activities box -- so I just inserted my response in the "additional info." section. Fortunately, the AdCom. did not object (quick glance skyward, accompanied by "thank you, thank you").</p>

8

<p>Well son got all his apps done, yay!
I hope people at Caltech like chocolate-for the "something intersting" box he typed in a chocolate mousse recipe.</p>

9

<p>not the Culinary Institute of Technology</p>

<p>;-) <em>giggle</em> I do like chocolate though.</p>

10

<p>but I do hope they like snails...escargot!
I am a snail.</p>