<p>There must have been a misunderstanding. Michigan cannot control the length of the Common Application essay since it is a single essay that will be sent to all the universities a student applies to. Whether that essay is 250 words long or 1,000 words long won’t matter.</p>
<p>The 250 word limit is for the Community essay in the Michigan supplement. Although there is no word limit for that essay, Michigan expects the essay to have between 200-300 words. More than that will be too much.</p>
<p>The 500 word limit on the field of study supplement is strictly enforced.</p>
<p>I basically find the U Mich website not as user friendly as other Universities.
But I have to say I did see that U Mich wrote that on their website that the Common App essay has to be around 250 words. It was just not that explicitly written.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, would you say that a good 600 word Common App essay that is only read till 250 words by admission officers and thought of as a mediocre essay because the point is not made by 250 words will affect the applicant’s chances greatly?</p>
<p>Btw RODNEY, are you a UMich student right now???</p>
<p>Actually as an international, I feel that US universities still are lacking as it really is
very hard to get the right info to apply there. Like once, my friend who applied to UT Austin, got rejected straight even with with great stats simply because he did not do the TOEFL. This info. of course was not even stated properly in their website. (Btw, this friend did eventually graduate from U Mich).</p>
<p>I guess I am lucky cause I have friends and relatives who have graduated from there who share their knowledge. </p>
<p>And compared the UK admissions which has only 1 portal, I wonder why the US universities don’t want to make the job much easier for all of us.</p>
<p>All applicants are required to submit 3 essay questions:</p>
<p>1 personal essay from The Common Application (250 words minimum)
1 essay related to their community from the U-M Supplement (approximately 250 words)
1 essay related to curriculum from the U-M Supplement (500 words maximum)
We strongly encourage applicants to stay within the given guidelines regarding word limits, including staying close to 250 words for The Common Application personal essay. While a student will not be penalized for exceeding these limits, U-M has found that students are generally able to get their point across within these guidelines. Due to our multi-stage application review process, we prefer that students adhere to these limits to the best of their ability.</p>
<p>The thing of it is, a minimum of 250 words isn’t a guideline! They have no right to limit our acceptances at other schools by forming their own guidelines when the amount of words given is clearly a minimum.</p>
<p>I do agree that it’s bad form to specify restrictions such as they do, but, at least they’re (somewhat) up front about it and there is a workaround to it: Create an alternate version of your main application for UM only.</p>
<p>Somehow, I doubt that the adcoms will stop reading an essay at around 250 words just because it’s longer, especially if it holds their attention. And as a person who sent in her application to UMich almost two months ago, there’s really nothing I can do about it haha.</p>
<p>Plus, I attended a summer engineering camp at UMich this summer, and they had us work on our essays there. I already had mine written (it was just under 500 words), and the instructor for the writing class told me I should elaborate more on a detail and said that I’d be fine adding another 100 words. So…</p>
<p>Yeah, if I would have known before I applied… </p>
<p>It’s not upfront. If they wanted to keep it around 250, they should have this information in the prospective freshmen and applying webpages, but they don’t. Instead, you have to read the FAQ’s which I didn’t because I thought the requirements were clear - 250 words minimum.</p>
<p>^^^ JJJJust: ’ I do agree that it’s bad form to specify restrictions such as they do, but, at least they’re (somewhat) up front about it and there is a workaround to it: Create an alternate version of your main application for UM only. '</p>
<p>While it is true that you can create multiple versions of your main app, this function wasn’t really designed to accommodate a different essay for different universities. The alternate version feature, as described by The Common Application, is used if you “wish to correct an error discovered after submission or provide new information not available when you first submitted the application. It is not necessary to “customize” your Common Application for individual colleges. Individual college supplements and supplemental essay questions should be used to provide special information to different colleges.” So really, this feature should not even exist if used for the purpose of changing your essay for a particular college. The whole point of the common application was to have a unified system in which a student could craft a centerpiece essay and be able to send that off to every college that they apply to. As an applicant, it seems a bit strange to me that Michigan did not provide this suggestion more clearly at an earlier stage in the admissions season.</p>
<p>Mine is way above 250, there is no way i can get my point across in a length of 300 words. But I feel like my essay will hold the reader’s attention throughout the essay. IF they really stop reading around 300 words, thats ridiculous; they should then have their own application instead of doing it through common app. this annoys me</p>
<p>Unfortunately, “should” in theory is a lot different than “how it really is”. They can’t really tell you to write a maximum of 250 words or put the essay in their supplement because its against the agreement to duplicate Common App questions in a supplement or contradict the Common App’s instructions.</p>
<p>They didn’t tell you guys flat out because they know they can’t do anything about it. It’s not like it’s a grand fiat of we’ll reject you if you send us 700 words. They’re just expressing a preference for what they want.</p>
<p>In all, like they ALWAYS have, they only want to see about 1000 words from an applicant.</p>
<p>It used to be: Diversity essay (250 words), curriculum essay (250 words), and personal essay (500 words). The balance has just changed.</p>
<p>The curriculum essay has probably been lengthened in anticipation of the increased number of students who will apply simply because they know it’s a good school and it’s easy to apply with the Common App. Now more than ever, it matters that you’ve done your research. It’s just UMs way of whittling down the applicant pool.</p>
<p>And, since they’ve already said they won’t penalize people for writing more… it’s a rather moot point to begin with. I do agree, 250 words is too short… but at the same time, I can see where they’re coming from: When you start to get 30k essays to read, there just isn’t time to read them all unless they get to the point quickly.</p>