<p>I wrote an essay for the Harvard supplement, but it's only 250 words...usually these things are ~500 words. But I feel that it is one of the better essays that I've written, and I honestly don't think I could make it longer without hurting the quality. I've heard that shorter is better, but 250 seems too short. However, one of my friends who is now at Harvard, and was also accepted to Yale, only wrote a 288 word essay for her supplement. Considering that it's optional in the first place, would a 250 word essay be okay to use?</p>
<p>What do you guys think? Should I just use the one I have now? Make it longer? Or scrap it altogether and start over with something I can make 500 words long?</p>
<p>If you want to see it, I can PM it to you (but, for security reasons, only if you're currently a college student).</p>
<p>My daughter’s essays came in under the limits. I think they appreciate kids not compelled to keep talking…she was admitted ED to Cornell. Yes, it’s not Harvard, but just saying…A well-written, short essay would be a dream-come-true for an admissions person. I think it speaks to your confidence and ability to follow directions, without being annoying.</p>
<p>Not at all. I didn’t submit an optional essay and got in. In fact, the optional essay only helps if it is spectacular (remember that among 30,000 applicants, you have a lot of writers who are far better than you), and if it sounds like a boring rehash of how awesome you are, or of your fabulous life experience as a 17 year old, it’ll probably hurt the application. So be minimalist, and rock on.</p>
<p>A friend wrote a 1046 words Cornell essay. He got in ED. Goes to show that exceeding word-limits may be forgiven if the writing is good enough (which I think was in his case).</p>
<p>Harvard had no essay word/character cap, only a minimum. I had a couple of mentors review my writing, and after working out typical word choice errors and some minor big picture items, the finished essay is really spectacular. I know it’s allot, but it is only about 5-7 minutes of reading and I could keep it to four pages with footnotes. I really pushed my skills as hard as I could, I think it’s a fantastic piece.</p>
<p>^Mine currently stands at 1200 or so. No footnotes. Congratulations, sir.
I haven’t had anyone review it (including myself) so it likely needs some editing, but I think it’s pretty good as a first draft. Usually I write just one draft and edit it a bit, my best writing is always in the first draft.</p>
<p>JSKY I only used footnotes to denote where I pulled a quote from a person or article. I don’t like it (and I’m sure adcoms won’t either :D) when someone likes to push that ‘insert footnote’ button in MS word for every little thing. MLA standards only require it for quotes, if you happen to quote a book/person/website/statistic.</p>
<p>Well, you sir convinced me to change a bit in my essay and add footnotes instead of my parentheses. Used mostly for humor effect. The parentheses were bothering me anyway, they were ugly formatting. Think it’s a good idea to keep it this way before I submit? The footnotes are quite short and again, only used for humor (with 1 used for a brief explanation so as not to make the original sentence too long.)</p>