<p>The common app says that the penn supplement is supposed to be 250 words, but the penn's pdf supplement says it should be no more than a page long, which is about 650-750 words. I'm not clear on what the policy is here, can someone please clear this up?</p>
<p>There are two different essays that you have to write: one for the common app. (250 words MINIMUM, not maximum), and one for the Penn supplement (one page maximum). The common app. also requires an additional short answer (150 words maximum).</p>
<p>Of course, Penn will get all 3 of these.</p>
<p>For several of the dual-degree and specialized programs, Penn also requires another essay in addition to the main supplement essay or, in the case of the case of the Marketing and Social Engineering program, instead of the main essay.</p>
<p>No, the Penn supplement on the common app has 1 essay for me. And it says 250 words maximum.</p>
<p>Not sure what you’re talking about. Here’s the Penn Supplement–see #7 on page 2 (“Application Essay”–1 page maximum):</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.admissions.upenn.edu/forms/PennAppSupplement_2011.pdf[/url]”>http://www.admissions.upenn.edu/forms/PennAppSupplement_2011.pdf</a></p>
<p>And here’s the link to the Common App.–see the 5th page (“Personal Essay”–250 words MINIMUM):</p>
<p><a href=“https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/DownloadForms.aspx[/url]”>https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/DownloadForms.aspx</a></p>
<p>Again, these are 2 different essays, and BOTH are requried for an application to Penn (except for the exceptions I noted above).</p>
<p>I understand what you’re saying, and I think you’re misunderstanding the point I’m trying to get across. I’m aware of the common app essay in the writing section of the application process. However, under the Penn supplement, I have a problem:</p>
<p>From the common app, it says, "Answer the essay on a separate sheet of paper, confining answers to one page only (250 words). (Applicants to the Market and Social Systems Engineering major should skip this question and only answer the program-specific essay question in the Program-Specific section.)</p>
<p>Considering both the specific undergraduate school or program to which you are applying and the broader University of Pennsylvania community, what academic, research, and/or extracurricular paths do you see yourself exploring at Penn?"</p>
<p>Now, I’m wondering if the 250 words is a limit? Because answering this question with a 250-word essay will not allow me to elaborate greatly, thus a brief essay</p>
<p>The parenthetical phrase “250 words” does not appear in the hard copy of the Penn supplement available on Penn’s web site. If there’s an inconsistency with the on-line version available on the Common App. site, I’d suggest calling the Admissions Office to find out which is correct.</p>
<p>However, I’d bet that there is no 250-word limit, given that it’s not mentioned in the hard copy available on the Penn web site, and it wouldn’t make sense given the directive to confine the answer “to one page only.”</p>
<p>I called the admissions office this morning and they said one page DOUBLE SPACED, and so this means roughly 250 words. the guy i talked to said he would suggest not going much over 250 words. hope this helped!</p>
<p>They should state that on the hard copy (and in the PDF on the Penn web site).</p>
<p>Guys, chill out. Almost everyone I know who got into Penn last year wrote about a page single spaced - some even wrote more than 1 page, although just a little bit more. The length of your essay is definitely not what is important. Yes, you should be concise and get to the point, but at the same time, you WANT to say everything (important) that you want to do at Penn… for me 250 words is like 10-15 sentences max… not nearly enough. </p>
<p>Believe me, the officers will only have a problem with a long essay if it rambles on and on about something that could clearly be expressed in fewer words. </p>
<p>Bottom line, if your essay is a page long single-spaced and you know in your heart that it really can’t be any shorter and still convey the same message, then you are 100% fine.</p>
<p>Admission officers will always tell you to write as short as possible because every year, they read a plethora of unnecessarily long essays that are both boring and poorly written.</p>
<p>Do what you need to do.</p>
<p>The guidelines for last year were different (no mention of 250 words on Common app). There was also the p 217 essay last year. I think adcoms frankly just got tired of reading all of that.</p>
<p>Yeah, I dunno if I’d take the risk of a single-space page, even if I had that much to say…
I mean, honestly, if I was an adcom I’d probably be annoyed as soon as I saw it was a full page.</p>
<p>So what’s the general consensus? 250 words is barely anything, but a page double-spaced is a <em>little</em> longer. I’m still annoyed that they put in the limit. I had written half of the essay before it came out on the Common App, and that in itself was 300 words…</p>
<p>I think that most people applying to Penn are doing so online via the CommonApp. Most except possibly those on this forum are checking the online Supplement against the paper version, possibly because the version on [Penn:</a> University of Pennsylvania](<a href=“http://www.upenn.edu%5DPenn:”>http://www.upenn.edu) came out before the CommonApp version. I’d just go with what’s online via the CommonApp. Apparently this was confirmed by PennLover.</p>
<p>OK. I managed to cut my 800 word essay to one page…but it’s like 340 words, but still one page double spaced…Do you think the adcoms would really care (ie. word count + count it against me)?</p>