<p>Exactly. In the princeton supplement, the question asks you to answer it in 'about 500' words.
You can either upload or paste in the box provided.
In the space provided (in that box), the character limit is 5000 characters.</p>
<p>I have 2 essays:</p>
<p>1) 529 words
2) 750 words - 4500 odd characters.</p>
<p>Both essays are good, IMO. But I am kinda more inclined towards the longer essay.
So should I follow the character limit or the word limit?</p>
<p>They’d like to see an essay of about 500 words and the electronic format will limit you to 5000 characters. You’ll be OK either way. Do whatever you want. Good luck.</p>
<p>They want an essay of about 500 words. Keep the approx. 500 word limit; it’s what they ask for. The 5000 character limit is simply the capacity of the space provided. </p>
<p>The 5000 character limit is often quite large enough to accommodate essays much longer than 500 words. But I would say it is long just in case some people’s essays have really long words and end up with a lot of characters.</p>