<p>I have it at 622 and i cut out so much. Is it fine. Or should I rewrite and combine a couple of paragraphs?</p>
<p>That should be fine.</p>
<p>They don't care about ur words. As long as it's a reasonable amount (aka NOT 1000 words!)</p>
<p>Well like my Notre Dame application, it says 400-500 words. 522 words is not overly excessive, but it still deviates from what they ask for. They would not ask for a certain amount if it wasn't important. First it's 22 words... then it's 50.... then 100.... then 500... next thing you know you have a 3000 word essay on the meaning of life and how it relates to going to XXX College....</p>
<p>I disagree... I think 400-500 just gives you a general estimate... adcoms aren't going to cry about having to read an extra 100-200 words. It will take them like 2-3 minutes extra. big deal.</p>
<p>Well this is weird. In Microsoft Word it counts 622 words, but when I copy and paste the essay to the application it says 626 words.</p>
<p>i had the same problem, i think they count words such as cross-country as two words, even though i intended it to be one.</p>
<p>But I should have 624 if they counted those as two words and not 626. And one of my 200 word essays they gave me 207 instead of 202</p>
<p>similar problem, but i re did it and for some reason it came out better. </p>
<p>hint: when you paste and mofify into the uc app, ALWAYS read it there. god knows what could have gone wrong.</p>
<p>It's not like the person reviewing your essay is going to go through and count each word. So it's fine, I think.</p>
<p>Well I believe when they are reading it online. It will have the actual word count.</p>
<p>For some colleges, once they get to the 600th word, they just refuse to read anymore. Where ever you got to by the 600th word, that's it. Of course, I think if it's just like 2-5 words more, they might give leeway, cause 2 words is just puny. 20 words is not.</p>
<p>Yeah... I thought about it and I agree with what syneria said. they probably do have a way to count your words. I'm pretty much on target, off at most by 4 words.</p>
<p>i base my essays on SIZES--500 words is like a page and a half double spaced. There has been essay where i had to do 500 words and less and i did 600+ becuase it was on 1 pages and a half. I think the adcoms have something better to do that count. If your paper is bigger than 1.5 then it is definetly more than 500.</p>
<p>So I should try to shrink all my essays to within a couple of words of the limit.</p>
<p>For UCs, when they came to my school for the information meetings or whatever, the person from Berkeley said they just get a red marker and cross out the words after the 600th.</p>
<p>If your essay reallllllly won't be the same without those 20 words, then leave them, but 20 words is only about a sentence, so if you can cut it down, great... personally, i don't think it really matters if you're a little bit over, most of the requirements say AROUND ## of words. Quality, not quantity - If your essay is good, a few extra words shouldn't hurt, but if it's bad, all the condensing in the world might not make a difference...</p>
<p>Are you guys joking? Syneria? That just sounds ridiculous.</p>
<p>Well I figured out why the application is giving me words than I really have. It counts words with apostraphes two words. So I've is counted as two words.</p>
<p>Just repeating what she told us.</p>
<p>Understand these adcoms; they have thousands and thousands of essays to read. "Just 20 more word" for each of those thousands of essays would be couple thousands more words to read.</p>
<p>But I have to agree with sydney: keep the 20 if you think your essay just wouldn't live without those 20 words; leave 'em out if they're not that crucial.</p>
<p>Paying attention to direction is a crucial part of the applications as well.</p>