<p>Common App said the word limit is 250-500 words,
AND I will not be able to type more than 6,000 characters. </p>
<p>But, my essay is 621 words and 2899 characters (perfect one page:)
What should I do? Do you guys think I shoud shorten it more?</p>
<p>it probably should be less than 600 words</p>
<p>75ish over is alright...125 is a little much</p>
<p>Depends on the college really. I usually call and most said "dont worry about it".</p>
<p>
[quote]
(perfect one page
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Hey shoudn't the essay be at least 1.5 spaced? How can a 621 word essay fit on one page. Essays should be an easy reading for adcoms! But if they have specified you to fit on a page, then its a whole new thing.</p>
<p>If you're using Word to count your characters, I'm not sure that it counts spaces and returns but only letters. The common application, on the other hand, counts letters, spaces, and returns. Thus, make sure that you print proof your application to be absolutely certain that it will not be truncated when you submit your application. My daughter, for instance, found that her "additional information" section had just under 3,000 characters according to word, but when she did the print proof, several lines were cut out. Only what shows on the print proof will appear in what colleges see.</p>
<p>That said, I have edited many, many essays and I have never seen a case when an essay couldn't be made shorter --- and read better in the process.</p>
<p>One of my essays for the common app was about 900 words. <em>shrug</em> I needed 900 words to cover my topic well. It fit perfectly on one page on the common app online. Look, they're looking for a well-written, interesting paper that lets them know more about you. If it takes 621 words to do it, then that's fine. That being said, don't be unnecessarily wordy and lay off the adjectives. Show it to your english teacher and ask him/her for advice on shortening it, if you feel that's necessary.</p>