<p>My Common App essay is really good, but it's ~850 words. Do you guys think that's too much? And how long were some of you guys' essays?</p>
<p>I'm asking this in the Stanford forum because they're my #1 choice, i don't care if MIT or Penn don't like my essay</p>
<p>My essay was 751 words long and my college counselor said that it was a good length, and as long as it is good then i don't think it really matters (unless its too long). I think your fine.</p>
<p>Stanford has SCEA, "they" is a plural pronoun and cannot refer to a single institution, and your essay should be 500-750 words. 850 words is pretty long, almost certainly too long. You should read over your essay thoroughly, decide what you absolutely want to say, and get rid of all the superfluous stuff. My essay was about 630 I believe.</p>
<p>It depends what it looks like visually too. My essay was a bit long by word count but it fit on one page single spaced (standard TNR size 12). They aren't going to count how many words your essay is but I recommend keeping it to ~1 page.</p>
<p>Don't worry bout it! As long as it flows and reads "short" then it could be as long as you can effectively write it. </p>
<p>Mine was 900-950 I think</p>
<p>GS, 850 is NOT too long. Mine was 850.</p>
<p>yeah, it's 850 but it all fits nicely on one page. i should be good, right?</p>
<p>i can't imagine that they won't even read one full page...</p>
<p>You probably had a lot to say. Few people with 850 word essays actually need 850 to say what they want to say. What they land up with is an unnecessarily long essay that rambles at some points, which is the last thing they want. My advice from my previous post here still stands.</p>
<p>They would read almost anything you put there, for the main essay. I don't see them stopping because they think its too long unless its like 2000+ words.</p>
<p>^Right, so the advice can be generalized:</p>
<p>Make sure it is as compact as possible.</p>
<p>Normally a good essay is around 500 - 800 words according to some college essay books.</p>
<p>I was admitted SCEA</p>
<p>And my essay was 642 words. But I doubt the length of the essay matters.</p>
<p>I was admitted EA. Mine was 1300 words</p>
<p>Mine was 850-900.</p>
<p>Mine was 518 words; the shortest so far. However, it was very personal and really showed who I was.</p>
<p>i was admitted and my essay was single-spaced a page and a third/fourth. i don't know how many words that is but def over 500. oh and my activity common app essay went over and i put it into my additional info section as did my why stanford essay. but then again, none of my essays were wordy or repetitive. It's just that I was relying on my essays to show the adcoms who I am and such. my counselor agreed that showing my full essays was important. the question you should be asking yourself, therefore, is whether your extra words add anything to the picture you are presenting stanford? will they be blown away such that the extra time they have to spend reading your essays won't frustrate them?</p>
<p>Umm crap.. mine is 305, 280 and 340</p>
<p>i agree with neurochik in that even though mine was so long i feel like it was something they needed to read in order to understand who i really was. if you are writing about something interesting that really attests to how you provide a unique life experience then i dont think length is something to be concerned with (within reason)</p>