I’ve been starting on my college essays and decided to tackle some of the Apply Texas prompts. But after starting, I found that I’m not quite sure of the parameters. If anyone can answer these questions, it’d be much appreciated!!
Bump. I need to know as well.
@starrynight20 the school you are applying to via the ApplyTexas portal sets the essay rules, in this sample page: https://www.applytexas.org/adappc/html/preview16/frs_essay.html you can see Texas A&M asks that “If you are submitting your essay online, it must be no longer than 120 eighty-character lines of text (including spaces and blank lines).” Or if you are sending via mail: “Unless otherwise specified, your essay should be typed and no longer then one page (8 1/2” x 11")."
I wish it were more clear,
Psy
The limit is definitely 120 eighty-character lines. If you write a lot, it’s incredibly brutal when you have to chop things out that had sentimental value to you. Happened to me, but I believe I got my point across.
There is no minimum that you have to write, so take as many or as few lines as you need, so long as it fits within the limit. Something that I also ran into: if you have a word that accidentally spills over, the page will cut off the whole word and you need to remember to fix it. I don’t know if they fixed this since I last used AT.
Write confidently. You’ve made it this far. Make NO mistakes in grammar, spelling, etc. You want to convey that you’re intelligent! As well, be careful: if you qualify for automatic admission under the top 10% rule in Texas, that doesn’t mean to just slop the essays. The automatic admission means you’re just admitted to the university, NOT your major. Your admission to your major is determined by your application. Thus, make sure you actually try!
@psywar & @cameraphone: This means I’m going to have to go back and edit my essay…a lot 
The specifications are so weirdly specific for submitting online (120 eighty-character lines), and so general for mail (simply one typed page).
Thank you guys so much for your help! Any words of wisdom for my second question? And I was wondering about short story format in general/for Common App too, not just for the Apply Texas prompts. Any help is greatly appreciated!
Well, I should clarify: YOU don’t have to keep track of the 120 eighty-character lines. The website will do that for you. And to clarify from earlier, I should also say that because the computer keeps track of that for you, if a whole word spills over the eighty-character limit on one line, it’ll automatically move to the next line, but you’re penalized for that space also; that is, it eats up available space. For example,
The above quotation spans 160 characters. Eighty characters are represented by different colors. Notice that the color is different in the midst of the word “should”. This is because we reach eighty characters prior to the completion of the word. The way the Apply Texas application would handle this is to move the word to the next line, but still penalize you in terms of lines. So here’s what would happen:
Now, notice how we’ve used up THREE lines now since again, we’d have a break in the middle of the word “candy???”. This can add up REALLY quick if you’re not careful–do not just assume that you get to use all 9600 characters because more often than not, you don’t. What happened to me is that I ended up like 40 lines over the limit and had to cut it down.
Hope that makes sense.
And you may do short-story format, but try to incorporate some type of analysis or explain your revelation if you have one. Sometimes the prompts are open-ended and ask you talk about a time that xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx happened.
Ahh, I see! Thank you for such a clear post! Definitely clears up some of the confusion I had! So when Apply Texas opens on August 1, I’ll be able to see if my essay is within constraints. But, it’s nice to know that the computer will do the counting for me! Again, thank you so much!!