<p>In the word document of my essay, the word count is 649, but when I pasted my essay in the box in the Writing tab in Common App, it says that my word count is 641. Should I be worried? Do I need to go through and check to make sure that it was pasted correctly or is this simply due to a formatting difference?</p>
<p>common app and word use different algorithms for calculating word count. They won’t necessarily be the same. </p>
<p>That is true, but you should also make sure that all of your paragraph breaks carried over. Mine often don’t, which causes words to be “stuck” together where there would normally be spaces, causing for a lower word count than I originally had. Often, when I put spaces in, it bumps up my word count. Just double-check.</p>
<p>LAMuniv, yep, that happens when you cut and paste from MS Word. I’m guessing its a coding mismatch for what used to be called a “hard carriage return” (typewriter lingo). Likely some last-minute finishers won’t even notice it. Maybe it’ll be fixed when admissions counselors at customer colleges start seeing lots of 641-word 1-paragraph essays.</p>