<p>how much does yale care about the 250-500 word limit. would writing a 603 word essay be viewed negatively?</p>
<p>Mine were 515 and 670 respectively, I think, and I got in SCEA. My advice would be to have lots of other people read it and cut down any unnecessary wordiness. I think the general rule of thumb is don't exceed the word limit by more than 20%, although I didn't really follow that.</p>
<p>I got in early and my common app essay and supplemental app essays were 576 and 790 words respectively. Of course, my specific admissions officer said multiple times that it was ok to exceed the word limit, so you might not want to go that far over depending on who's going to be reading it.</p>
<p>if it's a really good essay, they'll keep reading on ;)</p>
<p>They will read your essay (as long as it's not a novel!) Don't worry.</p>
<p>Again, I was admitted with two ~700-word essays (I think one was actually close to mid-700) Write your best essay, and forget about those word limits (unless your essay is redundant...then, cut words)</p>