<p>When they say that the Common App essay should be 250 to 500 words, is that a relatively strict limit? If I went up to 650 or 700 words, could that count against me?</p>
<p>650 is a little too much. Try to keep it to below 600, if you must go over 500 words.</p>
<p>Personally, I'm REALLY paranoid about these things, so as it turns out, my meaningful activity essay (limit 150 words) is 149 words long, and my main essay is exactly 500 words.</p>
<p>Despite the fact that admissions officers ARE swamped in applications, they're looking for any excuse to admit powerhouse student A over powerhouse student B.</p>
<p>One software that exists can count the number of words in an essay if you just scan the essay in as an image (pretty neat huh?) It takes about 2 SECONDS to do (only exception is if you have a crappy computer, in which it could take around 30 seconds or so), and I'm pretty sure that adcoms at the extremely selective schools would do that.</p>
<p>After all, if writer A can put excellent ideas in 500 words while writer B can also put excellent ideas in 600 words, writer A is most likely the more proficient writer because he/she is able to utilize the english language so that not as much space is needed.</p>
<p>i don't think adcoms are word-limit nazis. as long as your essay is in one page, single-spaced, 12 font, I think you're fine</p>
<p>i don't know... (but then again, I'm paranoid). I also doubt that adcoms are word-limit nazis, but hey, I don't want to give them ANY reason to reject me.</p>
<p>I still think 600 words is really pushing it, because it's an increase of 20% from 500 words (that's a good chunk!)</p>
<p>They ask for 500 or fewer words, and that's what I'm giving them.</p>
<p>Whenever we submit manuscripts for publication, the journal will definitely put a limit on the length of our abstract, say, 300 words. When they scan our paper into their machine, they check, and if we ever put out something like 301 words, they'll send the paper right back to us and ask us to delete one word from the abstract.</p>
<p>Well, try to put yourself in an officer's shoes. If you're presented with 10 seemingly identical applicants (you can only accept one), 9 of them have awesome essays at 550 words, and the 10th one also has an awesome essay at 500 words. Which one are ya gonna take? The guy who worked to remain within the given limit, or one among the other 9 who did not take your instructions of fewer than 500 words as seriously?</p>