<p>Okay people, i am in the middle of a crisis here.
I just finished writing my essay (and had it revised many times) for the common application and I ended up with 858words, although the CommonApp specifies that the essay should be 250-500words.
The major problem is that, if I shorten my essay, I am certain that it will lose its cutting edge, and end up mundane. The quality as it is right now is nearly as good as it can get (I believe). Despite the length of my essay, it nevertheless fits in the page. So the question is..... do the admission officers care about the length of the essays? Will they get annoyed if my essay is beyond the word limit? Should I shorten it, even if it might degrade the quality?</p>
<p>i was in your same position. i finished two essays and loved them. but then i used that devilish tool known as word count and found that one was 1,024 words and the other was 829. I kinda gave up because i thought there was no way i could cut it down to 500. But if u look at it from time to time, every new read will yield somewhere that can be cut. believe me it took me like...4 weeks, revisiting the essays every 4 or 5 days. now both are 600 which I think...i hope is good enough.</p>
<p>My son found that when he did on-line applications, word count above the limit would be automatically cut off. And the word count did not always match the word count his computer gave him. In the end he had to edit,edit, edit to get his essays down. You have lots of time to work on your essays, so like thelittleone said, revist your essays in 4-5 days and see what you can cut out. Ask someone else to read your essays & make suggestions about what to cut. You can find ways to shorten them. The last thing you want is to find your essays cut off by the computer. Good Luck</p>