<p>i just realized today that on the tufts paper application that the school sent me, it says that the common app essay should be between 200 to 500 words, but on the common app website, all it says is a minimum of 250 words. would it hurt me if mine is 800 words?
is that too long even for normal standards?</p>
<p>800 I think is too long. Remember that the AdCom will be reading so many essays, so keep them short and to the point without losing anything. Reread yours over and over again until you find things that are not important. I'd shoot for between 500-700 words, no more.</p>
<p>I would actually disagree.
The common app used to have a max word limit, but it got rid of it last year. I would give you that annoying english teacher answer: Make it as long as it needs to be to say what you want to say.</p>
<p>I don't know... maybe I'm saying that because my common app essay was pretty dang long...</p>
<p>best of luck
ben</p>
<p>I would strongly encourage you to use 500 words as a benchmark for length. Students who write longer essays do so because they feel they should say as much as they can, but in my experience the longer essays are noticeably less interesting and it becomes harder as the reader to pull out salient details. </p>
<p>It isn't just for the adcom's sanity that you want to write with brevity, though that's an excellent reason to shoot for concision. You don't want to muddle or bury the important impressions about your perspective beneath a preponderance of unnecessary exposition, background, or details. Seek out the post I made a few days ago on the difference between who you are and what you do; the explanation contained there may help explain why 500 words is a reasonable goal.</p>
<p>You can write a longer essay if you need to, but abkid's suggestion isn't far from the mark. Most importantly, you need to know that it is impossible to define yourself in 500 words. Or in 800 words. Or in 5000 words. A complete definition of yourself is not the goal, but rather to expose a small group of critical qualities to us.</p>
<p>"Brevity is the soul of wit."
Read and re-read and re-read your essay multiple times, and ask yourself the question whether a little editing wouldn't leave it just as complete but with few words. Only when you are sure the answer is "no" should you conclude that 800 words is fine. If 500 is the general rule of thumb, and if it's a good essay, I don't think 600+ would be a problem, but 800 strikes me as excessive.
Take a look at the sample essays on the Tufts website. They might give you a good idea.</p>
<p>I would take Titus' advice a step further, especially with an essay that sits around 800 words: can you eliminate entire paragraphs. More often than not, you can knock one out entirely without degrading the quality of information given.</p>
<p>so speaking of essays you write to get acceptance letters -- where's mine?</p>
<p>Here's a little "trick" I learned a long time ago to see 1) if you are revealing the essence of what you want to say and 2) where you might be able to cut it down. It doesnt always work, but especially when you need to cut a lot, it's helpful in letting go of any kind of ownership you may have on the words (aka your ego) and see your words through a different filter.</p>
<p>In a microsoft word doc under "tools" there is an option to "auto summarize" that somehow (and I don't know how exactly) picks out main points, creates a summary or cuts it by 25, 50 or 75%. You can also summarize to 500 words or less, etc. It certainly isn't infallible and I don't suggest doing this and calling it a day, but when my son did this he saw almost immediately where he veered off message slightly and so it was then easier to cut it completely -- even though it was good writing.</p>
<p>modadunn, i am BLOWN AWAY by this discovery! Thank you so much!</p>
<p>That is so cool.</p>
<p>You are very welcome.</p>
<p>I think the CommonApp asks us to upload the essay and you can write more than 500 words. And this year it only requires to write more than 200.</p>