<p>I suddenly got an inspiration this morning and wrote my entire essay in 3 hours. I love how it sounds. Problem is, it's about 1000 words long and I've read from past threads that 500-650 is the norm, despite the nonapparent max limit for the main common app essay. </p>
<p>Personally, since this is my first draft, I know I'm gonna be hacking this one up in editing. I'm guessing I could cut it down to maybe 800 after a few edits. Is it still too much?</p>
<p>Mine was 1100 words and I was fine. This was hacked down from 1300 words.</p>
<p>Thank you for this post!</p>
<p>I just wrote a 1000 word essay, and I feel like cutting it down will take out too much substance...</p>
<p>Ah that's good. I guess I won't be editing this one too much then.</p>
<p>Are there any other people out there who wrote ~1000 essays and still get into good schools?</p>
<p>Mine are 594 and 621 :)</p>
<p>I'm still planning to edit, but I was wondering if any people had some more recent thoughts on how long the personal statement on the Common App should be. There is no limit stated or recommended...</p>
<p>Anybody who applied in the 2007-2008 school year and is going to college about now have any thoughts? Please help!</p>
<p>The length of someone else's essay has exactly zero bearing on how long your essay should be. Maybe someone else's essay is good at 1000 words. That's their essay. Not yours. Yours should be as long as it needs to. So if it is an 800 word essay, then get lazy and let it stay 1000 or get crazy and make it 500.</p>
<p>That said, you probably can cut far more than you think and make your essay better. You are most certainly not the best judge of what needs to stay. Get other people to read it, read it out loud, read it on paper, read it in more ways than you can possibly think of, before you decide that you absolutely can't cut anything. Chances are you can.</p>
<p>On the contrary, what if it's too short? Say, 300-400 words?</p>
<p>My first draft is about 750 words. I will get it checked by a few people, so hope to, in the process, cut it down to around 700 words or less. By the way, I am using Georgia font and 1.5 spacing. Will that be a problem? Single spacing seems too congested and double spacing seems.... Anyone?</p>
<p>I had a similar question -- but especially regarding the supplementary essay on an extracurricular activity. Would it be all right to go over the limit? How far is that limit, really?</p>
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<p>I use the exact same font and spacing. o_0 Double spacing to me seems over the top, while single spacing is too dense.</p>
<p>Mine's about 700 words long. Eeek. =(</p>
<p>wow! i did the same thing as you, except at like 1 am. funnily enough, my brain somehow works better when it's fatigued to the extent that it does not realize it anymore. in a space of about 2 hours my mind started gushing ideas, words kept on flowing, and the essay was complete. mine's also on the long side, like 1000 words.</p>
<p>I know a girl who wrote a full two page essay. She had me edit her conclusion for her and all I did was delete the fluff and it went from being 6 lines to 3.</p>
<p>Mine's about 570 words. =]</p>
<p>Not too long.</p>
<p>And I get the message across! :D</p>