<p>Ok, so I pretty much know the answer to this, but I'll ask anyways. If you go over the word limit on an essay scholarship contest, do they even consider the essay?</p>
<p>Trust me: Scholarship committee members -- who are busy people -- have a lot more to do than to count words. I have been on scholarship committees, including national ones.</p>
<p>That being said: Do your best to stay within word limits because it can be very irritating to committee members to have to read essays that are clearly much longer than what was requested. Typically, too, the essays that are much longer than was requested are too long because the write didn't take the time to edit and delete the fluff and redundancies.</p>