a college asks for an essay UNDER 500 words
my essay is 700 words
its ok??
it fits in ONE page
<p>nope. under 500 means less than or equal to 499. many colleges will just cut your essay off at 499 or 500 words. not good for your chances.</p>
<p>Actually, it's usually fine to go a little over the limit if you're submitting your essay on paper (if you apply online, they often limit the field you're pasting your essay into). Trust me, no one's sitting there counting the words and cutting off everything after #500. But 200 words is noticeably over the limit, so unless it's a brilliant essay, they might get tired of reading it and not evaluate it as positively. So try to cut down as much as possible (definitely under 600 words) but don't worry if it's a bit over.</p>
<p>You could get away with up to 550 words probably, but much more than that and they'll realize that it's too long. If it is AMAZING and is probably the best essay they will read all year and cutting anything out will make it much much worse... then maybe you can push the word limit. But it's really to your benefit to stick to the limit. But yourself in their place: You have a HUGE stack of apps to read and you come across an essay that's almost twice the length it should be. You'll probably be thinking "Augh, can't they read directions!" and your frustration could hurt the applicant's chances. Also, I've found that in editing my essays to make them obey the word limit they got MUCH better, even though when I started editing I thought that they was nothing I could take out without taking away from the quality of the essay (HA! I was so wrong!!!). So I really strongly believe that cutting it down so it's at least closer to the word limit would be a VERY wise thing to do.</p>