<p>Hey, could you tell me if it's alright if my personal statement is around 960 words? If not, could you tell me how many words your big essay was, and how many your small essay was? Thanks</p>
<p>I know a lot of people say that it's not good to have long personal statements, but I think it depends on the quality of your statement. There really has to be a justification for a longer statement. You should always try to tighten your prose, but if already have clean, articulate prose and 960 is as short as you can make it then so be it. Honestly, my personal statement was about 1100 words and I got in.</p>
<p>Yeah, my personal statement was about a thousand words as well... and even that was AFTER some major consolidations! As such, I wouldn't sweat a longer essay too much.. with one caveat:</p>
<p>My statement was a light-hearted narrative, very easy to skim quickly and still grasp. I would NOT recommend a 1000+ word essay if you're writing is fairly "dense" or complicated...</p>
<p>Anyhow, that's my 2 cents...</p>
<p>I was pretty conscious of keeping my personal statement down. After proofing, etc, I reread it about a dozen times, making an effort to cut out jargon, nonsequitors, words I didn't need. It's one thing to go over the limit a bit, but if you're way over the top, your composition runs the risk of coming across as lazy, as though you didn't bother reading the directions.</p>
<p>Besides, brevity is the soul of wit. ;-)</p>
<p>Relativity rules:D Look, I love reading Dave Barry articles, and I wouldn't mind if they stretch to 960 words, 1001 words or 1 million words anyway. The fact that he got a Pulitzer means a lot of other people think the same. So if you're Dave Barry, don't bother how long your essay is. Otherwise, do try to look at your essay objectively to see if it can captivate the cruel adcoms enough to distract them from its length;) Better still, try to overcome timidity and have it reread by other people. If they get all carried away, you can sleep well tonight:)</p>
<p>Adcoms read thousands of these essays. If yours is really long, they will tune out partway through, or else it will look so daunting when they first start out that they may not give it their full attention. Shorter is better.
My personal statement was about 450 words and I found that I could say what I wanted in that space. It's okay to go a bit over, but probably not more than 700 words. 960 is pushing it way too far.</p>
<p>"If yours is really long, they will tune out partway through"</p>
<p>They could tune out partway through even if it was 450 words. It all depends on what you do with those words. Adcoms usually understand that you, in most cases, can't convey a message (on which your entire future depends) in 500 words. All I can suggest is that, if you see that the quality of your essay will suffer if you shorten it, don't.</p>
<p>Well yes, of course. If it needs to be long, it needs to be long. I'd suggest, though, that you pick a topic that won't take as many words to write about.</p>
<p>My personal statement was something like 508 words. The small essay was 150 words.</p>
<p>Waitlisted then rejected at Harvard, though accepted at Yale (same essays).</p>
<p>thinkjose1, sorry this is really off-topic, but did you have a hook?</p>
<p>I'm editor-in-chief of a publication with a 730,000 subscriber base. ;)</p>
<p>That's quite a good hook. I'm surprised they rejected you.... :( It just goes to show that even a really good hook doesn't guarantee a thing.</p>
<p>To the OP, to be honest, I'm not sure what you could be writing about that requires 960 words, but I hope it's awfully exciting.</p>
<p>But remember: one of a writer's greatest tools is his/her economy. I really think that, with careful editing, your essay can be cut down. I think it'd be in your best interest to at least TRY to do so.</p>