Does my essay length have to be within the word limit? Or can it be a bit longer a that? I just can’t seem to cut the length down to 250 words.
Yeah, you have to be within the word limit. If it has a specific limit, then you have to follow it.
@rdeng2614 Ugh. Thanks for your reply.
It used to be that you could go at most 10% above the limit. i don’t know if that changed. So a 250 word limit could go above by 25 words. That was true through 2013 applications. It might have changed last year.
About 10 years ago a friend of mine worked in the MIT admissions office. She said she and some others would get a little annoyed when applicants didn’t follow the directions. Maybe some of that came from the long hours of reviewing applications.
As @rothstem noted, the sentiment may have swung a little more lenient in recent years.
Who knows if going over is acceptable. Just be careful making more work for the reviewers than they asked for.
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My understanding agrees with that of @jpm50 . If you write 253 words, nobody is going to reject you on those grounds, but if you write 350 words then you cannot follow simple directions. That is a characteristic that does not match well for future success at MIT.