<p>It says to refer to the online application for instructions on the length limit for the essays, but you can't access form 2 until form 1 is submitted, and I'm not ready to yet. Does anyone know what the character/word limit is for the essays?</p>
<p>I'll bump this up for you. :] I know it's been posted here before, but I forgot, and I'd like to know too.</p>
<p>Each short essay is approximately 1600 characters with spacing. Long essay is approximately 4900 characters with spacing.</p>
<p>What does "approximately" mean? will it cut my essay off if it goes above the character limit?</p>
<p>Maybe? You should always do the "print preview" option before submitting your essays to double-check if your entire essay got on the page.</p>
<p>for the short ones yes. for the long one, i have no clue. my long essay is simply one page. I think the exact character is ~1597. if you have anymore characters, it cuts off at the end, so you might be missing a period or some letters if you have exactly 1600 characters with spacing.</p>
<p>4900, wow that seems like a lot. so is it ok if my essay is, say, one or two thousand words shorter? what's the length of a typical essay???</p>
<p>My long essay as of right now is hovering right around the 4850-character mark with 950ish words. So one thousand words shorter would be negative 50 words? lol.</p>
<p>umm chillaxin, this is my opinion only, but I think you should cut that down to about 500 words or at least try lol. just think if you were an adcom, wouldn't you be tired of reading thousands of apps, and then come to yours? but then again, you might be writing an awesome essay; if so, then forget about this post lol.</p>
<p>Hahah, don't worry, I'm definitely cutting it down, though probably to more than 500 words. That draft was actually my fully unedited version, which was more let-me-put-down-all-my-ideas than let-me-word-everything-perfectly. :D Aka, I'm gonna be chopping it up a lot. lol.</p>
<p>oh, thank god, I thought it was 4900 words!!!!
it's characters, lol, silly me</p>
<p>oh, thank god, I thought it was 4900 words!!!!
it's characters, lol, silly me</p>
<p>LOL! Can you imagine being an admissions officer and having to read even one thousand 5000-word dissertations? I'd go nutty.</p>
<p>I won't lol. Some prospective students might bake me some cake or cookies or give me gifts. What could be better than that? In addition to that, you get paid lol.</p>
<p>can someone who has either applied before or has sent in the basic form (form 1) already confirm that the essay lengths are indeed 1600 characters with spacing for short essay and 4900 for long essay? </p>
<p>i, not having turned in form 1, did a little experiment myself by printing out chunky paragraphs in Times Romans font 12 and seeing how much fit in the essay box given in the paper application (i stretched out the margins to be the max length of box so it would fit exactly). I found that the short essay was approximately 1400 characters with spacing and the long essay 3900. this is in no way perfect and i also dont know the font and style given in the online app.</p>
<p>so can someone please confirm the proper essay length given for the online app?</p>
<p>A confirmation: the short essays are 1600 characters with spacing and the long essay is 4900 with spacing. I just finished form 1, and it was a big relief to see those numbers rather than the "about a third of a page" nonsense.</p>
<p>I know this doesn't answer your real question, but we were told at a campus visit that the font couldn't be less than 9 - in case anyone wants to know.</p>
<p>k thanks very much. i guess my 12 font contributed to the smaller the character count i got.</p>