<p>Does Harvard really care if your essay is over the 500 word limits. All of the supposedly good essays that I see in essay books are definitely way over the limit. </p>
<p>do you think that Harvard would care if both my essays were around 700 words?</p>
<p>Hmmm I hope not, seeing as mine was ~600 words and I've already sent it in...I heard somewhere that they cut it off at 500 words, but I doubt it.</p>
<p>There is no real word limit, and they don't cut it off. My personal statement two years ago was 750 words, and my additional essay was over 1000 words. However, what is important is that your essay is CONCISE. There shouldn't be a lot of extra stuff lying around. Some stuff may seem relevant, but it often doesn't tell the adcoms anything, so you can eliminate it. If you go significantly over 500 words, you should make sure everything contributes something to the essay and is of excellent quality. Longer=better IF AND ONLY IF you have something more to say which is really worth saying.</p>
<p>well said.</p>
<p>i disagree with phoenix, the reps which came to our school said that if they want the reader can stop reading at 500(they know by eyeballing). so its a gud idea to be short. </p>
<p>ps harvard doesnt cut but i still kept mine ~500 words (503 words)</p>
<p>I don't get the essay length debate. If they ask you to limit your essay to about 500 words, why is it hard to understand that they want you to limit your essay to about 500 words? Yale even has an FAQ this year saying "and we really mean it":
[quote]
We ask that you respect the word limits we suggest. Will we read the words beyond 500? Yes. But if your essays are much longer than 500 words, understand that you will not help yourself by seeming to have ignored our request. <a href="http://www.yale.edu/admit/faq/applying.html#12%5B/url%5D%5B/quote%5D">http://www.yale.edu/admit/faq/applying.html#12
[/quote]
</a></p>
<p>Sure, a great 700-word essay will help your cause more than a terrible 500-word essay. But a great 500-word essay will help your cause more than a great 700-word essay. And don't tell me it's not possible to write a 500-word essay that's every bit as good as, if not better than, your 700-word essay. It is possible, so just do it.</p>
<p>Cosar, I think you're oversimplifying the situation quite a bit here. When applicants write their college essays, they shouldn't be writing just to meet the word limit but rather writing something meaningful that will show a part of them not made visible by the transcript and test scores. Sure word limits are a nice guideline, but following them so rigidly may decrease the quality of your piece. I noticed that after writing my essays initially, more than a couple of revisions seriously detracted from the original voice I was trying to convey.</p>
<p>Why not write a fantastic 700-word essay in which every word is significant instead of a choppy 500-word essay??? I agree that it's possible to write a stellar 500-word essay, but I dispute your claim that everyone has the ability to do it well. Even exceptionally intelligent high schoolers often lack an understanding of the concept of brevity in their writing and speeches; it is something that takes a long time to develop.</p>
<p>I also think this debate is pointless....I know quite a few people who got into top schools with essays longer (like 700-1000 word range) than 500 words.
I also know those who got in with essays under the word limit. So there.</p>
<p>Keeping it simple is not the same as oversimplifying. The request that colleges make is, in fact, simple: please limit your essay to no more than about 500 words. There's nothing complicated about it. If one chooses to ignore that simple request, one does so at one's own peril. I'm not saying that it is always fatal to ignore the request, but that doesn't mean it's advisable. </p>
<p>I already conceded that it's better to "write a fantastic 700-word essay in which every word is significant instead of a choppy 500-word essay." But I don't concede that those are the only two alternatives. Why not write a fantastic 500-word essay in which every word is significant?</p>
<p>P.S. to WCU. Your sample size is too small to come to any statistically valid conclusions.</p>