<p>How long does it have to be?
CA says NO LESS than 250. So there's no limit? What if I wrote like a 10,000 word essay</p>
<p>If i recall from last year, there’s a word minimum but a character maximum so writing 10,000 words would be impossible.
We called it the [someone in my grade’s name] paradox because he only used ridiculously long words so it might be possible for him to have under the minimum words but over the maximum characters.</p>
<p>I dont see any character max on any of it or any max at all? where is it?</p>
<p>bump help?</p>
<p>bump help?</p>
<p>In another thread people were saying that you should try to keep the length to a maximum of about 500 words.</p>
<p>I disagree with the above answer.</p>
<p>450 minimum (it should, in theory, be longer than most schools supplemental essays)</p>
<p>750 maximum (remember, they are reading thousand of essays and they want to see if you can convey ideas effectively; adverbs and adjectives have become no-no’s so if you have many of these your essay can easily be cut down)</p>
<p>I would say 500-650 is ideal, but this is my opinion</p>
<p>Disagreed.</p>
<p>Why the heck should it be longer than supplemental essays? CommonApp is a generic one-form-fits-all gimmick, whereas in the supplements one could (and must, regardless of prompt) always relate their narrative to why one wants to go to a certain school and why one can contribute to a certain school.</p>
<p>I dont understand. Is there a ILLEGAL minimum or maximum at all?</p>
<p>minimum is 250 for the common app essay. my counselor says 600 is ideal. colleges often ask for around 500 on their supplemental essays, so 500-600 sounds like the ideal range. </p>
<p>if you write 2000 words, and most others write 600, you are taking up more of the college’s time, and that may not be appreciated.</p>