<p>Just a quick question- is the title of my common app essay included in the word count? Do I even need a title? Thanks!</p>
<p>You don’t need a title, but if you have one it will count towards the word count.</p>
<p>Would you recommend using a title or does it not really matter?</p>
<p>It’s your essay and your decision. If you think it helps your reader, then use a title.</p>
<p>Unless you have a superb title in mind, I would leave it out. Most people don’t use one.</p>
<p>^^^
Yes, but the fact that most people don’t have a title can make an essay with a title stand out from the crowd. It doesn’t have to be superb (it’s just a title), but it must work with the essay and not be superfluous.</p>
<p>It is very difficult to format the essay so that a title looks good. You can bold text, but you can’t center it. You can’t put more than one return after a paragraph. Bolded text comes out larger than regular text and overlaps the line below it by a smidge. It just doesn’t look good and is a bit difficult to read. In years past a title was a reasonable option, but this year it it highly unlikely to improve the essay unless you spend a lot of time working on the formatting.</p>
<p>^^^
If you want to use a title, employ the KISS principle: Keep It Simple, Stupid. Don’t worry about centering or bolding or anything else. Just make the title the very first thing in your essay and separate it from the rest of the essay with a paragraph break. As long as it’s only a few words, it will be obvious that it’s a title.</p>