<p>I wrote a first draft of the commonapp essay and its around 650 words. The word limit on commonapp is 250-500 words.. Will this cause a problem??? But all the accepted essays on the internet and the Peterson's book are more than the word limit</p>
<p>This is a first draft. Cut stuff out. Any repetition, unnecessary detail, etc. Take it out. If you use "I" "a" and "we" a lot those are very short words that are counted just as much "antidisestablishminterianism" (probably spelt incorrectly). It is length that matters most. If the essay is 1 page single spaced 12 font 1inch margins, you are good. If it is going on the third page single spaced 8 font no margins, you have problems.</p>
<p>It's single spaced , font 12 , 1 inch margin and only one page. So that's OK.
I was just checking , incase the limit mattered.</p>
<p>If it's longer than 500 words I think you can just attach it as a word document.</p>
<p>^ no i dont think you can for common app. The character limit is 6,000. I was on 3,000 for a one page essay with 650 words. Unless the words are really really long, it doesnt matter so much about how many words you write, but how long the essay is. An adcom will never count the number of words, but if s/he sees 2 or 3 or 10 pages single spaced with less than 12 font, it is obvious that the applicant wrote way too much. </p>
<p>500 words = 1 page
250 words = 1/2 page</p>