Expanding margins to fit one page?

Applying to College
1

<p>When you Common App supplements ask you to upload documents instead of having a space to paste your essay in, would be okay to expand the margins in a word document to say, 0.5 inches in order to fit your essay on one page?</p>

2

<p>I don’t know a hard and fast rule on this, but if your essay isn’t gigantic, I’d think that making it fit to a page with expanded margins is fine - might even make it easier on the admissions officers keeping track of your pages.</p>

3

<p>It’s about 800 words and the guidelines were just to “not exceed one page”. 800 words may be on the larger side for one page, but I think it’s reasonable, no?</p>

4

<p>Watch how you do this - half-inch margins are definitely going to be noticed. I would honestly try shortening the essay by just a few lines so that your margins look more normal.</p>

5

<p>I got it down to 0.7" margins, while the difference is of course still noticeable, is it really that big of an issue? With 1" margins it’s just like an extra 5 lines or so.</p>

6

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-pennsylvania/439698-how-do-you-penn-feel-about-manipulating-page-margins.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-pennsylvania/439698-how-do-you-penn-feel-about-manipulating-page-margins.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I posted a similar thread in the upenn forum. there’re answers there. and I assume you’re applying to upenn :P</p>

7

<p>You could also try an 11.5 size font. If you are not using Times New Roman, try that as it takes less space than other popular fonts.</p>

8

<p>mine went about 1.5 pages. is that a problem? i mean, they will still read that extra 1/2 page. won’t they?</p>

9

<p>I expanded my margin on one of my essay. It was only about 650, which shpuld be less then a page but there was dialogue so I had to use a lot of lines. Expanding is ok if you keep it to a minimum. Also play around with the font size to see if adjusting it a bit will help.</p>

10

<p>While I never sent my essays in (admitted Early elsewhere), for a couple of schools, I had to write a “why this school and what do you want to study” in one page. Often times, I’d cut the fat out, and still end up 3-5 lines over one page. I’d wide the margins slightly, and also change to 11.5 font. In addition, between paragraphs, I made the line space .5 or .75 pt instead of 1.</p>

<p>-M</p>

11

<p>so it’s okay i submitted my essay going over 1/2 page?</p>