<p>Hi!</p>
<p>My essay is 664 words long. I know the limit is 500 words. However, I feel REALLY good about how my essay is right now. My English teacher also read it and said, "Don't change a word." I don't ramble and I've revised a ton. Taking out words would take away from my message and/or my voice. </p>
<p>Is it had to have an essay of this length? It is less than two pages double spaced.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Obviously, your English teacher has never been an editor nor a journalist; nor a college admissions officer.</p>
<p>What is ambiguous about “a 500 word limit” ?</p>
<p>If each word is needed to convey your message and if taking out words will distort the meaning, then I don’t believe that you need to shorten your essay.</p>
<p>Again, what is unclear about “a 500 word limit” ?</p>
<p>If the application fee is $50 & you only have $40, would you just send in the $40 ?</p>
<p>You need to cut 164 words. End of story.</p>
<p>I have been a professional writer for three decades. One of the best bits of advice I ever heard was “don’t fall in love with your own words.”</p>
<p>164 is too many. You might be able to get away with let say around extra 80 words.</p>
<p>Threads about this topic crop up frequently. People are often on one side of the fence or the other. Until the common app figures out how to enforce the 500 word limit then how close you stay to it is entirely on you. </p>
<p>Adcoms are not going to spend time counting your words but essays that are seriously over the limit will stand out. </p>
<p>The advice my son got last year was to keep it to one page, single spaced, double spaced between each paragraph. His essay was over 500 words.</p>
<p>College admissions officers are obviously not going to count the words in your essay to make sure you adhered to the word limit guidelines.
However, having read so many essays of about the same length, they’ll be able to tell at a glance if an essay is within the acceptable range.
I would say that 100+ words over the limit is not acceptable. It reflects poorly on your ability to do something as simple as follow directions, and doesn’t show your writing abilities as being too great either (it’s easier to write short than long).
That being said, you don’t need to cut it down to exactly 500 words either. I’d say that an essay 50-80 words longer than the limit wouldn’t be detected by admissions officers.</p>
<p>I know it’s hard to cut back on your own essay–if you’d like help, PM it to me and I’ll give you some recommendations on passages you could remove.</p>
<p>Good luck!!</p>
<p>cut. editing is the hallmark of good writing. ask yourself if you are repeating anything or could combine ideas to make a stronger pt. they give the 500 word direction for a reason so unless you are bizarrely confident in supreme writing talent, cut it back to no more than 560!! it really is about being cohesive, cogent, and concise --and following directions!</p>
<p>I’d say 164 words over the limit is way too much. Maybe you can change some wording around, use contractions, etc</p>
<p>I agree with everyone above–cut it. I’d suggest cutting it to 500 +/- 10 words. If you don’t you risk irritating the ad com reader (he/she WILL be able to tell it is far over, just from their reading so many 500-wrod essays). You also risk making them think that you can’t follow directions and/or that you can’t write succinctly. My son spent far more time editing his long CA essay and cutting it down to 50o words than he even did writing it. You CAN make it succint and still excellent! Your English teacher probably does not understand how important the limit is for this essay, since his/her essays have no limit or just loose limits.</p>
<p>You are talking about the common app right? It doesn’t matter if your length of your essay goes over 500 words…</p>
<p>Writing shorter is actually harder than writing longer. Why take a chance, in any case? Just follow the instructions and make your point in the requested word length. You do not have more to say than anyone else. Don’t give the impression that you think you do.</p>
<p>Would a 550 word essay be acceptable if it’s about 1.5 pages completely double spaced?</p>
<p>I was told that the admissions officer might get annoyed if the essay is longer than 500 words for not following directions. I had the same problem with my essay but I managed to edit my essay down to 400 words.</p>
<p>Don’t double space. It makes reading a drag.</p>
<p>But yes, 550 words is fine.</p>
<p>± 50 is fine. 80 is pushing it. Over 100 and it definitely needs to be cut.</p>
<p>With all my essays I stuck to the guidelines of +/- 10%, so for 500 anywhere from 450 to 550 would probably be ok. Same with
250 word limits, usually 225 to 275 is ok. Unless of course they say to have an absolute maximum of 500 words and will chop off anything afterwards (Similar to the character limit on the common app ec essay).</p>
<p>Cut it down to 530 words!</p>
<p>I agree w/ natalilyc about the 10 percent rule. Try to get your essay down to about 550 words.</p>