Although I did write versions with 800+ words, after several drafts of my Questbridge essay (with the much appreciated help of MomOfBoiler1 on here, who helped me edit out a lot of flowery writing that, although I love, was essentially empty fluff), I have a final product that is only 632. Owing to its length, I have swapped it out for my initial CommonApp essay, however, I am concerned that being 168 words below the limit may be too short.
Every revision results in a shortening for the most part after editing, and while I am somewhat proud of how I have been able to channel brevity a bit and make my sentences hard hitting, etc., I just want to ensure that this will not negatively affect my application much.