<p>666 words! >=D Down from 750 with a much better, more concise conclusion.</p>
<p>892 exactly</p>
<p>Mine is 601 as of now, but I’ll probably add a couple more lines.</p>
<p>Mines is a little more than 250.</p>
<p>haha…mine is 1300…and i;ve already submitted it…god knows what’s going to happen now!</p>
<p>Mine is 506.</p>
<p>The reason why you wanna keep it at 500-700 for common app is by keeping it at that range, you have an easier and an actual chance to recycle those essays for colleges that don’t accept commonapp and have their own essay choices. Mine is 530-540 ish and yeah I can pretty much use it for commonapp and most of my colleges as it is a "significant experience/accomplishment/ etc…</p>
<p>Mine is around 620. I just want to keep it under 2 pages double spaced.</p>
<p>Mine is 730 words. I’ll probably cut it down to 650 or 700.</p>
<p>Mine’s 467. I think I need to beef it up a little…</p>
<p>FWIW, my older S got into Johns Hopkins ED with a 896-word essay, which was almost 2 1/2 pages double-spaced.</p>
<p>This is waht Dartmouth has to say:
As long as it needs to be and no longer.</p>
<p>There is no determined maximum length or word count, but 1 to 2 pages single spaced, or 2 to 3 pages double spaced seems about the typical length. This is probably about 500 to 750 words, but again, it should be as long as it needs to be and no longer.</p>
<p>As for a minimum, the Common Application suggests 250 words.</p>
<p>[Dartmouth</a> Admissions Uncommonly Asked Questions: How long should my Personal Essay be?](<a href=“http://dartmouthquestions.blogspot.com/2009/10/how-long-should-my-personal-essay-be.html]Dartmouth”>Dartmouth Admissions Uncommonly Asked Questions: How long should my Personal Essay be?)</p>
<p>Mine’s 988, I might try to cut It down a little, but I feel its very strong and don’t want to lose too much.</p>
<p>+1 About it being as long as you need and no longer.</p>
<p>Mine is 639. </p>
<p>Write your essay and don’t worry about other people’s.</p>
<p>Mine is 1044. If you essay has a lot of fluff in it, then cut it down. If it doesnt and you feel like you really cant cut anything out of it, then leave it at whatever you have. Above 1200 is pushing it a lot. I also believe that below 600 is very bad. so my recommendation is 600-1200.</p>
<p>mine’s about 870.</p>
<p>My common app. essay is only 355 words (or 358 if I count the title).
I think it’s fairly well written and descriptive, with some solid imagery. It gets the point across concisely, without being outright blunt.
But most posters seem to have longer…is mine too short? Should I lengthen or will it be okay since it’s at least past the 250 minimum?
Even if it’s good and matches the minimum, I don’t want it to seem like “not enough.” Opinions?</p>
<p>Lemler - if you feel you’ve successfully demonstrated some aspect of yourself in your essay, then that’s fine. Don’t bother adding. I once read an admissions essay (think she got into Brown, can’t remember) in a sample essay book, and it was extremely short and extremely vivid. She described a daily event in which she took some time from her busy schedule to play this one song on her piano. It was so imbued with feeling. You had to love it. The adcoms loved it more. So if you feel your essay shows YOU - don’t add. The minimum is 250, not 350 or 400, for a reason.</p>
<p>Mine is around 770 btw, but I think it’s necessary because I had to introduce another person before I could explain about myself. Some admissions books tell you not to choose the “Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you” option, because you could easily forget to talk about yourself, but I’m not crossing it out because people - well, people are live, powerful things.</p>
<p>Oh my God guys, I am so freaking out right now. </p>
<p>I misread the information and thought that the maximum number of words was 250. So I wrote around 240 and well… Yeah. Enough said. </p>
<p>Will it be automatically disqualify me? What do I do now?</p>
<p>Back in 2006 when the common application had a direct input box for the main personal statement, the character limit was set at 6000 characters, which would be around 1000 words. </p>
<p>I’m sure the ideal has been preserved in the least.</p>
<p>678 w/o the title.686 with the title. I could probably get it down. But I think I’ll leave it how it is.</p>
<p>I think 500-600/625 is perfect.</p>