<p>I'm thinking one paragraph. Does that sound about right?</p>
<p>However, the character limit is 2000 characters, so I'm thinking I should write a 250-word-ish essay instead.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/swarthmore/1233637-how-long-your-why-swarthmore-essay.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/swarthmore/1233637-how-long-your-why-swarthmore-essay.html</a></p>
<p>It seems like there’s a pretty wide range, but people have gotten accepted with as long as 1000-word essays. How something in the genre of “college essays” that is 1000 words qualifies as “brief” is beyond me, but apparently it works.</p>
<p>I would say… say what you need to say and make it concise, but you seem to have a lot of freedom.</p>
<p>I had the same idea originally about the 2000-character limit for the text box (that I shouldn’t go over that). But the attitude of a lot of people seems to be that you can go over because they let you upload a document, and the acceptances seem to corroborate that idea.</p>
<p>200-300 words sounds good to me. You are granted some leeway, so I’m sure they’re not strict about their definition of “brief” here. But I think you should try to be direct when addressing your reasons why you want to attend Swarthmore. Also, don’t worry much about your response to the question. I think they just want to make sure that you have an idea of Swarthmore that’s not completely off.</p>
<p>I was told that it should be approximately 500 words by Jim Bock, the Dean of Admissions at Swarthmore.</p>
<p>Were you told that recently? Mine was a lot shorter…</p>
<p>There’s no point stressing yourself out if you’ve already submitted your supplement. I guess they expect to see more than 100 words, but going overboard and writing 2000 will probably not work to your advantage. Both people who write 200 and people who write 1000 have been accepted, so it’s really all in what you have to say.</p>