<p>I am freaking out about my "Why Northwestern" essay. Currently it is at 800 words and everything I've talked about is incredibly important; there isn't really anything for me to cut out to make it shorter. Is this an acceptable length or would it be a potential detriment in my application?</p>
<p>Someone help ease my mind!</p>
<p>506 words!
do you think it matters that we didnt include the “Type your name, birth date, and email address on each sheet.Note which item you are addressing at the beginning of each statement.” on the document??</p>
<p>ZacharyCort - Mine was about a page and a half, which is probally 750+ words. They didn’t give a word limit, so I just wrote what I wanted to say! I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you. As long as you didn’t get super repetitive then I’m sure its fine. Don’t worry!</p>
<p>Harvardhottie- I assume that’s mostly for administrative purposes, I don’t think they would reject you b/c of that and I doubt your the only one who forgot. </p>
<p>Good luck guys :)</p>
<p>If they don’t specify a word count I doubt they’ll formally penalize you, BUT I would stress that admissions personnel read a lot of applications and expressing yourself succinctly will likely stand out. One way of cutting is to take out any words, sentences and paragraphs that don’t directly move your essay forward.</p>
<p>Best of luck!</p>
<p>After some trimming mine is down to about 425 words. Figured I should cut it down some because despite their being a limit they read the same thing (essentially) over and over again and probably get sick of it. Besides ED + Visit in the summer + Overnight visit this october shows my interest well enough I think. (And if I talked about all of those in my essay it would be 5 pages long.)</p>
<p>mine was less than 400, I was concise, to the point and specific to Northwestern</p>