<p>There is no specified length, so I was wondering whether I should aim for 200 or 500 words? What have you other applicants done?</p>
<p>I am leaning towards the 500 words because of the essay topics offered
(see: scroll down a bit at <a href="http://admissions.tufts.edu/apply.htm#requirements%5B/url%5D">http://admissions.tufts.edu/apply.htm#requirements</a>)</p>
<p>Honestly, I just looked, and I did the three books in "your" library one, and mine is 926 words, lol.</p>
<p>good that is the one I am doing and I find 500 words a bit too short, but I will probably aim to be around there.
Duffman28- did you provide synopes of your books or just wrote how the books are important to you ?</p>
<p>Brief synopsis as well.</p>
<p>Hmm...when i wrote my essays, they were originally over a thousand, but everyone INSISTED that they should be less than 600, so I slaved and slaved and chopped and chopped and got them down to around 570. I'd suggest shortening them substantially - I know it's virtually IMPOSSIBLE to get your point across with such restrictions (and believe me...you've read my other posts, I'm possibly the most verbose person on the planet...lol, I've endured at least twenty "Renee talks too much" jokes since I got back for Thanksgiving, most from my own family, LOL) but it's something you have to do. Think about it as - every sentence must be ESSENTIAL. If it's a long essay, the adcoms might accidentally skip over a sentence that contains the whole point of your essay.</p>
<p>I don't know, I took it like this:</p>
<p>It's an optional essay
There is no strict guideline on how long the optional essay should be anywhere on the site
If it is truly optional and a way to expand upon who you are, then why restrict its length, obviously a two-pager isn't necessary, but I didn't feel mine dragged on, oh well, we'll see I guess.</p>
<p>It should be 500. I called the Admissions office the other day to ask them, and that's what they said. But mine was still about 100 words over, so..</p>
<p>^ Oh well, hope that doesn't hurt my chances... :</p>
<p>Duffman28- How long was your ED Statement? Is 300-500 words too long</p>
<p>Two pages, roughly, should be fine.</p>
<p>brownorbust: honestly, since I wrote it on the paper they provided, if we're talking about the same thing, and there were like 4 lines, I wrote very little.</p>
<p>ariesathena, are you refering to the ED statement?</p>
<p>I think she's referring to the optional essay, then again, not sure, heh.</p>