<p>just wondering how long (word count / char count) should they be... i'm using the paper app they sent ... but don't have it handy </p>
<p>thanks</p>
<p>You can go to <a href="http://admissions.mit.edu%5B/url%5D">http://admissions.mit.edu</a> and check the downloadable paper application. </p>
<p>Part 2 shows a recommended limit of 500 words for Essay A or B (#11), and 100 words each for #12 (a) and (b). The "completely optional" #13 and #14 do not specify a word limit, but are generally recognized to be best kept to around 500 words.</p>
<p>wow thats really short compared to the other apps i'm doing lol .... i wish they'd make teh 100 word ones a bit longer (250) but oh well</p>
<p>do you think 550 would be ok for #11?</p>
<p>Yes</p>
<p>(adding ten more characters)</p>
<p>well actually i take that back... i think they did it perfectly based on the prompts , plus they gave the optional 13 and 14 ... sweeet... i'm liking this app lol :D</p>
<p>oh yeah ... mine is like 522 is that okay u think?</p>
<p>Yes</p>
<p>(adding ten more characters :) )</p>
<p>MIT isn't going to count the number of words in each and every essay and say "Oh my God! This person has an extra sentence. Reject him now and burn his app."</p>
<p>In short, ya you're OK.</p>
<p>Ben Jones has said before that it's okay to go over the word limit as long as the readers don't notice you're over the limit -- ie 550 words on a 500-word essay would be okay, but 1500 probably wouldn't be.</p>
<p>and here i thought that mit would be all fancy and pen scan it in, count the words to be all "technical" and reject those who couldn't follow directions :p</p>
<p>LOL, that would be SO cool (not the word counting, but the scanning, so I could highlight quotes and have them automatically inserted into my summary). It would be even cooler if I could just dictate my summaries. ;-)</p>
<p>why can't you? they have speech recognition headphones!</p>