<p>I've seen some that are around a thousand words, some around 550. What's a good target? I don't want my essay to be too short, but I don't want it to be so long-winded that it's a bore to read. Suggestions?</p>
<p>Mine was about 350 words, but the answer to this question is long enough to be a good, complete essay. As you’ve pointed out, there’s a lot of lengths that fit that category.</p>
<p>Alright thank you! Mine’s around the same length as yours but I was getting worried that it might be too short.</p>
<p>Mine’s around 800. People have gotten in with 400 to 1,000. All up to you and the essay!</p>
<p>Although I do suggest trying to make it longer than 300 words. That’s a bit… pushing it.</p>
<p>While I understand where your judgement is coming for, these rules of thumbs without any knowledge of the essay are to a large extent meaningless. </p>
<p>For the record, you’ve now seen people get in with 350 words.</p>
<p>i’m sure many people have.</p>
<p>and a rule of thumb would be “600 words” a large range of 400-1000 words is not really a rule of thumb. usually 200 or so words isn’t even considered an essay…</p>
<p>Mine was 545 (exactly lol) words! I couldn’t make it any shorter if I tried. My counselor told me to take out fluff but also make it long enough to truly get your message across. I think everyone is different though!</p>
<p>358 Words.</p>
<p>^ Woah you must be a good writer.</p>
<p>Yeah mine ended up being more around 500-600 actually 
After I went back and added more content</p>
<p>I just asked my son - he said his was 350 words.</p>
<p>Mine is 268 at the moment. All that matters is that it is concise and well-written. Extra fluff could be construed as poor writing style.</p>
<p>Not a matter of length, it’s a matter of substance.</p>
<p>I was trying to figure this out…I thought I saw somewhere that it was 500 but I haven’t found that number anywhere. Mine is 499 words and I think I could add some more, but I don’t know if shorter is better?</p>
<p>Gab etc - The actual “correct” answer is: whatever works to get you in.</p>
<p>But as Blaise Pascal once said, “I wrote you a long letter, I didn’t have time to write you a short one.”</p>