How strict is the WORD LIMIT?

College Essays
1

<p>Princeton for instance, says to "write an essay of about 500 words". Does this mean that they will NOT read a letter that is longer than 500 words? Mine is about 700 words long and I'm afraid that it's way longer than what they are looking for. It's still one page(when I uploaded the file) but that's considering that it's single spaced and in 10 size font.</p>

<p>Help!</p>

2

<p>I’m sure it won’t kill your chances if it is 505 or 510 words, but I wouldn’t take the chance.</p>

<p>However, 200 words over is outright.</p>