<p>My essay is over 700 words, 727 to be exact - just over one page..........i could probably try my best and reduce it to 690 - 700. But according to the app. my essay has to be within 400 - 500 words</p>
<p>how strict is UF on the word limit of the essay?</p>
<p>Mines 675 i think. If your saying something important, i dont think its a problem</p>
<p>I personally, would not risk it.....but then again I would never risk anything that might not get me into UF.</p>
<p>Do not write too little or too much. If UF says 400-500, write exactly that. I know of several friends who were rejected last year that did not write the required amount of words (though that may not have been the primary reason they were rejected). Don't risk it!</p>
<p>convenient excuse imo.</p>
<p>Let's put it this way, my college counselor who has managed to get dozens of seniors into UF for the past few years said not to worry about it. In fact, they said write what you have to say and worry about the word count after. </p>
<p>You gotta understand that the 400-500 word length is a standard set long ago. Doesn't mean Mr. UF reviewer for 2007 agrees.</p>
<p>IMO phuhs, its a very convenient excuse for your friends. In fact, its the natural human response. You give me 10 people who got rejected because of going over the limit and i'll give you 1000 who were accepted over the limit.</p>
<p>You're right. It would be crazy to reject an great applicant just because he went over the essay word limit. (I did note in parentheses that this may not have been the primary reason for rejection!). Still, I don't know about you, but when it comes to filling out higher education application forms, I would follow the rules if ever in doubt. Who's to say that UF's computers won't cut off the essays at 500 words, ending your essay abruptly in the middle of a sentence? </p>
<p>On a side note, when I applied last year, I seriously doubted that UF actually reads the essays at all, especially for good students.</p>
<p>Well its true that UF has changed the way the application goes through the process. It's not split into 2 groups, scholar and hollistic. the hollistic review weighs heavily on the essay.</p>
<p>what's interesting is that the UF app has got word limit for all of its fields except the essay.</p>
<p>From what I remember the essay still had a character limit as did the other fields. However, the character limit on the EC portion was extremely annoying as was the limited available spots.</p>
<p>haha, oh - and mine was 502 (my way of "sticking it to the man" :-/ )</p>
<p>From my memory three years ago, there was a set amount of characters that you could paste in each text field...thus going over would be automatically deleted.</p>
<p>naw there was no limit in the essay. remember, i submitted like 650 words</p>
<p>the UF computer cuts it in if u go over da limit of 500...im doing it right now and it wont take more then 500...</p>
<p>A lot of things about UF admissions have changed in the two years since this thread was started.</p>
<p>
[quote]
A lot of things about UF admissions have changed in the two years since this thread was started.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yeah, talk about bring back a message thread from the dead.</p>
<p>"A lot of things have changed" - does that mean that they are more strict about it or less strict?</p>
<p>The wording on the website seemed pretty severe:
[quote]
Please submit one essay. Remember to keep within the 500-word maximum length. (The counter on the page counts down from the 3885-CHARACTER limit, which is approx. 450 words with room for spacing between paragraphs.)
[/quote]
</p>