<p>Is it better to tell a story for this one even though you can only have a maximum of 250 words?</p>
<p>Or should I just be direct and answer the question.</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>i answered this one directly but through a metaphor. there's not enough room to develop a meaningful or even punchy story...i'd say just come across as very passionate about the subject.</p>
<p>If you can pull off a story in that many words, you are amazing sir. I think mine was somewhat uninteresting, I approached it directly, but if you can inject it with some sort of passion that could work fine.</p>
<p>I'd imagine an extended metaphor could be great too, but those are always tricky.</p>
<p>Well, hopefully being amazing means being accepted to Stanford :).
Telling a story is very tough in the space they provide. I could have used a few more words in mine...</p>
<p>i answered this with a short narrative, but on second thought, simply describing the idea would have been more effective. </p>
<p>i would forgo a story for a more direct answer - it'll make it easier to convey you r passion</p>
<p>If I were you, I'd be as direct as possible. Use your longer common app essay for any metaphors, they're looking for concrete experiences here.</p>
<p>in response to above, i doubt you're a legitimate authority on intellectual vitality essays so saying that they want a direct answer isnt necessarily true. the people that got in from my school last year did not give direct answers, they actually used metaphors. its almost impossible to try to answer "what they are looking for" just be yourself and pray they like your personality and academic characteristics.</p>
<p>college acceptance is totally a russian roulette</p>
<p>Am I just misreading? I thought the responses had to be AT LEAST 250 words, not at most. </p>
<p>"In addition to your Common Application essay, please respond to the following three questions. Your responses must be at least 250 words but should not exceed the space provided."</p>
<p>Yeah, you can run a little over 250 words, but what you have to worry about is being able to fit the allowed characters(with spaces). You have to type/paste your essay into a box that only allows a certain amount of characters with spaces.</p>
<p>Yeah, the character limit gives you roughly 290-300 words based on my experience, so I actually struggled fitting my essay in the space provided.</p>
<p>I had like 5 characters left for each of the essays. One of them I had 1 character left. Hahaha, had to cut everything down.</p>
<p>I told a brief story and then expanded on why it was important for the int. vit. one.</p>