I just completed my Why Chicago essay for the Early Action deadline and currently it is a little less than 500 words. I find the essay to be really strong, and can’t really find much to delete. Is there any word count for this essay? I can’t find it on the UChicago website or the Common App.
Thanks!
250 words. The help column on the Common App says this:
“Are there word limits?
There are no strict word limits. We suggest that for the first essay (where you choose one of the seven prompts), the extended essay stay around 650 words. While we won’t as a rule stop reading after 650 words, we cannot promise that an overly wordy essay will hold our attention for as long as you’d hoped it would. For the “Why UChicago” and “Favorites” essays, we suggest about 250 words.”
If you think your essay is strong and can’t find much to delete, then don’t worry about the word limits. My Why UChicago essay took a very unique and memorable approach and is probably the main thing that helped me get in. I used 670 words and could not have done it in 250. Just under 500 is definitely fine–quite a number of essays in the Post Your Essay thread are around that length.
(Actually my other UChicago essays happened to be quite long too at 861 for Extended and 397 for Favourites. As long as you can capture the reader’s attention well and it isn’t excessively long you shouldn’t sacrifice content quality for word count.)
I agree with qzombie. You would be better off not taking the world limits as a hard limit for yourself. Honestly I didn’t even know that there were suggested word limits for the essays when I applied. I just wrote until I felt my point was made. I was accepted last year so I must have done something right!
My “Why UChicago” essay was 820 words, my 2nd essay was 967 words, and my optional “essay” was 623 words. As long as you really have an interesting way of presenting a lot of information, the word limit is irrelevant.
Mine was over 500, and it worked out for me.
I totally didn’t know about the 250 word suggestion for the Why essay or Favorites. The Why was over 650 and Favorites over 400, and I am not worried about it because it’s not a hard limit. You’re fine with under 500!
" We require essays of no more than 500 words for the “why Chicago” and “favorite things” essay, and do not have a strict word limit for the extended essay; I tend to suggest an essay of 1-2 pages (single or double spaced; 1 page double spaced is a bit short, while 2 pages single spaced is on the longer side) for that essay. "
That’s what a uchicago admissions counselor said so you’ll be fine.