<p>All my other schools gave a word limit for the "Why this college" essay. Tufts was 50-100 words and most were around 250-500 words. When I googled how long is should be though I got a lot of answers with people saying they wrote 600-800 words... what??? Does it really need to be that long?</p>
<p>If they haven’t set a limit on the number of words, it needs to be as long as you need it to be to get your point across. If it really comes out 600-800 words, you probably need to do a lot of editing.</p>
<p>It has more to do with how well written the essay is and how well you convey WHY NU is a perfect fit for you based on your academic and non-academic interests, and choice of environment, culture, size and location. I personally think 450 words more or less is the target. That size essay is long enough to show that you put time and effort in the decision.</p>
<p>I leveled mine very concisely at 500 words. You don’t want to BORE the reviewers either with too many walls of text.</p>
<p>I believe mine was right around 350-400 and I think it said everything that needed to be said. It really just depends on what you want to say, but you’re not writing concisely enough if it’s 600-800, and below 300 is too little, so somewhere between 350-500 is probably optimal</p>
<p>There is no strict word limit; keep in mind, though, that the admission officer doesn’t have hours to pour over everything you write. As long as it’s clear, concise, and speaks volumes about your love of NU, you shouldn’t worry.</p>
<p>Also, it’s important to recognize the difference between “concise” and “short.” A short essay of 200 words will fail to be concise if contains extraneous and unnecessary information. Likewise, a long, well-written essay of 1,000 words can be extremely concise if it succinctly addresses a variety of issues, and nothing more.</p>