<p>My essay for University of Michigan is currently 634 words long. The application says it should be "approximately 500 words." How important is it that I cut out the extra 134 words? Or, I would prefer to cut out as little as possible. Approximately how much should I cut?</p>
<p>i wouldn't worry about that too much. i wrote just under a hundred words over what i was supposed to, and i got into my dream school. they aren't going to care very much. it is just an indication (i think) to tell applicants not to write a 2000 word essay.</p>
<p>Okay, thank you. I can't really imagine cutting much more of it, so I hope this will be okay.</p>
<p>Any other opinions? I had the same question.</p>
<p>I dunno--I tend to be very conservative and worried about these things. I'd say 500+/- 20 words or so. I suppose it depends on how strict the school is. But I think you're fine, if you really think that cutting stuff out will make a big negative impact.</p>
<p>I'd say try to get it under 600 unless that majorly disrupts the flow in an unfixable way or takes out an impactful part of the essay.</p>
<p>If every word has a meaning in it...then you can't cut it. If you have written it with absolute precision...then you can't cut it. If there is nothing that you can cut without disrupting the entire plot...you can't cut it.</p>
<p>If its none of the above, cut it.</p>
<p>I was in the exact same situation. My essay was also a little over 600 words, but cutting it made the whole thing sound choppy and childish, so I just left it as it was. Nothing bad came of that, as far as I know.</p>
<p>Well, I got it down to 547, so unless someone thinks the extra 47 words is going to have a huge effect, I'm going to leave it.</p>
<p>^ sounds great to me.</p>
<p>547 will be fine.</p>
<p>dchow, "crimsonman" got into Harvard, so I'm pretty sure that's the strictest example of a school you're gonna get that didn't mind the extra 100 words lol</p>
<p>Okay. Well, some schools probably are stricter than others. I guess if the school doesn't set a limit, then that's fine. So if it said that the max. word limit is 500, you shouldn't go over, but if it says approximately, then it varies depending on how you interpret the word. I guess if a college were strict about it, they'd set a max. word limit.</p>