<p>Does the essay really have to be 250-500? because i am at about 540 and i can not cut another word!!! what to do... what to do!?</p>
<p>Leave something out; leave only the best. Or Write about something else. If the application says "between 250-500" is because they want a 600 word essay or a 200 word essay? No, they don't.</p>
<p>i cant emphasize how wrong the above poster is.
The college admission officers do not care if the essay it +/- 100 words at most, as long as it is an interesting read. Remember. They have many essays to read. Yours will be just another essay in a pile of thousands. Keep it interesting. And if it applies to you at all, try this: When the college recommends 250-500 words, they assume 500 word is a full page on microsoft word. Think about it. The word "a" and "another" are both considered 1 word. For 250 words, they want a half page essay non double spaced. For 500 words, they want a full page essay non double spaced. I hope this helped.</p>
<p>yes, thank you. I am doing the main common app essay and it said 250-500</p>
<p>if you still need to cut, i might be able to help you edit</p>
<p>its really more or less +/- 20% and they wont care... just dont go over 20% over the limit</p>
<p>no thanks, i dont really trust giving my precious baby out over the internet lol! Why do you always offer to edit peoples essays?</p>
<p>My essays were between 700-800 (regular and supplements) and this wasn't a problem for me. As long as it isn't repetitive and can't really be cut down that much more without losing something importance, leave it as is.</p>
<p>cuz i like to steal your words.... lol because my mom's an editor so i've picked up many editing skills, plus i like helping out. but i understand the not-wanting-to-give-out-essays online, there is a lot of opportunity for accident. </p>
<p>i wrote mine like a month ago and had 4 english teachers edit to cut down words, which might work if you are really desperate, but from the looks of it 40 extra words won't kill you.</p>
<p>I would advise you to keep your essay within the word limits simply because the college asked you to do so. In this day and age where admissions can be so competitive, there's absolutely no reason to give the adcom another reason to toss your application aside. I'm not on an adcom, so I can't give you a specific example, but it would be pretty terrible for your application to be dropped in favor of another candidate's because you didn't follow directions and that person did.</p>
<p>Having survived college apps and now applying to medical school, I personally wouldn't dare going over the limit. I don't think anyone on an adcom has time to sit and count your words, but I'm not willing to risk the chance that they do, given the electronic nature of applications nowadays. Rules are rules - if a school didn't think you could give a good answer in however many words they ask for, then they wouldn't ask for that word limit. In short, follow directions when asking for admission - that's my feeling on it.</p>
<p>they say 250 - 500 to baallpark a figure for you... Please dont wate time cutting 40 words... they have better things to do in life than coount words and so do you. </p>
<p>My "250 - 500" word common app essay was 740 words and all fo iti i believe was relavent. </p>
<p>If you were to submit 500 words for a 250 - 300 word essay, think again... (thats like double!) but give or take a 100 words is fine. Main thing is... if those words matter, thats bwhat they want... not bs that pusshes the number of words up.</p>
<p>So relax, and congratulate yourdelf on writing a fine essay</p>
<p>I wouldn't go much over the word limit, though as I think someone else said, they aren't going to go through and count how many words you have. The problem comes if you are turning it in online, and it won't let you put in more than a certain number of words. But it doesn't sound like that's your problem.</p>
<p>I think they have a 6,000 character limit or something.</p>
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I think they have a 6,000 character limit or something.
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<p>Who is "they?"</p>
<p>If you mean online apps, it really depends. Some did count words -- and occassionally their word count ends up showing a different number (for me, less) than the word count on Microsoft Word, which was really annoying.</p>
<p>When they print out your app the will never count the words. They see how long it is. If it is more than 1 page single spaced, you have a problem. If you use the word "I" a lot (The essay is about you?) it shouldnt make a difference because it is a very small word. Adcoms will never count your words, but can tell by length if you wrote way too much. If you write 1000 words instead of 500 but it is pulitzer level, they will cut you slack. If you write 499 and it is bad, you dont get any bonus points for staying in the limit. If it is 750+ and average, it hurts. 540 words and an average essay will probably not hurt or help.</p>
<p>6000 characters is for the common app essay (250-500 words but 2000 characters is more than enough for 500 words)</p>
<p>540 is fine. officers wont care.</p>
<p>I say just leave it as is, 540 isn't going to hurt you.</p>
<p>If you are really worried about what they'll think reading an essay thats 40 words too many, ask your English teacher for help. The first draft of my essay was 602 words but with editing and sentence combination its now 489. Try combining sentences and looking for repeated ideas to shorten it.</p>
<p>It won't hurt you...mine were 650-800 words.</p>
<p>yeah.. as I said, all that matters really is the relavence of the words</p>