<p>For the optional question that's supposed to be 250-400 words, is it alright if you go over the word limit or is it strict? I'm at 427 and am having trouble cutting it down. </p>
<p>Help?</p>
<p>This is just opinion, but with everything I've read on these forums and heard from our school's college counselor, 27 words isn't going to be noticed and it is indeed possible that if you took them out it would leave the essay very flat.</p>
<p>They wouldn't check to see that your essay is within a word limit, would they? I've written all the essays and they all fit inside the boxes (and the character limit) but the common app still says that I am over the limit.</p>
<p>Don't worry about being 27 words over the limit.</p>
<p>I"m like 100 words over the limit >_></p>
<p>Don't worry so much about words as long as they fit into character limit...I think it's 5000 characters? </p>
<p>In any case, I think you will be fine w/ 427. :)</p>
<p>Here's a reasonable test:</p>
<p>Could an average stranger look at it and immediately be 100% sure that the essay is over the limit?</p>
<p>At 27 words over, absolutely not. 100 words over a 400 word essay, perhaps. 200 words over, hells yes. And you'll notice that a rule like this has a bit of a sliding scale. The margins for a 50 word essay are different than for a 500 word essay. Flip through my comments on our essays and you'll notice a theme: you need to be true to the spirit of the question, but you have great freedom to bend the rules.</p>