<p>How long are the parent statements supposed to be? There is no word limit unlike the student essays.</p>
<p>We were never longer than one side of a sheet of paper.</p>
<p>I’m <em>really</em> struggling with this!</p>
<p>The Exeter form in its PDF version allows you to put maybe two or three sentences for each question. What I had prepared was about two short paragraphs for each of the three questions (the whole thing is less than a page, typed up, in 12-point font). Definitely not lengthy or wordy, but unable to fit in the form. </p>
<p>What do folks think? If I edit, I won’t be able to include some key things we were hoping to convey that we didn’t share in other parts of the application. </p>
<p>As a point of reference, the student essay form suggests attaching an additional sheet rather than squeezing it directly onto the form. </p>
<p>Should I do the same with the parent statement? Oy.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Was it for one question, or the entire set of questions? :)</p>
<p>booklady, if I were an Exeter AO, I wouldn’t be too giddy to see PS spilling over the allocated space… unless yours is a very funny, interesting, or compelling story. They are only humans, and yet have to deal with >2,000 apps in a matter of month.</p>
<p>SG - haha…the Parent Question was just a single question.</p>
<p>I think we’re comparing apples to oranges here. Different schools seem to have different parent statement forms, and the one I’m working on happens to be particularly brief. </p>
<p>In another thread, many of you shared word count for your parent statements and they were way longer than even my “won’t fit” version for this one. And TP’s one page wouldn’t fit on this form. So “long” is relative.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, I guess I’ll play it safe and edit the stuffing out of it to fit it on the pdf.</p>
<p>TP & booklady, I think you guys were lucky to have only 1 question or be forced to fit in 1 page.</p>
<p>Choate asks 7 questions with each up to 1,000 characters! I feel like I’m the applicant!</p>
<p>Seven questions for the parents? Wow. That’s a lot.</p>
<p>Yikes! Now I understand why you thought I was crazy for not being able to fit my responses in the allotted space.</p>
<p>By comparison, my total word count for three questions was 430 words, and I couldn’t fit it on the form.</p>
<p>Perhaps these two schools represent the two ends of the spectrum.</p>
<p>I used acrobat with maybe 8 pt font and no spacing between the lines to fit it into the PDF form.
If that doesn’t work, I guess you could attach a separate page with your responses.</p>
<p>I just went on a hunt to see if I could find my parent recommendations from 4 years ago and couldn’t. However, I did find the Exeter parent recommendation form that college counseling sent me last year and it specifically said that we should add more pages as needed. My point is that I think that Exeter asks for what they want. </p>
<p>Since the Exeter parent statement is optional, I suspect they don’t spend a lot of time on it. I think extra small font or extra pages added would have the potential to irritate more than add to an application. Keep in mind that Exeter is looking for exceptionally independent and self-motivated kids–so who the kid is apart from the parents’ perception and observation is probably most important. </p>
<p>Of course, I’m speaking from the position of having written both the math and English recommendation, along with the parent statement, so I probably got to say everything I wanted! In retrospect, though, I bet it didn’t matter that much.</p>
<p>State the main points that you think you want to put in the PS. Too long a statement would not help too much and be appreciated. They have to read some thousand PS. As long as you have strong points, you should be fine. Especially dont exceed the recommended length unless you have a special point to make.</p>
<p>Just keep editing. I liked my final results for the Exeter statements because I really had to work on them to say what I thought was important within the allotted space.</p>
<p>I found my old one. I was able to fit into the one page form. Used Arial 9 pt font (still larger than the question font), word count was 688.</p>