<p>Ok, so I misread the thing and thought it said maximum of 500 words when it actually says 500 characters. I'm trying desperately to shrink my personal statements right now but I definitely can't get it below 500 characters. Will having long personal statements hurt my chances of getting in? Also, will it cut the words past the 500 characters mark or will they still read it if it's longer than that?</p>
<p>on the commonapp it will cut you off, its really annoying but it is what it is.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, you’re cut off after 500 characters. </p>
<p>My advice would be to scrap your old responses and just write completely new ones. It’s easier (in my opinion, anyways) to start from scratch rather than cutting things out word by word.</p>
<p>The same thing happened to me. It was so frustrating to see all of the work i put it into them being useless. But yeah, i agree with the other girl/guy, i just scrapped my essays and wrote new ones. It didn’t take too much time, just about 15-20 min. max.</p>
<p>Finally got all under 500 characters! Thanks!</p>
<p>For mine two years ago I don’t recall it being that short (250 words for each if I recall correctly), I’m surprised they changed them to be so short. I do, however, know that these factor heavily into your application. NYU is a school that loves individuality; if you can express yourself creatively and admirably through a very short piece, it gets you high marks here.</p>
<p>Best of luck.</p>