<p>I was wondering if you guys double spaced your essays in the little box before sending them in. The formatting got all whacked out after I copy-pasted from MS Word.</p>
<p>I did when I applied last year.</p>
<p>I don't think it really matters.</p>
<p>I did not double space it.</p>
<p>Yes, it does matter. You are not supposed to double space it.
Got the following from the apps:</p>
<p>" Formatting Your Personal Statement</p>
<p>Single-space your personal statement, and avoid custom margins.</p>
<p>Don't include any special formatting found in word processing programs, such as bold type or underlining, curly quotation marks ("smart quotes"), font styles, em-dashes, etc. We will not be reviewing your personal statement on the basis of formatting, and the lack of special type or fancy formatting will not disadvantage you in any way.</p>
<p>If you've included any special formatting as you've written your essay in another software program, take the following steps:</p>
<p>a. Save your document in a text-only format (.txt), which is sometimes called ASCII text or plain text.</p>
<p>b. Reopen this new text-only document and read again for accurate translation.</p>
<p>c. Copy and paste the text into the window provided in the application and reread the essay for accuracy and completeness.</p>
<p>You can only use standard American English alphanumeric characters (the numbers 0 through 9 and the letters a through z) and the other characters found on a standard English keyboard: !@#$%^&*()_+-=[]{}|`~;:'",<.>/?. No accented characters or foreign language characters are allowed. Please replace all of these characters with the accepted characters listed above. After your essay is pasted in the text box, the standard apostrophe/quotation mark key on your computer keyboard will generate valid characters."</p>