<p>"With the understanding that the choice of academic school you indicated is not binding, explain why you are applying to that particular school of study."</p>
<p>Is this intended to be essay-style? A friend told me that they might just be asking why you are applying to that school. But is this intended to be written in the same way you might respond to a personal statement prompt?</p>
<p>Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.</p>
<p>Mine was 427 words, and it was essentially my rationale for wanting to pursue engineering in an essay format. It didn't specify, so just answer it the way YOU think you should.</p>
<p>^Agreed. I just talked about my interest in engineering. I didn't include any Rice specifics in there.</p>
<p>I only wrote a paragraph coz I didn't know it had to be an "essay"...I hope this doesn't hurt my chances too much</p>
<p>I treated it as a short answer. My response was about 150 words and I was accepted ED. Don't freak out over this stuff. Trust that you did a good job on your application and there's nothing more you can do.</p>
<p>Haha, mine was 300+ words...</p>
<p>There isn't a line between "essay style" and "non-essay style". Essays are just a way of getting your point across, which is what you always want to do. The thing you should actually be focusing on is whether a min/max word count is specified. If there isn't any word count, write it however long you want, as long as you answer the question. Filling out applications isn't supposed to be a game.</p>