Scholarship esays length

The space for the scholarship essays to my school on Apply Texas says a maximum of two 80 character lines. When I cut and pasted my essay to see what would happen it took all of it. Right now it is pretty long and I need to cut it down. I just don’t understand why it allowed me to paste the whole thing if it won’t take all of it. Does it change once I hit submit and cut off after the max?