<p>Texas A&M is my dream school, and I really plan on getting in. The essay section in apply Texas says it prefers if I send the essays in online, but my essays are a little past the character restrictions and I plan to send them in by mail. Does it really matter which way I send in the essays?? Will it in any way effect me getting in?</p>
<p>“my essays are a little past the character restrictions” meaning beyond the word count directions? If so, you might want to revise to conform to guidelines.</p>
<p>well, there are only specific requirements for submitting it online. there are none specified to mail it in. </p>
<p>This is what apply texas says regarding the essays : If you are submitting your essay online, it must be no longer than 120 eighty-character lines of text (including spaces and blank lines).</p>
<p>I would suppose they prefer to keep the essays brief and have them submitted online.</p>
<p>Since doing anything contrary to the norm introduces a new way for things to get sort of messed up - I would tend to go with the grain.</p>
<p>But that’s just me. If they’re a little past the character restrictions - I’d just look for ways to pare them down and submit them electronically according to the standard.</p>
<p>But that’s just me.</p>
<p>What are your stats? Essays only come as useful when u are a review admit. Does your test scores and class rank make u an academic admit?</p>
<p>Aggiewannabe - that is NOT correct. The essays are used for some of the scholarship applications.</p>
<p>I would highly recommend completing the essays and putting a lot of effort into them - taking them seriously.</p>
<p>Cromette is (as always!) very correct. We asked the admissions counselor if my S needed to complete the 3rd “optional” essay since he was an automatic admit, and she said absolutely – that the optional essay “is where you can really let yourself shine and show them who you are.” Since the admissions folks are the ones who determine merit aid, not the financial aid people, that makes sense. He spent the most time on that C essay!</p>
<p>ADMISSIONS HAS NOTHING AT ALL TO DO WITH FINANCIAL AID!!! At all. In any way shape or form. Essay C is extremely important to do! </p>
<p>Financial Aid is the ONLY department that deals with financial aid and that is IT, regardless of whether or not your scholarships are merit based or need based. Financial Aid makes those decisions. They will have access to your information, including Essay C, in order to make their decisions. Once again, don’t think that Admissions has anything at ALL to do with financial aid because that is 100% false. Write that essay and write it well! They will have access to view your information (including essays) to make their scholarship decisions so make it good because they will probably not have had as much time reviewing your application, reference letters, etc. as the admissions reviewers have.</p>
<p>No, actually that is completely false. But hey, feel free to use a few more exclamation points and maybe it’ll make it true…</p>
<p>When I saw this I was worried that there was something I didn’t know about the process. So I called the Admissions Office and spoke with the Associate Director of Admissions. It’s false. Verified.</p>
<p>Sorry to make you mad, but I know this for an absolute fact. It’s the highest up person you can talk to when you call admissions. They handled all the hiring of people who actually review admissions applications. So they know for sure. I didn’t mean to sound like an a** but I just didn’t want people to be thinking the wrong thing.</p>
<p>I’ve had to talk to the merit scholarship group, cottage123 is correct they are in the financial aid offices. They are the same people whether it is merit or need based that review, grant or deny students for the university wide scholarships. The departmental/college based ones are done by each individual college staff (not the same group). Your application is sent out to the various places you qualify for potential scholarship consideration.</p>
<p>So, I’m still a bit confused. I will most likely submit the essays online. However, what does this :
" If you are submitting your essay online, it must be no longer than 120 eighty-character lines of text (including spaces and blank lines). "</p>
<p>even mean? specifically: 120 eighty? what…</p>
<p>I just assumed it meant 120 lines with 80 characters in each line</p>
<p>Right. If you do your essay in Word, you can set your margin so that you will never exceed the prescribed number of characters per line and you can keep count of your lines. Then you can cut and paste.</p>