<p>This is obviously very last minute, but I wrote my short answers looking at the 1500 character limit and pushed that limit with 30 to 20 characters one each essay. What I forgot about was the 150 word suggestion in the instructions. My 1500 character essays turned out to be about 250 words each. Do I need to cut those down significantly?</p>
<p>Honestly, I would. They give you a limit and while it would probably be okay to be a couple words/characters over it, going that much over only shows that you can’t follow directions. We have always stayed right at the requested word/character count.</p>
<p>After talking with some college and high school guidance counselors, it seems like +/- 10-15% on the wordcount is okay. That’s what I did on my Common App essay (569 words) and supplements, each of which was in the 170-180 range. 250 words is too long, but it is not like they are going to recount the words in your essay. Good luck!</p>
<p>Well unfortunately the deadline was today and I wasn’t prepared to significantly cut content out of my short answers at the last minute to drop 75-100 words, so I went ahead and submitted the supplement. At least my main common app essay is only 470! Hopefully the rest of the application is strong enough that they won’t notice nor make a big deal out of my longer answers. I couldn’t email shortened essays to my rep after the fact could I?</p>