Some tips on those essays!

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
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<p>Many of you have e-mailed in questions about essay length, so I thought I'd put up a post addressing essays so everyone can have a response.</p>

<p>We suggest that each of your essays stay around 500 words, which is about 1 page single spaced or 2 pages double spaced. While we won't, as a rule, stop reading after 500 words, brevity is the source of... me not getting bored with your essay: please be kind to your poor admissions counselor, who reads many many applications per year, and respect our length suggestions. If you must go over, keep it in the single or low double digits; 550 words is pushing it, and 800 words just lets us know you didn't listen to us. You're welcome to go under, but know also that a one sentence "Why Chicago" probably isn't going to help us learn a whole lot about you. I knowwwwww it's hard to cut out those last 50 or 100 words, but you're going to be asked to do a lot of it in college; now is a good time to start practicing. </p>

<p>Also, as your admissions counselors were all probably tricky essay tricksters back in the day, we know all of those "secrets" about making the font size 11.25 and the margins slightly smaller, or making the periods a different size to make it look longer or shorter, or using a funky font; Times or Times New Roman 12-pt. font with 1 inch margins are classy, easy to read, and your new collegiate BFF. </p>

<p>Also, when you're uploading essays or your activities in to the Common App, MAKE SURE TO PRINT PREVIEW BEFORE SENDING. The Common App forms will simply cut off any extra characters that go beyond their character limit or page boundaries; it's a shame if we don't get the last sentence of your essay, or if your 9-12 Orchestra participation description says "In 100th grade I was selected for a speci---" when you mean to include "--ial awesome prize that only one person in the world gets ever".</p>

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Relevant.
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/high-school-life/805957-garamond-times-new-romans-hot-sister.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/high-school-life/805957-garamond-times-new-romans-hot-sister.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>An extra word of advice: don’t use dashes from MS Word (when it auto-corrects – to —) on the parts of the Common App where you have to write in your text directly. It prints them out as these weird symbols. I had to call two admissions offices, explain the mistake, and resubmit my essays to those schools last year. :/</p>

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<p>Here are some tips for letters of recommendation, too:</p>

<p><a href=“http://uchicagoadmissions.■■■■■■■■■■/post/10013941979/phoenix-tip-2-letters-of-recommendation[/url]”>http://uchicagoadmissions.■■■■■■■■■■/post/10013941979/phoenix-tip-2-letters-of-recommendation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;