<p>I've been working on my History SOP's for some time now and most have had a 1000 word limit and I've had little trouble addressing all I needed within this limit with regards to research interests/approaches, my fit with the school, goals and preparation. However University of Chicago has a whopping 2500 word limit. I currently have about 1500 words for this statement and while I could add more detail, I'm not sure if this would just come across as rambling. So my question is, for a 2500 limit, would this length appear acceptable, or should I shoot to extend it to at least 2000 words so I don't seem lazy with my SOP?</p>
<p>Most of my schools either didn’t say or said don’t go beyond 5 or 6 pages or something, which is ridiculously long IMO (but those were on the applications, which are university-wide… maybe some departments like to read super long SOPs from people who don’t write concisely). I ended up writing about 1200 words, then cutting it back to about 1100, and I had one school where I had to cut a little more because it only allows 1000 words. I would think 2500 words would be way too long to be honest. Of course, my field is math, and most mathematicians don’t have much patience and would rather just read something right to the point, so maybe my advice is useless for a history student. It probably won’t come across as “lazy” if it looks like it’s been through a number of revisions, as you make it sound.</p>
<p>It’s all about concise and clear writing. Really read your SOP over again for any redundancies. Get to the point with everything, including precisely why that school is a great fit. With those longer SOPs, there’s really no reason to do any “fillers” unless you have even more interesting ideas that you cannot mention in other shorter SOPs.</p>