Supplemental Essay

Colleges and Universities A-Z Boston College
1

<p>For the supplemental essay, did anyone dare to go over the 400 word limit?</p>

<p>Mine is 495.</p>

<p>How strict do you think they are?</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

2

<p>I’m really not sure how serious they are about the 400 word limit but my daughter’s essay was exactly 400 words. You may want to take another look and see if you can cut it back some. She just submitted her app this am.</p>

3

<p>I was 60 some words over and was accepted EA. Dont worry about it… But don’t go crazy with it either.</p>

4

<p>As Diamond3 noted, going over the limit isn’t an automatic death sentence. But be careful. </p>

<p>Application readers are busy people. When they’re working overtime trying to read all the applications, it helps to show you’re respectful of their time. You can’t predict if and when an application’s extra length will be an automatic turnoff to a tired reader.</p>

5

<p>Dear jessielynnn33 : The 400 word limit encourages the applicant to choose words judiciously and forces an efficiency in the essay’s message (translation : get to the point). </p>

<p>Reviewing essays for tight writing is always a worthwhile exercise. A simple example follows.</p>

<p>“The coat of blue on the bird made him stand out in the yellow leaves on the tree.” would be better stated “The male bird’s blue coat popped against the tree’s yellow leaves.” The difference here is eleven words versus eighteen words. Prepositional phrases can create labored sentences and “leak” a significant number of words in such metered exercises.</p>

6

<p>a good way to chop is to go backwards. Literally.Look at your paragraphs for the line wraps.</p>

<p>Start with the par with the shortest line wrap first. Look at each sentence one-by-one on the right margins, looking for large words that wrapped to the next line. Can you reword that one sentence (in the middle of the Par) to get it to not wrap? And then another sentence? Does it delete the line wrap for the par as a whole?</p>

<p>Move onto the next par…repeat.</p>

7

<p>Mine was exactly 400 words</p>

8

<p>When you submitted your supplemental essay on a separate document, did you double space? Also what font should be used. I generally prefer 12 Helvetica as it is very easy on the eyes, but should I go with the standard 12 Times New Roman?</p>

9

<p>Also, how did you acknowledge what essay prompt you picked?</p>