<p>What if one is like 350 words and the other 600? If you average it, it's less than 500...</p>
<p>^ that's probably fine</p>
<p>Which I guess also makes yours work :)</p>
<p><em>sigh</em></p>
<p>both of mine are over, and in the 850-word range; i double-checked with two college counselors and three English teachers; all of them said my essay shouldn't be cut down, and that the length would not be a deterrent for acceptance (and, since they've been getting kids in for years, i feel like they know what they're talking about).</p>
<p>i figure, if i get rejected from yale because my essay was ~200 words too long, i'd probably be happier in another school that avoids that kind of excessive nitpicking. granted, i just spent two days trying to cut it down to no avail, so maybe i'm biased. :) </p>
<p>good luck to everyone!</p>
<p>my supplement was only 377 words. My other common app was 560-ish. I agree though. Some of the best writing does more with less.</p>
<p>FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFf
My Yale essay was 532 words ;_;</p>
<p>Mine was 499 or exactly 500... lol...</p>
<p>Yale needs to be clearer with the word limit on the Common App Essay. For all I knew, it just needed to be more than 250 words.</p>
<p>It's not even on the Application Instruction pages, and they were pretty vague in the FAQ section, too. They said on the FAQ: "We ask that you respect the word limits we suggest." Where was a word limit suggested other than the supplement essay? I feel like I missed out on some kind of uber-important instruction. </p>
<p>So seeing pFNMCp's post was kind of a shocker to me. Why couldn't they clarify that earlier? :/</p>
<p>Oh well, I just hope that my common app essay (650 words) is riveting enough for them to skip over the fact that I am 150 words over their sort-of-declared-word-limit or whatever. But seriously, they need to put the Admission officer's comment on the FAQ section.</p>
<p>Who cares??? Goodness... my Common Application essay was 650... They never specified anywhere on the application form or instructions... I just kept their supplement instructions to the letter... </p>
<p>Do they seriously expect everyone to read the fine print on their FAQ section on their website??? Probably not... So stop sweating about it... Riveting, interesting or not, I expect them to read another 150 words lousy words for the 70 bucks I paid... Geez... people, lighten up...</p>
<p>gstasin: what you may call arbitrary "nitpicking" by Yale is seen by Yale as: "how well can this student express an essay in these parameters compared with his/her peer applicants"</p>
<p>The essays serve two purposes 1) to learn about you and 2) to see how well you perform this exercise (500 word essay). While you may succeed at #1, you may do poorly at #2. </p>
<p>Would you get rejected because you're at 850? Who knows. But why add a potentially negative aspect of your overall file? Why is your case more special than the other 22,000 applicants this year? It's really not (even if you'll receive an admit later). However, good luck to you.</p>