<p>The one for the supplement, how long should it be? I remember this be posted a while ago, but I do not remember the board ever reaching a conclusive answer. Mine is presently at around 580 (I promise I'm not normally that long winded) and was just wondering. Thanks, and congrats to all the ED'ers.</p>
<p>that should be fine. but before you send it in, try to kill the fluff.</p>
<p>Mine comes to around 400 words I think.... And about the other essay, it says minimum of 250 words, but is there an upper limit? I couldnt find any... Mine comes to around 550 words !! I tried cutting it short, but wasnt able to do it.... Is there a preferred word count? An approximation? Thanks!</p>
<p>OK, I'm really confused about this! There is the option to either paste your essay in the box, or upload a document. But the box will only accomodate 1000 characters. Doesn't that mean they don't want something a whole lot longer than that??? The 580 and 400 words you guys are doing will end up being 2500 or even more characters!</p>
<p>Is it better to upload an essay much longer than 1000 characters?</p>
<p>yeah, I was thinking similarly to kristina. I'm trying to cut my essays down to 1000 characters.</p>
<p>If you tend towards longer words, you can easily hit 1000 characters without hitting 500 words- word count is much more relevant.</p>
<p>Whoa. My "Why NU?" (turned in at the beginning of December) was only 930 characters with spaces, 700-something without (134 words). Feeling a little worried that it should have been more essay-full, but I was pretty succinct about NU's attractive qualities. Oh, well! No going back now...</p>
<p>yes, i know that one can easily hit 1000 characters, before reaching 500 words, but it doesn't say that the essay should be 500 words. </p>
<p>I just think that the essay instructions are not clear enough. Should the essay be 500 words? 1000 characters? 1 page? Does anyone know for sure, which of these three it's supposed to be?</p>
<p>arbiter, that's exactly what I mean-- for me, 1000 characters is not even CLOSE to 500 words. For me that would be less than 200 words.</p>
<p>misterrr, that's my dilemma. People are saying they wrote much longer essays. Is that going to be perceived as tiresome, or will it just show your genuine interest in the school?</p>
<p>There's quite a few other threads going on this...</p>
<p>From the mouth of a NU rep:
"There is no word limit for the Northwestern Statement. We'd like you to keep your answer to about one page. If you need to go over the 1000 character limit, go ahead and attach your document instead of using the space provided."</p>
<p>(One page means 250 words double spaced, 500 single spaced in case you all don't know. Unless you have a compelling reason, I'd try to keep it concise and within 400 words).</p>
<p>Thanks, actormcfamous.</p>
<p>It is more difficult to write a good short essay than a longer one, and it is more "telling." Longer essays tend to shroud the main point... they are a leftover from high school essay tests where students are taught to write as much as they can, hoping to cover the points which the teacher will find and give them a check-mark (points) for covering. Though these types of tests might prove that a student covered the breadth of material, it shows nothing of their understanding. It does not show their knowledge of what is MOST important, and what is the meaning of this bloc of knowledge.</p>
<p>If you truly want to impress an adult, particularly one like me who has been in the business world for more than two decades, provide a short essay that (1) makes a clear insightful point, and (2) includes no bull-**** filler. That would show me that you know what's important, that you know how to think. </p>
<p>I want to hire (admit) someone who can think far more than I want someone who can regurgitate facts.</p>
<p>Thanks for the insight, NUgraduate.</p>
<p>My essay's little less than 400 words.... I thought I saw somewhere that it was better to keep the essay to less than 500 words, so I thought 400 or so wouldnt really be a problem.... It comes to around 1700 characters.... I think I will have to cut down on it a little....... But thanks for the info !</p>
<p>Mine is about half a page long, double spaced. It's seemed perfectly appropriate for it to be that short; it isn't the main essay at all. I also included an abstract for research I did, and that turned out to be just over a page double spaced. I don't really want to hurt my application by having the adcoms read longer than necessary materials.</p>
<p>my essay comes to a little less than a page.... the why nu one that is.... and research abstract is exactly one page! its not really too long is it?</p>