<p>How long should each of the two essays be? 500 words each? </p>
<p>And I saw someone say something about being able to write a third essay. Is this true? because i didn't see anything about it on the UC website.</p>
<p>1000 words maximum and they strongly advise you not to write an essay less than 250? words i think. its only 2 essay for a regular uc application. the third essay you’re talking about is probably for UC Berkeley’s haas school of business or something where they require another essay to prove that you should be accepted into their programs.</p>
<p>the guy i’m talking about talks about it right here. it’s the last post</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/uc-transfers/1245176-abstract-essay.html?highlight=length[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/uc-transfers/1245176-abstract-essay.html?highlight=length</a></p>
<p>3rd was Haas for me. I don’t know any other programs that required a third though.</p>
<p>Try to keep it 500 on the dot. No more, no less. I was advised by a Berkeley counselor that admissions actually like it right at 500. I was like, “Whhaa?”</p>
<p>500 words is actually less than I thought. I just did my first draft of my raw essay, unedited. And I hit 543 words. Looks like i’m gonna have to take stuff out</p>
<p>I think the third essay is probably referring to the Additional Comments section. The additional comments section allows you to essentially put whatever you want. I generally hear that it is not a good idea to use that area for a 3rd essay, though, so be careful.</p>
<p>Where do I find the Haas essay?</p>
<p>I’m at 410 for the first. I fear adding any more will decrease the quality. Thoughts?</p>
<p>I haven’t started mine. Should I even worry about it? I TAGed to the only school I want to go to (UCSC), and they don’t even look at the essays.</p>
<p>that might be true, but i would never leave it to an assumption. especially if it’s the only school you applied to.</p>
<p>I’m not stressing either, even the ucsb counselor said not to worry about the personal statement too much since they won’t read it anyways.</p>
<p>yupper- the way i did it was that I just wrote the absolute best essay I can without following the 500 limit too closely. It got to 6xx words for me. Then I brought it to a bunch of counselors and english teachers and they edited and cut down my essay. What ended up happening was took out the unnecessary wording and tightened it. Best essay I wrote! lol</p>
<p>I’d say better to go over and get rid of the fat and keep the good stuff, rather than cut it short and scramble for filler. Just my two cents.</p>
<p>I wrote 2 essays for my transfer app. I was told to keep them to 1000 words total for the two. I chose to make one longer than the other. Can’t remember which was which but one was about 300 and one about 700. The additional one you mention is for any additional things that you could not cover in your other essays or in the app. You should not use it unless you have something very specific or unusual to explain. As long as both essays are under 1000 total you are fine. I did a TAG to UC Davis as was also told they probably wouldn’t even be reading mine.</p>
<p>So if one is 550 the other should be no more than 450, got it? Good luck!</p>
<p>I have a question: Do both essays have to amount to exactly 1000 words? what If both my essays are 400 words each?</p>
<p>@Mermaker, I think 1000 is just the max so 800 should be ok.</p>
<p>Does anyone know if there is supposed to be any kind of formatting or does it not matter? Double spaced or anything etc.</p>
<p>That is what I’m thinking. It reads that the minimum for one essay in 250 words, so as long as they’re both at least 250 words, we should be fine. How are you guys going to approach the prompts?</p>
<p>** When I applied to the UC’s (Fall 2011) altogether both my prompts were 604 words. You might be wondering, “WOW, that’s incredibly short for a personal statement”. However, it is better to have a QUALITY personal statement that is straight to the point. Imagine yourself reading over thousands of essays. What’s the main take-away point of the statement? What makes you different from the other applicants? Remove all the “fluff” from your essay if you can! If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask!
-KC <3**</p>
<p>Emprex, on the instructions it says
"Once you are satisfied with your essays, save them in plain text (ASCII) and paste them into the space provided in the application. Proofread once more to make sure no odd characters or line breaks have appeared. "</p>
<p>So I think the plain text will get rid of any type of formatting you have on your essay other than spacing between words, punctuation, and indention.</p>
<p>Thanks Mikey</p>