<p>^'Kay it’s sent… now I’m afraid it’ll draw negative attention to my app, there’s no way I can win!</p>
<p>@honorstudent
I can understand why you are anxious but why are you putting yourself down over it. Obviously you should have thoroughly checked your paper or even have gotten a parent to take one last look at it before you sent your application. You’re obviously demoralizing yourself to get people to tell you “it’s all right”. IMO, I view the fact that there are typos very negatively, but there is simply nothing you can do about it.</p>
<p>^Yes, I know. But like I’ve said, my computer crashed last minute and had to retype them without anyone to help me check them. I’m just really disappointed at the timing of the crash b/c I seriously wrote my essay in July. The mistakes aren’t huge, huge I suppose but my question is just whether or not sending in a revision will be looked upon even more negatively although they emailed me saying I could and that the errors would not “compromise my decision.” I just truly hate myself for not spotting them.</p>
<p>“Gomestar- i hope you are exaggerating a little. I know 1000 words are a little excessive. But how would the adcoms know the difference between the 500 words mark and the 550 words mark?”</p>
<p>This is generally the policy at many top universities. Adcoms are extremely swamped and can’t afford to spend twice the amount of time on one essay over the other because a student ignored the instructions. That little bit of extra time per essay really adds up when you have 35,000 students. And in ILR for instance, each essay is read by 3 adcoms and then 3 professors. You can see what happens to the deadlines when this happens.</p>
<p>How do they know? In a standard font (10 or 12 or something), 500 words is 2 pages double spaced and one page single spaced. It’s much harder tell on printed paper, but with the budget cuts I doubt anybody is really printing stuff off. It’s easy enough to do a count on the computer for 500 words. Each individual adcom is different when it comes to leeway (500 vs. 519), but some are no-nonsense on 500.</p>
<p>honorstudent-- Now that you have submitted the copyedited version of the essay, let it go. You can not do anything else, and the main thing will be your stats. The essay, by the time you have the stats to apply to Cornell, is not to be able to tell if you can spell or put a comma in the right place, this is assumed, the essay is to get to know you as a person. Hopefully you got this personality part in there.</p>
<p>Regardless, it isn’t going to help to worry. It’s out of your hands now and you might as well just get on with the business of living. I sincerely hope you are accepted, as you truly are someone who wants to go to Cornell.</p>
<p>They won’t read essays past word 501??! omg mine is like 670</p>
<p>it really depends on the individual. But based on my experience working there when I was a student, you should really strive for 500. An adcom in a less than giddy mood will not appreciate 670 words.</p>
<p>There is no word limit on the common app essay, only the common app short answer (at 150 words). Both my daughters’ common app essays were in the mid 600’s (on one page). Their supplements, however, were both exactly 500 words (which is the limit specified by Cornell for their supplement). Each of their supplements started out closer to 600 words, and they were able to get rid of unnecessary words and get their essays to within the word limit. One is now attending Cornell, and the other has applied, so we’ll see!</p>
<p>Oh, I emailed admissions that they told me 500 on the supplement was a guideline and ± 50 words was fine. Not sure about common application</p>
<p>Aw thanks poetgirl. And oh man, do you guys think I’m totally screwed? My common app esssay is about 1000 with my supplement at 700. Admissions said it was ok if I couldn’t shorten it anymore but idk…</p>
<p>+/- 50 seems reasonable especially if it’s what they’re communicating out to students. I wouldn’t worry about the 501 then.</p>
<p>650 and 1000 words? Not smart.</p>
<p>Even if they think you are some super crazy anal person, I doubt they will remember that detail when they go and finally decide whether to accept you or not. I really don’t think they’ll make a note saying “i think this person is too anal, don’t accept them”</p>
<p>in other news…chill out.</p>
<p>Ha wonderful. Yay for being lied to!</p>
<p>I emailed CALS admissions, not general…might be different depending.</p>