URGENT ED1) Can my personal essay be THIS SHORT???

Hi,

I’m completely new to all the common app - I go to british school so they don’t really give much detail on how to use common app.

I know for a fact that the limit to the personal essay prompt is 650 words. I’ve written 650 exactly but my university counselor said I wrote too much for US admission?? and he told me to cut it down to 450 words.

I’m doing the first prompt (basically talking about my talent and how I evolved to take new challenges and stuff so I had to explain how my life was before I started doing art. But it’s only around 100 words. The rest is quite descriptive- how I feel when I do art, what I did and how i am now.

He basically told me that the part where I talk about my previously life isn’t neccessary and that I should delete the whole paragraph.

Oh and he also said admissions officers don’t bother reading the whole essay anyways so I should have it down to 450?

Is this true? My friends are telling me he is being ridiculous but I just want to make sure I include as many points about myself as possible but now I’m confused as to how long my personal essay should be

Please help

Thanks!

You can write as much as you want within the limit. the admissions officers will read it.
I personally have never heard the advice your counselor has given you and in my opinion it is ridiculous. Obviously you don’t want to have unnecessary wordage etc. but if it’s a good essay it can still be long (if that makes sense)

The limit is 650 words, so you can write as much as you want within that, as long as every single word in your essay has a purpose. Because it’s such a short essay, and because admissions officers are reading so many of them, you can’t afford to leave in anything that isn’t necessary.

I’ve never heard of any 450-word limit, so I don’t know where your counselor is getting that from. But, if he’s just telling you to make your essay shorter, it might be good advice. As a general rule, shorter pieces are usually more gripping and more memorable. Length does not equate to content; a good essay says far more in 450 words than a bad one in 650.

Ultimately, no one here has read your essay, so we can’t really give you advice. You know your essay better than anyone, and if you’re convinced that the paragraph about your “previous life” is necessary to the story you’re trying to tell. One way to do this is to go through your essay and put every line through the “so what?” test. Read every sentence and ask yourself, “so what?” “what does this add to my essay?” “what will this tell colleges about me?” “does this need to be here?”

Basically, your counselor is wrong in saying to cut your essay down to 450 words as a hard-and-fast rule. But, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t reread every word carefully and cut out everything superfluous.

I will say that it would surprise me to see a 450-word essay that accomplishes as much as it could. Making it longer, of course, isn’t a “solution,” though. I usually think it’s best to start with an 800-1200-word essay and trim, pare, edit it down to a lean, mean 550-650 statement.