I just now noticed that my UMich question 500 word essay that I sent actually has 501 words per the Common App word counter.
I know what happened. When I first cut and pasted my essay into the Common App, it said 500 words. Good. Everything is fine. But while proof-reading it one final time before submitting it, I noticed that I had left out the word “the” in the “College of Literature, Sciene and the Arts”. I originally typed College of Literature, Science, and Arts". When I added “the”, it changed my word count to 501. I didn’t notice the 501 word count before submitting the app.
When you type or paste it in on the Common App, you will see that any words over the limit will be cut off.
If you use the Preview function, you can see exactly what your application looks like- and then go back in and make changes- before submitting it.
So, there are two opportunities to see what happens to your essay and to change it. First when you enter it into Common App in the first place, and then when you preview your whole application at the end before submitting. You should reread every single line.
@TGK, my heart sank when I saw that 501 words. Unbelievable how careful I tried to be and choked at the last second. What’s even worse is I just now noticed it while perusing the Common App for my other schools.
Hey I applied last year and my essay was more words over 500 I freaked out and even online messaged admissions and they said it was fine and I still got in and am here now so don’t worry about it
If the Common App allows you to submit the application, it means your essay fell within the word count permitted by the University. Many universities give 10% allowance for essays. In the case of Michigan, the 500 word limit can be stretched to 550 words.
I can’t imagine that any admissions officer bothers to count words. No reader is going to perceive a difference between 499 and 501 words. As long as you are not egregiously over the limit, you should be fine. The only danger is that sometimes the application won’t let you exceed a certain number of words or characters. If all your text got pasted into the app and no words were omitted, you should be ok. Don’t sweat it.
It’s not an adcom counting words. It’s whether the college’s own download allows for more than x. But savvy programmers allow a little extra, knowing the CB file might split words, add a random character or whatever. As others said, OP is likely fine.
Thanks, fellas, for the moral support. I definitely feel a lot better about it today than I did a few days ago when I saw my screw up.
All of my essay’s text got accepted by UM and it shows up in my Common App upon review of what was accepted. So, I guess I dodged a self-inflicted bullet on this one. I’m still PO’d at myself for allowing it to happen – no excuse for it, especially in light of the facts that UMich is my top pick and I was so diligent about trying to get it right.