<p>Hello,</p>
<p>I know this has been addressed before but, for the life of me, I can't find a trustworthy answer to this question.
I've heard 300; I've heard 600; I've heard 50.
How long is the "why Columbia" essay supposed to be? 300 characters? 600 characters? 50 words? It's not on the application pdf....</p>
<p>Also, I know what I like about columbia, but are they looking for REALLY specific things? I have things that are specific to Columbia, but it's not like I'm saying "I love going to the street market around the corner and eating lunch and I love professor so and so and his class on Italian Renaissance poetry of Florence." </p>
<p>What I wrote is why I like the core and why it's important in a way that relates directly to what I believe and me. I also dropped a sweet quote in there...</p>
<p>I think my answer is good but it's not like a laundry list of specific things about Columbia that I like. I'm not talking about the Spectator or the a capella group, but what I have to say is specific to Columbia (not other colleges) and honestly matters more to me.</p>
<p>I'm being intentionally vague, sorry if it makes it difficult to answer the question of whether what I wrote was okay. </p>
<p>Thanks a lot</p>
<p>I just looked at the printout of my application. I can tell you with certainty that both the “Why Columbia” and “Why Engineering” questions allot you with 600 characters of space (each). Spaces also count as characters.</p>
<p>Also, they aren’t looking for a laundry list. Your response sounds good.</p>
<p>For the “Why Columbia?” section of my application I wrote about how the Core set Columbia apart from the other schools I had looked at and how excited I was about the core. I’ll have to pull my application out again, but I tried to give very personal reasons for why I liked the idea of the core.</p>
<p>Columbia '13 hur</p>
<p>great! 600 characters, excellent, I was freaking out trying to fit it into 300 characters.
I tried to give my why Columbia a more intellectual touch, but I don’t want to be presumptuous or arrogant (what authority do I have…).</p>
<p>If anyone would like to read it (I would really appreciate it), I would be happy to Pm it to them, but I only want to give it to people who either have already been accepted/current students/graduates. Sorry fellow perspective students, but I don’t want to take any unnecessary risks.
I’m looking at you specifically, derf… :)</p>
<p>Also, what is the character count for the “Explain what EC has your most meaningful commitment and why” one?</p>
<p>Thanks a lot, and, so I don’t have to keep asking, where do you find this information?</p>
<p>I can’t find a printout of my application right now, but I feel like it was 300 characters for everything.</p>
<p>The EC one was really short. I’m not on my laptop right now but I’ll edit when I pull up my application.</p>
<p>I know this information because I completed the online application last year and kept a printout of my application after I submitted it.</p>
<p>I printed out my application as well. I think I had three copies lying around my house in December, but I have no clue where any of them are now.</p>
<p>I have a printout and a pdf of my app :D</p>
<p>the EC one was 300 characters. the other two (Columbia and engineering one) were 600.</p>