<p>I recently finished the 150 (or less) word "elaborate on one of your activities" Common App essay, and it currently stands at 211 words. I can edit it down somewhat, but I feel it will dilute the effectiveness of the passage, which is someone consolidated as it is.</p>
<p>How strict is the 150-word word limit? I've heard that most supplemental essays have flexible word limits of up to 50% over, but for the Common App I've heard nothing. Granted, my regular Common App essay is 930 words, but that has no limit. Opinions?</p>
<p>I am not sure how colleges treat it, but I would stick to the 150-word limit, especially because it says, explicitly, in the directions, 150 words or fewer.</p>
<p>211 is way over 150, so you’re going to have to cut it down. Having it a couple words longer is okay but 50+ words is just not following directions.</p>
<p>in the book “acing the college application” the writer (an app reader for dartmouth) says that “you can safely write 1/2 to 3/4 of a page single spaced.”</p>
<p>^For a 150 word essay or for the longer personal essay? </p>
<p>Anyways, if you look at each sentence, and sentences together, for like one hour each and deduce that you can’t delete one more word or phrase without significantly changing the meaning of the essay, then you’re done. It can’t be any shorter. </p>
<p>That said, I think you can delete like 30 words or so pretty easily. Maybe consider PMing it to CC members who will look at it. A common writing problem is for the writer to become overly-attached to certain phrases and words. An outside editor solves this, and can also probably offer some other insights.</p>