College Essay More Than 500 Words? Its Fine As Long As Its Creative- NY Times

Applying to College
1

<p>I read a very interesting article from the New York Times, which discusses the idea of essays being more than 500 words.</p>

<p>The reporter talked to actual students and admission directors, including the dean of undergraduate admission at Yale.</p>

<p>It is okay if the essay exceeds the limit. </p>

<p>From the article: Jon Reider, director of college counseling at San Francisco University High School, agreed that concise writing was laudable but said the implication of a strict limit was misleading. “I worry about that kid who’s written 530 and thinks he has to cut 30 words,” he said. “It just puts another stage of anxiety in front of these kids".</p>

<p>The only catch to this is that the essay will be held to a higher standard. If it exceeds the 500 word limit, the article must be interesting and keep the admission counselors interested in. Don’t make them feel like they are reading a 700 word essay, but make it so interesting that the essay only feels like 500 words.</p>

<p>In the end, be creative, be yourself, and in the end we will all succeed here.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/29/education/college-application-essay-as-haiku-for-some-500-words-isnt-enough.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/29/education/college-application-essay-as-haiku-for-some-500-words-isnt-enough.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

2

<p>So few kids can actually write a 700 word essay that is so incredible that couldn’t have been written in 500 words, and that the adcoms recognize its genious and forgive the fact that the kid went 40% over the word limit.</p>

3

<p>I’m glad colleges are talking about this- I think it makes sense to have a general word limit so that kids don’t write 3 page essays that adcoms don’t have time to read. But I don’t see why a specific word count has to be such a big of a deal. If you’re a few dozen words over the limit your essay is still going to be short enough for adcoms to skim through quickly, which seemed to be the goal of establishing the limit in the first place.</p>

4

<p>I wrote a 650 word essay for my common app essay. Many who read it said that it reads like a much shorter one, particularly due to the narrative style (requiring dialogue) and that it’s not in paragraph form.</p>