<p>Personally, I think if the common app essay is 500-750 words they are not going to hold it against you if your supplement essay is about 500 words. If the 500 word limit was critical to them on the common application, they would have probably emailed every applicant with this instruction (or at the very least highlighted it in red or bold face on the Yale website). Further, they surely realize that this is the common app and that it would be presumptuous to set a word limit for all your applications (yes, I know you can create multiple versions – but I don’t think they expect you to do so)</p>
<p>Sure, if you write a really long essay, the admissions officer is going to get annoyed after page 2 unless it is really compelling, but I don’t think an extra paragraph or 2 is going to be looked upon unfavorably.</p>