<p>I just want everyone to know that. Too many people, including myself, have fretted over cutting words and sentences from essays, knowing fully well that our essays just wouldn’t feel and read the same way if summarized. I submitted a 700-word essay for Yale and got deferred (but ultimately rejected). My Princeton essays were 440 words and 600 words respectively when I should probably have written 300 and 500. </p>
<p>Write an essay so good that the admission officers lose track of time and WANT to read on. They wouldn’t be thinking of word counts.</p>
<p>There is a difference between being modestly over the word limit and being radically over. Don’t go radically over.</p>
<p>To “summarize” is not imo the best way to shorten an essay. Better ways imo are to be more precise, to improve focus, to eliminate the interesting but nonessential material. </p>
<p>Don’t fall in love with your own writing and imagine that it’s all essential and scintillating. If someone is significantly over the word limit, the opportunities I mentioned will be there. In fact, those opportunities are often there when someone is at or under the word limit.</p>