"Grace period" for word limits?

raelah
Sun, 04 Oct 2009 17:05:39 +0000

I think if they say “less than 500 words” it should be less than 500. If they say approximately 500 words, than up to 600 is ok.

Don’t stress. And don’t make your essay worse just to save a few words. Believe me, it won’t help you that much to have an essay that’s dead-on 500 words. It will be better in the long run to have a better essay, even if its like 50 words over.