My Common App Essay - 975 words too long?

evolving
Sun, 26 Sep 2010 17:10:29 +0000

costanza, I advise you to think about the length of your Common App essay. Admissions officers may take it in a negative fashion that you do not follow instructions. Sure, if you go over 100 or even 200 words but to basically double the number of words/ pages they have to read may not reflect positively on you as a candidate.

They want you to be concise with the number of words allowed (or at least in the ballpark) for the task at hand. Not only are you showing that you do not follow instructions well, you are giving them more work when they have tons of essays to read. Imagine if everyone doubled the length of their essay. Take it from someone who used to read the essays for Bachelors’ and Masters’ applications. The essays were the main reading after recommendation letters. The rest was just a matter of calculating/ considering the statistics.

The essay part was the most work and I always felt a little turned off by an especially long essay, UNLESS it was extremely well written, but I do not remember reading any excellent essays that were particularly long. The most effective ones tended to adhere to the page limit or were not unduly long.

Finally, I see the word limit as a way to show that you can be concise and succinct in describing some important aspects of yourself.

I think you take a chance in going so far past the limit. And the chances are this will reflect more negatively on your application.