<p>Hi everyone, so right now I’m writing my first draft essay to the last prompt: Discuss an accomplishment or event, formal or informal, that marked your transition from
childhood to adulthood within your culture, community, or family.</p>
<p>So my question is about how much should you spend telling about the actual event/accomplishment and then how much about its significance? Right now I have an elaborate story written that’s taking up about 450 words, leaving 200 for its significance and how it represents my shift from childhood to adulthood. Is that okay or should i try trimming the story down?</p>
<p>The Common Application says that “650 words is your limit, not your goal.” Your target should be around 500 words total. I would try to keep your story to about 250-300 words, but there’s no formula.</p>
<p>Try to trim it down closer to 500.
The basic idea in your essay is to “Show them, not tell them”. So try to verbally paint a story for readers to see.</p>
<p>okay so now the story is about 362 words.
so does it really matter that much if your essay is too long? cutting my essay down by 150 words right now seems impossible because i spend 30 minutes just trying to get rid of five words.</p>
<p>My history teacher says that essays should be like a girls’ skirts: long enough to cover the essentials, but short enough to keep things interesting.</p>
<p>If you want, you can PM me your essay and I can look at it and tell you what I think. It’s hard to tell just from your description.</p>
<p>did you get it? I can’t tell if I sent anything or not…</p>