<p>I’m having the same problem! My essays are all hovering between 1500 and 2000 characters (with spaces). I also had trouble sticking to the “limit your response to a well-developed paragraph” guideline. Maybe it’s just my journalistic impulse, but I wrote more along the lines of a couple short paragraphs per question, not big, rambling, 250-word ones. Does anyone who applied ED (and got in, hopefully) have advice? How long were your essays?</p>