<p>Do colleges see the word count of your essay?</p>
<p>bump. i want to know too</p>
<p>I’d approximate that you could go about ~15-20% above the word limit safely, more than that and you’re pushing it. If it’s a 500 word essay, and you write 600 words, then you don’t have to worry. Nobody’s really counting. However it’s rather obvious if you exceed the word limit by a large margin.</p>