“How Long Should My College Essay Be?”
Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007
I had just presented “The Admission Game” to a group of students and parents in Colorado when a group of seniors gathered to ask questions about the application process. Given the time of the year, it didn’t come as a surprise that college essays were on their minds. In fact, the essay or personal statement is perhaps the most vexing of the application requirements faced by applicants to college. And these folks wanted to get it right!
The question of length is a good one if you are an applicant who is sensitive to meeting the expectations of those who will read your essay. My initial response to the student who asked this question was, “Your essay should be as long as it takes to get your message across–no more and no less.” That said many students tend to become preoccupied with the letter of the instructions. If the essay prompt asks for a “500-word statement,” they assume the final product needs to be 500 words. As a result, they lose their focus on the subject and worry more about meeting the word count.
As a college applicant, you need to know that, more often than not, the number of words referenced in the essay prompt is intended to be a target rather than an absolute requirement. Word counts are less a test of your ability to be succinct–although you should strive to achieve that distinction with your essay–and more about giving you a set of parameters within which to work. Believe me, there aren’t many college admission officers who will take the time to count the words in your essay!
Assuming, then, that you have found a topic or inspiration for a college essay, your first objective is to craft a statement that will be compelling to the admission committee. Focus on the development of ideas rather than meeting a word count. Believe it or not, it is much easier to edit “down” than to find yourself trying to manufacture new content in order to arrive at a desired word count. That said, what can you write that will give the readers insight into who you are? (I talk about answering the “why” questions in the essay chapter of Winning the College Admission Game.) Take time to create a really strong draft that delivers the desired messages. And then put it away for a week or two.
Putting the essay away for a while will allow you to clear your head–which isn’t a bad thing if you have been laboring over the essay for an extended period of time. This reprieve from writing will also give you much needed perspective so that when you pick it up again, you can dive into the next stage of critical editing. When you start to edit again, don’t be surprised if word choices and structural developments that may have made sense when you wrote the first draft look different now. Work through your draft to make the changes that will strengthen your message.
And then, when you think you are finished, look at the word count. If you are close to the number targeted in the instructions, you are in pretty good shape. On the other hand, if you have 1,500 words and the admission committee only wants to see something in the neighborhood of 500, it’s time to take a serious look at your content. How much of what you have written is essential to the points you are trying to make–and how much of it is there because you fell in love with a passage that doesn’t really add to the strength of your presentation? If you don’t need it, cut it!
Finally, if you really want to make your essay better, take a stab at cutting 10% from your final draft. Work through every sentence of every paragraph to find opportunities to say more with less. Take the time to make a good essay great! In the end, if you have written a compelling essay, the reader won’t even notice that it is longer or shorter than the targeted word count. Good luck!
