How Long Should a College Application Essay be?

In your essays, you want to tell the full story: set the scene, communicate the emotion, hint at how impressive you are, and answer the prompt. If you don’t utilize the full space you have, you could miss out on communicating something really cool about yourself. With every 500-word essay prompt, you could likely write 2,000 words on topic. But if you don’t write up to the limit, college counselors assume that you’ve said all you need to say. It’s assumed that you’ve talked about all of the impressive things about yourself. If you write up to the word count, you get the benefit of the doubt. They’ll think: wow, this student seems so impressive, and it looks like they had so much more to say (if only it wasn’t for the pesky word count). So, write up to the limit and say all you need to say.

Though you should write up to the word count, that shouldn’t be your goal - it should be a by-product of you telling the full story. If you believe yourself to be done writing a 600-word-max essay at 300 words, don’t spend the next 300 words adding fluff to the essay just so you can reach that mark. Admissions officers will see through that and realize that you didn’t have anything else to say. So now, not only do you have just 300 words of substance, you’ve also hid them under another 300 of fluff. That’ll hurt your essay. Instead, if you find yourself not having enough to write, consider two things: 1) Have I missed a part of the story that could enhance the message? Perhaps you could tell another anecdote, write a more descriptive introduction, or give another example. And 2) Is this the right story to be telling? You should be excited about what you’re writing. So, if you can’t fill a page writing it, maybe this isn’t the right topic to show off your amazing self.

There are two exceptions that would cause you to violate these rules. First, there are some college prompts that seek to draw out witty answers that say something about you rather than a descriptive essay. For example, Yale University asks four 200-character-max questions, including, “If you could teach any college course, write a book, or create an original piece of art of any kind, what would it be?” For such questions, reaching the word limit is not a goal. The goal is to show something about yourself through a thoughtful and witty response. Second, though rare, there are some prompts without word limits. For example, the University of Chicago asks for two answers. One to answer “Why UChicago?” and the other to answer one of their famous (or infamous, depending on how you view it) wacky prompts. For these, the goal is to write an essay within reason. A “Why This College?” essay typically runs about 400-600 words, so aim for that range. The other essay should be about the same, though the wacky questions may allow for a wacky shorter or longer answer.

When in doubt, just start to write. You can sit around all day, planning how to get to the word limit just right — and you’ll still have nothing done. Ultimately, you won’t know how much you have to write until you start telling the story. Don’t stress about the word count at first. Write to your heart’s content, then worry about fitting it into the application box. Good luck!