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Did anyone go over their essay word limit?

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3underscore
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[#permalink] New post   06 Feb 2007, 10:08
Oh please Venky, come on.

If really the 10% over the wordcount mean you suddenly develop a whole etheral sense beyond the body of your main essay, you need to get some lessons in how to write.

I think word counts and working to word counts is a good method to cutting the crap out of an essay. Reviewing an essay to a limit should make the whole thing sharper.

Noone is going to ding you because an essay is too long. Noone is going to ding you because they have their fill of your background. Noone is going to ding you because your original study isn't up to scratch.

It is all about making an impression. For me, I find working strictly to a word count results in my essays being punchier. Word count is a part of my editing process - most of the time I can cut 10% from my standard text. If I want then, I can add more. What is always true is that after that cut it reads better.

If you feel you have so much to say, by all means post them a leather bound "Why do I need an MBA?" book. For every adcom that thinks it is salad, one will think you are working outside the box, leveraging your skillset in a manifestation that no other candidate considers.

It is all gravy.
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[#permalink] New post   06 Feb 2007, 10:17
I think what people are trying to say here is that going 10 or 15 words over is OK, as long as there's a reason you are going 10 or 15 words over. If you are over your limit because you are being wordy and haven't edited your essay to it's core, then you essay probably sucks anyway and the 10 or 15 words aren't your major problem in the first place.

So my take is this: If you've edited your essay down hard - and I mean hard - and you want one more sentence in there for clarity, and it throws you slightly over, thats OK. If you write your essay once, edit it once and you are over, you probably haven't done enough editing.

As to the person who went 30 to 50% over, thats quite substantial, and I wouldn't suggest being that brazen about it.
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venky1979
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[#permalink] New post   06 Feb 2007, 12:05
3underscore wrote:
Oh please Venky, come on.

If really the 10% over the wordcount mean you suddenly develop a whole etheral sense beyond the body of your main essay, you need to get some lessons in how to write.

I think word counts and working to word counts is a good method to cutting the crap out of an essay. Reviewing an essay to a limit should make the whole thing sharper.

Noone is going to ding you because an essay is too long. Noone is going to ding you because they have their fill of your background. Noone is going to ding you because your original study isn't up to scratch.

It is all about making an impression. For me, I find working strictly to a word count results in my essays being punchier. Word count is a part of my editing process - most of the time I can cut 10% from my standard text. If I want then, I can add more. What is always true is that after that cut it reads better.

If you feel you have so much to say, by all means post them a leather bound "Why do I need an MBA?" book. For every adcom that thinks it is salad, one will think you are working outside the box, leveraging your skillset in a manifestation that no other candidate considers.

It is all gravy.


What I meant to say is dont kill ur main theme of essay at the expense of a wordcount limit. Overediting kills the enthusiasm in the essay at times. I said focus on quality as num 1 and see if you can make the wordlimits.

If you understand it as a leather bound "Why do I need an MBA?" its time for you to come on
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[#permalink] New post   07 Feb 2007, 08:55
3underscore wrote:
It is all about making an impression. For me, I find working strictly to a word count results in my essays being punchier. Word count is a part of my editing process - most of the time I can cut 10% from my standard text. If I want then, I can add more. What is always true is that after that cut it reads better.


and how is that?! there is no co-relation between sticking to a word-limit and an essay being punchier...notice that i mention just "sticking to a word limit".

Anyways, i think this discussion has already gone too long and too far...since it started with essays for MIT...let me just mention (as i had earlier, in another thread on this forum)...in one of the information sessions, i personally asked Jon McLaughlin (from Sloan) about the importance of adhering to the word limit. This is what he had to say:

"Think of your essays to be a meeting with an important client. If the meeting had been set for 30 minutes and it goes on for 33 then it's not a problem. If it lingers on to 40 minutes or more then thats bad. Word limit is not a line in the stone which can not be crossed but should be used more as a guideline"

HTH
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SW2013
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Re: Did anyone go over their essay word limit? [#permalink] New post   07 Jan 2014, 06:46
I'd say - and that applies not only but especially to application essays:
perfect content within maximum words is better than perfect content exceeding maximum words is better than bad content within maximum words ist better than bad content exceeding maximum words.

So if you can only express your good content with more than the allowed number of words - do so, because good content is the most important. But remember that another application with just as good content and less words will still be evaluated better.

BTW: I don't have any inside info but I'm quite convinced that they DO check the number of words! It's not that hard to do....
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Re: Did anyone go over their essay word limit? [#permalink]
07 Jan 2014, 06:46
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