File format for essays/resumes

Question

Are you guys uploading your essays and resumes as Word documents or as PDFs? Do you know if schools generally have a preference?

jb32 · Answer

UCLA automatically converts your Word document to a .pdf. I'm just keeping it easy and doing my essays in Word.

refurb · Answer

Same here. I was thinking of doing the pdf thing, but like jb32 says, I think the files you upload are immediately converted to pdf.

I read some of the fine print on the Michigan application website and it lists the different formats that are acceptable and pdf is one of them (for Michigan at least).

RF

solaris1 · Answer

Every application I have completed so far has accepted PDF, which is just as well because I don't use Word. Keeps the file size to less than 100K, too. Nice and compact.

Rubashov1 · Answer

What about for the self-reported transcript Excel file templates that you download? Keep in Excel or convert to PDF before uploading?

solaris1 · Answer

Ditto for those. I'm not spending 2 hours filling out those horrendous Excel templates. I've uploaded scanned PDF transcripts, and so far Columbia, Cornell and NYU have been OK with them. I had to call Cornell to tell them I wasn't going to fill out the template, and they said no problem, e-mail us a PDF version and we will add it to your file.

Of course, as stated earlier, I don't use Excel either. Google Docs all the way! With occasional usage of OpenOffice thrown in.

Rubashov1 · Answer

I guess I wasn't clear. I am using their Excel template, because it requests more (positive for me) info than is on my transcript. I'm just wondering if I should convert the Excel file to PDF prior to uploading.

solaris1 · Answer

Ah, I see. In that case, rca215, not sure why you wouldn't just go ahead with their preformatted Excel files.

Rubashov1 · Answer

I think I agree, but I usually feel a lot more comfortable with PDFs...much more professional! I'll probably stick with their Excel file but do everything else in PDF. Thanks!

sonibubu · Answer

Hm, I take it you're not going into I-banking?

solaris1 · Answer

Former fixed income analyst, actually. So no, I'm DONE with i-banking. That however doesn't mean I use Office at home. :-D

I love my Mac, my Google Docs, and OpenOffice.

riverripper · Answer

I used .pdfs last year. I figured it was the one way I could be sure that it would open and look the way I intended it to. It was especially important since I did my essays on a MAC and converting to .doc sometimes schools formatting up a little.

EntrepreNeurIT · Answer

i too praise the pdf.

especially for the resume file, the pdf is great, better than the word document, as you know what they're getting.

topMBA12 · Answer

I have a question along these lines...
I generally convert my word files to pdfs before uploading but somehow for UCLA, i did not do that and directly uploaded my essays as word files...Now the part that worries me is that my final essays were a product of multiple revisions and i keep track of my edits by using the review tab in word. So basically the final file that was uploaded had the final essay but if in word you click the review tab, you see all the junk/previous edits that the file contains.
I understand that the file gets converted to pdf automatically on the app website when we upload doc files. Do you guys think that all that background info from word (read "previous edits") gets uploaded too. I reviewed the final submitted app and the essays look fine, like they should, but is there any background junk included in the final submitted version. I know i checked the uploaded documents, but still have this lingering doubt..

BAMBAMBAM · Answer

This is exactly why I converted everything to PDF before submitting. Wow, if they could have seen the initial versions of my essays, they'd probably send me one word ding email - "LOL"

File format for essays/resumes

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