Struggles with Essay Length

Question

I am having trouble writing one of my "single page, double spaced" essays. And, I was thinking of toying with the font size to make it fit, but I feel like, if the font size is different from my other essays, that will stick out to adcoms. Any thoughts?

gmatclb · Answer

Just make them all the same font.

rhyme · Answer

stick to one font size

i'd suggest no smaller than 11pt.

riverripper · Answer

I tried 11 pt font and every essay is too damn long. I would like to have 11pt but I dont want to sacrifice quality.

mba2010 · Answer

Play with the margins a little bit to buy yourself some space. I used 10 pt Arial (but Arial is a slightly larger font so I felt I could get away with it).

If you're still too far over, you're being too verbose. You'll have to pick and choose stories you want to tell at that point.

mbagal1 · Answer

I am noticing as I have started that rather than reducing content or cutting off entire sentences, sometimes just rephrasing the sentence helps me reduce length.

emoryhopeful · Answer

Its hard to fit the "greatest lesson I've ever learned" with examples and stories into a one page essay. I think I'm going to just put it aside and come back later to take another look and edit. Maybe thinking about another essay and coming back will open up my mind to new ideas.

kidderek · Answer

Ughhh

I can completely empathize. 400 words to describe my career goal and how the school is going to help me attain it.

mbagal1 · Answer

Give it to someone else to look at. or yes, come back to it later. 

When I was over word limit on my first one, I thought the only way to cut the length was by removing the humor in it. 

Then I asked Hjort and he suggested cutting a sentence that I had never thought of cutting, because it wasn't necessary to set the story.

aaudetat · Answer

i'll agree. give yourself some space away and you'll be able to shorten it. It's hard now since you're so attached to it. 

Also, another person will see it more objectively.

Finally, you really can cut out a lot just be rewording things, if you look carefully.

kryzak · Answer

Never go over 500 words for a page with the page limit essays. I use 11 pt Times (smallest font), 1.9 spacing, 0.5-0.7" margins on all sides. Just stay uniform. 

Stanford is tough because they specify 12 pt font, so I play with margins and line spacing a little. They want you to write "what matters to you most and why" in 3 pages (roughly 1200 words). Yeah right...

helpslip · Answer

Perhaps this is a silly question but, how do you count words? If I crank up the wayback machine and transport the assembled masses back in time to to my secondary school typing class* a "word" = any five characters (including spaces) and a "page" = 250 words. Now, my Quark skills will certainly allow me to squish more than 250 words on a page... but I assume that instructions calling for a limit of three pages indicate an essay that is well under a 1000 words. I wonder where the limit lies. I don't think it takes a deep understanding of typefaces on the reader's part to comprehend when a particular essay is trying to game the suggested limit. 

*Just to make clear how "old school" this was... typing class was undertaken in room full of manual typewriters. The T/A's were all football players - perhaps they figured typing was another form of calisthenics.

kryzak · Answer

Well, for those schools that say word limits, they probably want word limits. For ones that say page limits (and specify font size or spacing), they're probably more lenient and can accept a range of word counts, otherwise why specify something as amorphous as page limits?

I count words with Word 2003 word counts, and with the Flesch reading score thing NCPrasad posted a while ago.

defenestrate · Answer

My suggestion: EDIT EDIT EDIT. THe admissions officer will kiss you if you can fit everything you need into a short sentence. Less is More here. Put yourself in their place...do you really think that our essays are so different.

Think of apple. They win out of simplicity, PC way too much information...so are you a mac or a pc?

I am filling out the Darden app right now, and I love the word constraints. After a third or fourth review the essay gets distilled, and I find I say more than I thought I would.

Avoid banalities. Stick to short interesting personal experiences, no one else has those except you.

riverripper · Answer

I think the difficulty to make essay lengths is a function of the person. Someone with 2 or 3 years experience to draw from will have an easier time than someone with 5-7 years and someone with 10 will have an even tough time. Also it depends on your career, I know having a very unusual career and background compared to the normal candidate I have to describe my job in more detail than a banker would have to.

helpslip · Answer

Perhaps my question might be better stated: is 3 pages double spaced at 12 point an amorphous limit, or does it mean 750 words? I appreciate your answer. My question was born of curiosity, I see no Stanford app. in my future. I certainly see some flexibility on the upper limit as a postive. My problem has always been cutting back and not reaching the limit.

xerox · Answer

I asked Paul Bodine on this forum about acceptable leaways, and he advised to follow a simple rule of thumb: 10% is an acceptable overload.

Also, a Yale alum advised me to use Times New Roman, 12 pt double spaced, and standard MS Word margins as this seems to be the default standard for b-school essays.

Paper size: for North American schools it is better to use Letter, and for European - A4 as they are slightly different: the former gives you a bit more space. (Many admissions officers print out all the essays and read the hard copies and you want your essays to be printed out the way you have formatted them.)

kryzak · Answer

There is no 250 words = 1 page definition as far as I know. With double space, 12 pt Times Roman font and 1" margins all around, you can fit roughly 350 words per page. The highest you can fit in without going too far would be 450 words per page.

xerox · Answer

Also depends on the word length

kryzak · Answer

thus the word, "roughly".

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