College essay advice?

[|2eM!x]

In all seriousness here guys,

I wrote a college essay a while back for a scholarship, today I have to write another essay and my old one fits the criteria amazingly - its the best paper I have ever written. However, my paper is 150 words too long. Do I
a) shorten it and make it not the best paper ever
b) leave it long and risk disqualification but remain amazing

any ideas?

[crptcblade]

An edit never hurts. But if they were to count every word and disqualify you over 150 of them, I would go on a shooting spree. That would just be stupid.

[litlewiki]

The painful route isn't the way to go for me, but there's all sorts of anti-blood solutions out there, think acidic, corruptive liquids.

[bushmobile]

how long is the essay meant to be?

[|2eM!x]

Supposed to be 300 words and mine is 430. I would think they arent going to count - they are just not looking for 5 page papers. You think I am right?

[timeshifter]

300 word college essay? My final in high school was 7 pages... coulda been a lot more... I was over the limit as it was. 300 words isn't enough to make a real essay off of.

[dsheller]

300 words is just a short answer, when I applied for college I had to do an essay (around 3 pages) and 5 or 6 short answers. As for being 430 when wanting 300, if they do the application online it might restrict you to 300 anyway. If it doesn't just try to cut it down as much as you can without losing any substance. If you can't cut it down too much, don't worry about it, I highly doubt they'd immediately disqualify you for being over the word limit.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I like your math.

However, if you are sending this in electronic format, they might count. If you are submitting on paper, then they won't. However, you are more than 30% long, which might stand out like a beacon. Try a smaller font.

[|2eM!x]

Yeah I don't have to write that kind of essay. I have 3 - <=300 word "Short answers". It isnt electronic thankfully, I am just going to submit my old paper. Taking out anything really does hurt the substance (130 words is alot!!). Its a small paragraph but its equally important.

Thanks for the serious responses guys, if I remember I will tell you how it goes and post my essay when its all said and done.

[timeshifter]

Can we start changing the topic now?

[Valleysboy1978]

No. 300 words?? I must be missing something here. I have to do an assignment that is 20,000 words.....and I'm not kidding

Best thing to do is to ring the administrator in charge of the course (or the lecturer) and ask if it is acceptable. It's not worth taking the risk

[disruptivehair]

I like your math.

However, if you are sending this in electronic format, they might count. If you are submitting on paper, then they won't. However, you are more than 30% long, which might stand out like a beacon. Try a smaller font.

That's so obvious tho, and if the font is too small then they won't bother to read it at all since they hate squinting. They don't usually read them all anyway and if they pick up one where the font is a few points smaller than everyone else's they're not likely to read it at all.

[disruptivehair]

No. 300 words?? I must be missing something here. I have to do an assignment that is 20,000 words.....and I'm not kidding

Best thing to do is to ring the administrator in charge of the course (or the lecturer) and ask if it is acceptable. It's not worth taking the risk

It's an application, not an assignment.

I was lucky...I didn't have to write any essays to get into uni. I just sent my SAT scores and high school transcripts to the University of Texas at Austin and got my acceptance letter a week later. Back then they got something ridiculous like 30,000 applications a year for the freshman class; no time to read essays. Wooooooooo!

[bushmobile]

i've sneezed longer essays

[disruptivehair]

i've sneezed longer essays

[crptcblade]

I have to do an assignment that is 20,000 words.....and I'm not kidding

Yeah, but that's metric words. God only knows what that converts to...

[|2eM!x]

Ive had to write long essays too guys, lets not brag about our essay sizes

[timeshifter]

A story I wrote out of boredom can smash your essays... 37 pages of grammatically perfect goodness. Because I had nothing better to do and hadn't started programming yet.