AADSAS Personal Statement [How Many Characters Are Allowed?]

[DrTacoElf]

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Does anyone know how many characters your personal statment can be. I have one written and its about 2 pages long, and i'm guessing this is too much?

Any help is appreciated.

 

[Typo]

Here's the wording from last year's AADSAS:

"Applicant Essay (Maximum 1000 words). Word count is approximate and is based on 6 characters per word--results will vary!"

Hope this helps.

 

[DrTacoElf]

Thanks 🙂

at the moment i have 1,331 words accroding to microsoft word. That translates to 6,930 characters without spaces and 8,327 characters with spaces.

time to shave it down a little 😱

 

[DrTacoElf]

Down to 1056 words 🙂

I think the essay has improved a lot actually. Going to set it aside for a day or two and then look at it again.

 

[Bickle]

Down to 1056 words 🙂

I think the essay has improved a lot actually. Going to set it aside for a day or two and then look at it again.

DTE,

Nice to see that your spending time on your essay. I consider myself an expert in essay writing. The best thing you can do is what your doing right now. REVISE REVISE REVISE. Good luck!

 

[Calculus1]

I think if you fill up the entire page you're almost saying too much. The people reading this crap are just that, people. The shorter and more concise(without being too short, obviously) the better. Again, know your audience, these are not people that LOVE reading your essays, they are faculty who are doing this in addition to their regular teaching duties. Well, that's JMHO, I hope it helps, good luck.

 

[sxr71]

I think if you fill up the entire page you're almost saying too much. The people reading this crap are just that, people. The shorter and more concise(without being too short, obviously) the better. Again, know your audience, these are not people that LOVE reading your essays, they are faculty who are doing this in addition to their regular teaching duties. Well, that's JMHO, I hope it helps, good luck.

I agree, keeping it short and sweet and interesting is the best thing you can for yourself and the people who have to read it.

 

[ItsGavinC]

I think if you fill up the entire page you're almost saying too much. The people reading this crap are just that, people. The shorter and more concise(without being too short, obviously) the better. Again, know your audience, these are not people that LOVE reading your essays, they are faculty who are doing this in addition to their regular teaching duties. Well, that's JMHO, I hope it helps, good luck.

BINGO!

Everybody around here knows how much I love personal statements. You hit this right on the head.

Further, it gives a visual feeling of wholeness if there is approx. 1 inch of blank space at the bottom of your statement. The only way to achieve this is to write only ~5,300 characters instead of the maximum of 6,000.

Subconsciously this is a big boost to the application, and the adcoms DO love to read shorter stuff. If it's short they'll stick with it. Trust me. I've read many of these this year.