Accidentally went over character limit on Pritzker's secondary. Panic?

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neopentanol

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The instructions state "You must respond within the character limit of 3500 characters." But I accidentally submitted with 3616 characters. In the application review, it doesn't seem like they've cut anything off. Should I call them?
 
I'd avoid calling Pritzker for any reason, lest they reject you over the phone...
 
So..I guess my next question would be:
I accidentally went over character limit on Pritzker's secondary. Should I panic?:scared:
 
neopentanol said:
So..I guess my next question would be:
I accidentally went over character limit on Pritzker's secondary. Should I panic?:scared:
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Well, what are you going to do if you call them, ask them if its OK? What if it isn't OK?

The thing is, it's possible they won't notice it if you didn't bring it up, and even if they did, it's unlikely they would really care that much, although I have heard that Pritzker rejects people just for having typos in their secondary essays. I'm not sure going over the character limit qualifies, though.
 
drizzt3117 said:
Well, what are you going to do if you call them, ask them if its OK? What if it isn't OK?

The thing is, it's possible they won't notice it if you didn't bring it up, and even if they did, it's unlikely they would really care that much, although I have heard that Pritzker rejects people just for having typos in their secondary essays. I'm not sure going over the character limit qualifies, though.
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They really reject people for typos? How did you hear that...wonder if mine had any...oh and dont worry about going over the limit now...probably wont matter
 
Falco2525 said:
They really reject people for typos? How did you hear that...wonder if mine had any...oh and dont worry about going over the limit now...probably wont matter
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If you read the MSNBC article on here earlier, you'd know that your typo is what you you INTO Pritzker.
 
Falco2525 said:
They really reject people for typos? How did you hear that...wonder if mine had any...oh and dont worry about going over the limit now...probably wont matter
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Someone posted that on here, I have no idea if it's true.
 
Falco2525 said:
They really reject people for typos? How did you hear that...wonder if mine had any...oh and dont worry about going over the limit now...probably wont matter
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They're Pritzker. Getting a 3.9 and a 39 on the MCAT is reason enough to get rejected. A typo? Pshaw. Your app is in the trash bin before they've even turned the page. 😉
 
neopentanol said:
The instructions state "You must respond within the character limit of 3500 characters." But I accidentally submitted with 3616 characters. In the application review, it doesn't seem like they've cut anything off. Should I call them?
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it's done. you'll call attention to it if you call. Is it an online form? You'd think it would automatically prevent you from submitting an essay that's too long...
 
What are you going to say if you call them? "Sorry"? "Please just ignore the last 116 characters of my essay"? Just leave it be.
 
zipmedic said:
What are you going to say if you call them? "Sorry"? "Please just ignore the last 116 characters of my essay"? Just leave it be.
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Maybe I can revisit the application and correct it. I've heard of people's apps being reopened for them at other schools.
 
neopentanol said:
Maybe I can revisit the application and correct it. I've heard of people's apps being reopened for them at other schools.
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Seriously, just let it go. Calling them and asking them to reopen your application may still draw attention to the fact that you did not follow their directions. 116 characters isn't glaring; just run with it.
 
neopentanol said:
The instructions state "You must respond within the character limit of 3500 characters." But I accidentally submitted with 3616 characters. In the application review, it doesn't seem like they've cut anything off. Should I call them?
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...

If it's an online form and it doesn't limit the number of characters, then as long as it is pretty close, it doesn't matter. Character limits for online forms replaced word limits for paper applications, simply because the HTML input textarea allows you to set a character limit, and coding a word limit validation routine in Javascript is more effort than it is worth.

And no, they aren't going to print out the essays of every single applicant and have some poor soul count the characters (including spaces!) for minimum wage. That's just a complete waste.

They just want to end up with roughly a page or so of text. The idea is not to test whether you can follow the rule and craft an essay in that space, but to limit answers so that they don't get my PhD thesis (450 pages! :O) and to encourage more than a two-line answer.

Be more worried about whether you wrote a good, cohesive essay that described you effectively and wasn't meandering and without some key characteristics.
 
You can send them an email asking to void your original response and consider the new one that you include in the email. I had to do that for a school and I thought I was doomed but I got an interview from them a few days later. 😀 So if you really want to fix it I'd go for it.
 
Having almost gone to Pritzker I can tell you that no one in the admissions office is internet/computer-savvy enough to figure out if you went over the character limit or not. They're really nice people but they don't have a clue about technology.

Why all the Pritzker beatdown? It's not the most selective school in the world 😕
 
IHeartNerds said:
Why all the Pritzker beatdown? It's not the most selective school in the world 😕
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Because they have the absolute rudest administrative staff I've encountered to date, they reject people with (what seems to be) no rhyme or reason*, and they put people on imaginary hold status because they can't manage their own status portal. Oh, and they're so pretentious that they have their medical students wear full length lab coats.

* Note: They reject people far more eminently qualified than I without rhyme or reason. I was speaking generally; it is no mystery why they did not offer me an interview.
 
zipmedic said:
Because they have the absolute rudest administrative staff I've encountered to date, they reject people with (what seems to be) no rhyme or reason*, and they put people on imaginary hold status because they can't manage their own status portal. Oh, and they're so pretentious that they have their medical students wear full length lab coats.

* Note: They reject people far more eminently qualified than I without rhyme or reason. I was speaking generally; it is no mystery why they did not offer me an interview.
Click to expand...

I think they really care about their essays. They went through some trouble coming up with those prompts, which tells me they put a lot of weight on it. Likely, some of those amazingly qualified applicants didn't ring the right bells in their secondary. Thats all I can think of.
 
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