Average Personal Comments (Statement) length.

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How long was you PS?

  • <2500 characters

    Votes: 6 4.0%

  • 2500-3500

    Votes: 9 6.0%

  • 3501-4500

    Votes: 23 15.3%

  • 4500-5300

    Votes: 112 74.7%
  • Total voters
    150
I wrote a first draft of mine this break, it is around 1800 characters (with spaces).

Hey, I'm not trying to ramble. I believe 5300 is the max, but that would surely be excessive in my view/situation.

I say everything I feel I need to say......
 
Entadus said:
I wrote a first draft of mine this break, it is around 1800 characters (with spaces).

Hey, I'm not trying to ramble. I believe 5300 is the max, but that would surely be excessive in my view/situation.

I say everything I feel I need to say......
Click to expand...

Yeah, I don't have an extenuating circumstances to elaborate upon.. I said why I want to be a doctor and a few supports. Thats it. To write BS worth 2800 more characters would just about kill my readers, haha.
 
I wrote about five thousand characters, structure of iambic pentameter, but I do not think any adcoms knew. It made me very sad, I worked so hard.
 
LoveTheRunner said:
I wrote about five thousand characters, structure of iambic pentameter, but I do not think any adcoms knew. It made me very sad, I worked so hard.
Click to expand...

lol, that would crack me up if I were an adcom.. even if you did a damn good job w/ it.

EDIT: seems like most people end up using most of the alloted space.
 
Last edited:
Just finished my edits yesterday, it's 5294 characters!
 
Mine was a little over 3800 characters, about a full page single spaced.
 
5233 with spaces- I tried to keep it short and sweet but that ambition fell through. Given that admissions needs to read countless essays, brevity is valued. I'd try to make is as short yet inclusive of all which needs to be said. I'll scale mine down by cutting details and saving them for the interview.
 
LoveTheRunner said:
I wrote about five thousand characters, structure of iambic pentameter, but I do not think any adcoms knew. It made me very sad, I worked so hard.
Click to expand...

Lol good one. I hope everyone took notice that his actual post is in iambic pentameter :laugh:
 
TYS said:
Lol good one. I hope everyone took notice that his actual post is in iambic pentameter :laugh:
Click to expand...

That dude should get in just for uniqueness. 🙂
 
For a second there, I read this as 5000 words, not characters. I like, damn people are writing novels or something. 😱
 
iirc, mine was around 4300, which I felt was on the pretty short side, and I got a couple positive comments in interviews.
 
I found squeezing my experiences and motivation into 5300 characters a monumentally challenging task. I can't imagine how you could possibly exhaust your options after 2500 unless you're one of the (many) poor bastards getting forced into this process. In that case, just make **** up.
 
MilkmanAl said:
I found squeezing my experiences and motivation into 5300 characters a monumentally challenging task. I can't imagine how you could possibly exhaust your options after 2500 unless you're one of the (many) poor bastards getting forced into this process. In that case, just make **** up.
Click to expand...

lol, I'm not one of those.. but I just don't have anything life changing.. sure, I have legit reasons.. but nothing I can elaborate so much on w/o looking like a tool. I guess when the doomsday comes.. I'll add a couple of paragraphs describing some of my EC's..
 
Mine was exactly 5300. I had a tough time staying under that limit and even when I thought I was done I was still a few characters over, so I had to go back and find places to shave a character or two here and there until I pared it down to 5300.
 
MilkmanAl said:
I found squeezing my experiences and motivation into 5300 characters a monumentally challenging task. I can't imagine how you could possibly exhaust your options after 2500 unless you're one of the (many) poor bastards getting forced into this process. In that case, just make **** up.
Click to expand...

Yeah I am with you there. I left out a lot that I wish I could have put in, but in the end, I feel what I had was the essence of what I wanted to say. I am happy with how it turned out, and going over would probably have been too verbose.

For the record, my PS was 5,294 characters also!
 
MpXnpio said:
Mine was exactly 5300. I had a tough time staying under that limit and even when I thought I was done I was still a few characters over, so I had to go back and find places to shave a character or two here and there until I pared it down to 5300.
Click to expand...

Same. Really tough to keep from saying more (good thing the pop-up box saying something about 'too many characters' kept it straight for me!
 
Mine was 12 short of the max so I added: Just sayin'.
 
just did some editing to my personal statement. went from 5000 to 4600 characters.
 
5276, after cutting a lot of things I had wanted to say. I hope I haven't rambled in mine
 
I wrote my personal statement in story format. It was longer, but it was also a damned interesting read. 5,297 characters.
 
Bad poll options.

Should have broken down 4500-5300 into smaller segments to see what % of people go near the edge of the limit vs what percentage stay considerably short
 
5263.

I can't see how you produce a fluid and compelling essay with 2500 characters.
 
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