How long is are you making you personal statement?

[randylrohm]

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I am just wondering how long everyone is making their personal statement. Right now, mine is around 4800 characters including spaces. Are you supposed to make it that long or are they looking for something shorter?

 

[twelvetigers]

I think a lot of people end up having to chip away at it to get it down to 5000 characters. I wouldn't worry about it needing to be any shorter.

 

[primatevetjess]

Yeah, it actually took some revising and tweaking to get mine down to 5000 characters. I think it ended up being somewhere around 4990.

 

[katryn]

I'm somewhere around 4750 ish. My first draft was way over 5000 and by the time I cut out all the crap and added a few things I was good to go. I feel a little wierd not making it 4999 characters but I can't think of anything to add that wouldn't be too long or needless information only included to make my butt look good (which for me means waaaay to obvious shameless plugging).

 

[HandD42]

My proof reader helped me get down my statement from about 5500 to 4500. It does seem a tad short now but I belive the whole essay is much stronger and more coherent now then when it was at 5500.

Also be aware when you transfer it into VMCAS from some programs (like Word) the character count will be larger so you don't want to sit right at 5000 unless you are using a text editor to write it.

 

[turnbackhelly]

Also be aware when you transfer it into VMCAS from some programs (like Word) the character count will be larger so you don't want to sit right at 5000 unless you are using a text editor to write it.

I had this problem. I typed my statement in Pages (Apple's version of Word), copied and pasted it into VMCAS and it said it was 4996 characters. I thought I was good to go, but when I saved it, exited the page, and then later returned to the PS section of the application, my last word was cut off. I e-mailed VMCAS and ended up having to retype my entire PS into TextEdit (Apple version of Notepad). It was annoying, but totally solved the problem! My exact same PS now registers as 4983 characters in VMCAS.

If you haven't started your PS yet, do yourself a HUGE favor and write it in Notepad or TextEdit!!