Internship essay - going over 500 words?

[livethruthis]

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Hi all. I was under the impression that it is absolutely critical essays are 500 words or less. I feel this shows simple abilities to follow instructions and write concisely.
However, as I read other's essays - I see word counts up to 575 sometimes (especially for essays 1 and 2).

Is there a range of acceptability with going over the max word count?
Or should I just avoid this as I originally thought?

Thanks!

 

[Seven_Costanza]

This wording is pulled directly from the AAPI instructions online: “It is recommended that the response to each essay question be no longer than 500 words.”

I don’t think “recommended” rises to the level of required or absolutely critical. I kept my essays last year to one page, which came to about 550-600 words per essay. I got a bunch of interviews at pretty competitive VA sites. So definitely not critical. But I wouldn’t go too much over the limit (definitely keep it to one page, 12pt font).

 

[WisNeuro]

Meh, I barely read the essays as it is, no way in hell I'm going to check the word count when reviewing apps.

 

[forensic13]

All four of my essays were over the word limit. Not much over, but they were over. I didn't experience any problems getting interviews or matching.

 

[WisNeuro]

The only real issue with going over the limit, is that you're providing more opportunities to tank yourself unintentionally. For most of us, the essays are just used to look for red flags, they rarely push someone up in the rankings much. They do, however, move people down, for various reasons. In the end, I wouldn't stress too much, just write some boring, safe essay, and let your CV and experience do the talking.

 

[Justanothergrad]

The only real issue with going over the limit, is that you're providing more opportunities to tank yourself unintentionally. For most of us, the essays are just used to look for red flags, they rarely push someone up in the rankings much. They do, however, move people down, for various reasons. In the end, I wouldn't stress too much, just write some boring, safe essay, and let your CV and experience do the talking.

You'd be surprised how highly valued they are across the country... and how lowly some of the things we think have value *cough* research *cough* actually play a role in interview invites / rankings.

I need to finish that paper and send it out.

 

[WisNeuro]

You'd be surprised how highly valued they are across the country...

I need to finish that paper and send it out.

I'm sure some sites value them very highly. I've just never seen it at the more than handful of sites that I've served on admissions committees. Perhaps we're just different over in neuro.

 

[BuckeyeLove]

legit think my site used them only as a means of weeding out (hypothesized) serious personality pathology

 

[StellaB]

I'm gonna add another vote to the use of essays to weed people out. Though very well-written essays can push a medium-good application over the top, it's much more likely that an application can be tanked by bad essays. Rather than focus on the word-limit too much, make sure to ask people to look over your essays. Especially the people you know who will be blunt/honest; then make sure to actually heed their feedback.