Internship Essays

[cmuhooligan]

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Hi all,

So I've been working on some internship essays, and I know that there is a 500 word limit, but how much "wiggle-room" do you think is allowed? For example, I have one essay that is about 530 words, is that too long?

I'm finding it harder than I thought to condense things down to under 2 pages!

 

[PsyDr]

if they require you to email it, or send the essays on cd-rom, then i would stick to 500. it's very easy to use word count.


the majority of places i applied to simply asked us to snail mail it. i went slightly over and never heard anything about it on interviews.

 

[Cosmo75]

I'd say 530 would be fine. My final word counts were:

Autobiographical statement: 521
Theoretical Orientation: 525
Research: 525
Diversity: 527

I didn't have to send any electronically, but if I had I would have gotten them down to 500 as PSYDR mentioned.

Good luck with the application process. It's certainly character building 😀

 

[LM02]

if they require you to email it, or send the essays on cd-rom, then i would stick to 500. it's very easy to use word count.


the majority of places i applied to simply asked us to snail mail it. i went slightly over and never heard anything about it on interviews.

Eh, even if they ask for an emailed copy, I would just convert to pdf and not sweat it. Most of my essays were pushing 600 words, and I got interviews everywhere I applied (~12 sites - I don't remember!). As long as you can get it to one page, you should be fine.

 

[parto123]

Eh, even if they ask for an emailed copy, I would just convert to pdf and not sweat it. Most of my essays were pushing 600 words, and I got interviews everywhere I applied (~12 sites - I don't remember!). As long as you can get it to one page, you should be fine.

All pdfs can easily be converted into writable documents. But either way I agree with you. As long as its not noticeably longer than 500 it should be fine. I wouldnt go as high as 600 though. If you feel an essay looks too long, just play around with the margins and line spacing

 

[lifebeforeman]

I would be careful--while some (probably most) training directors won't notice, there are definitely some who will count the number of words. I know some of the training directors on the appic listserv mentioned that going over the word limits can be looked at negatively (as a student's possible inability/reluctance to follow directions). It's hard, but it can be done in 500 words or less.