personal statement length...

[scottyhoop]

Is there an "official" length for personal statements? I know it's in the ball park of 1 page, but I'd like to know exactly how much I have to work with.
Scott

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[ananda]

I believe it's 1500 characters (this number includes spaces). When applying, I ignored the "spaces included" part and ended up having to shrink my statement by about a third.... so watch out for that.

 

[ananda]

I believe it's 1500 characters (this number includes spaces). When applying, I ignored the "spaces included" part and ended up having to shrink my statement by about a third.... so watch out for that.

 

[slashnroses19]

i just wrote mine in 30 minutes. its 766 words. i'm not sure how many characters yet!

 

[UJ007]

Actually for the 2007 cycle it was 4500 characters, including spaces so I bet its probably the same thing this cycle

 

[Mila]

Actually for the 2007 cycle it was 4500 characters, including spaces so I bet its probably the same thing this cycle

Yep 4500 characters including spaces - There's usually no word limit to these things, just a character limit.

 

[reapply2007]

I'm certain it's 4500 characters to include spaces between words, punctuation, and hard returns. I've written several as I'm a reapplicant and I just character counted on my copy of them. This is approx 1.25 pages, 12 pt times new roman w/ 1.25 inch margins on all four sides. Alternatively, you can use the character/word count feature on your word processing software. AADSAS will not accept it if its long, so I suggest you shoot for 4490 characters max just to allow for differences unique to AADSAS.

 

[t2thDr14]

careful with paragraph indentations too.. cuz AADSAS doesn't allow you to "tab" it. i think i remember using like 2 or 3 spaces at the beginning of each paragraph as my indentations.

definitely make use of all the space u can, but be flexible for trimming down at the very end when needed.

good luck!

 

[apaul]

i would use a hard return and skip a line for paragraph seperation, makes it easier to read and after reading hundreds of personal statements, an ADCOM will welcome something that looks easier to read and skim

 

[t2thDr14]

hmm, then again... maybe i did use returns in the end. it was so long ago... just make sure to do whatever it takes to fit everything in!

 

[ananda]

Ooops! You guys are right... it's 4500...NOT 1500.

 

[bruinpredent]

Ooops! You guys are right... it's 4500...NOT 1500.

hey you! VATCH your language...or SOM-BODY GONNA GET A HURT!

REAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLL BAD!

yea its 4500, which is too short if you ask me but whatever...i don't think i'd be able to really get ME across in 1500 characters though, thats like...a quarter of a page!

 

[scottyhoop]

Thanks all for your help! 4500 it is!
Scott

 

[ddhm]

So the character limit is 4500 including spaces. But does anyone know from past experience whether hard returns (to separate paragraphs with a full line in-between) get counted by the AADSAS software?

Hard returns don't affect the character count in Microsoft Word, and my statement's sitting at exactly 4500 right now. I'd like to know in advance to avoid having to edit later on.

 

[DailyDrivenTJ]

Did you guys do two spaces after period or one?

 

[Mila]

Use one space after periods to conserve characters. I don't remember so much about hard returns but I'm pretty sure they were one character each. So I had 2 characters between paragraphs (someone correct me if I'm wrong). Also make sure that when you use character count in Word, that you are counting characters with spaces.

 

[ddhm]

oh, so hard returns do take up character space. thanks. i guess i'll go ahead and trim my statement a little more.