Personal statement question

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Hello.
I've read that the available space is 5300 characters including spaces, approximately ONE page. However, I've used Microsoft Word and while I'm only up to 5100 characters and I'm at 1 1/5 pages long already (font size 12). I'm just concerned since I wanted to have it written, corrected, proof read and ready to simply type in without facing insufficient character numbers on the applicatioin.
Does anyone know whether 5300 words actually is more like 1 1/4 pages long or simply 1 page ?

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well first i will say 5300 words is going to be like five pages...but im guessing you meant characters, 5300 characters is about a page 1/3. When i wrote mine, single spaced, thats how long it was. But whatever character amount they give you on Word is accurate and will translate to the amcas application.
 
Hello.
I've read that the available space is 5300 characters including spaces, approximately ONE page. However, when I use "Word" to type it up, I'm only up to 5100 characters and I'm at 1 1/5 pages long already. I'm just concerned since I wanted to have it written, corrected, proof read and ready to simply type in without facing insufficient character numbers on the applicatioin.
Does anyone know whether 5300 words actually is more like 1 1/4 pages long or simply 1 page (font size 12)?

Ignore whatever page length you're getting, it's the character count that matters....they just gave the one page approximation to try to be helpful. Just judge the length based on the character count (with spaces) in Word.

You *have* to be within the character count guidelines--the form will just cut off what you've written at the 5300th character if you attempt to go over. Just keep editing it down, 5300 characters is definitely enough room to write a powerful essay.
 
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dude, all that matters is characters... use the word function to count them, as long as under 5300 you are fine... the amount of space taken up by 5300 characters would depend entirely on indentation, spacing, font, text size, etc...

it is a guideline, calm down ;)
 
Thanks for the information!
Haha...yeah, 5300 characters, not words.
Thanks again.
 
well first i will say 5300 words is going to be like five pages...but im guessing you meant characters, 5300 characters is about a page 1/3. When i wrote mine, single spaced, thats how long it was. But whatever character amount they give you on Word is accurate and will translate to the amcas application.

Perfecting your personal statement in February...

Yeah it's 5300 characters. The page cares about characters and characters only (page size is irrelevant). Don't worry though, as you'll have time to get it into the system and play with it before having to hit submit. Also, note that indents would count as 4 spaces. I just used a line break (1 character) and then a single space for paragraphs. Might as well get used to looking at it like this instead of indents...
 
Haha, armybound, thanks for looking out for my back. I'm getting my PS ready this early for the same reason: to get them to the people who'll be writing my the LORs. I'm not taking the MCAT until August. So, I need to pull all stops to get things done early.
 
what's wrong with getting the PS ready in Feb? I want to have it ready to give to people writing my LORs

Sorry. A rough draft is definitely a good thing to have for your LOR writers. I think I drastically reworked mine after the fact, but all the important stuff was there. I just don't think I'd have the perfect 5300 character statement already; as you write and ruminate you'll find out more about yourself, and better ways to word it.
 
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