Using the max characters on personal statement?

[LaCasta]

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How many of you ended up using all the characters available for your PS?

Mine is going to max out the characters probbably. I understand that it should not be made longer than necessary, but I feel mine tells a story pretty well.

 

[interleukin6]

yeah mine was 5300 characters exactly. i had to cut it down for TMDSAS though.. their max is 500 char... it was pretty difficult.

 

[ZeusonRoids]

How many of you ended up using all the characters available for your PS?

Mine is going to max out the characters probbably. I understand that it should not be made longer than necessary, but I feel mine tells a story pretty well.

Cool. Congratz on staying within the parameters of the AMCAS personal statement...I don't really understand the question

 

[LAman10]

blah stupid char limits haha

 

[locus000]

mine was at the limit, 2 characters left. but i know some one that had a 1000 character left so it's up to you

 

[UVAbme2009]

Mine was 3400. Definitely on the low side. But I had nothing else to say.

 

[Klemptor]

Mine was exactly 5300 - by luck, not design. 🙂

 

[Raryn]

Mine was two characters short of the limit.

 

[afugazzi]

When I was writing mine, I talked to a doctor who had been on the admissions team for one of the UC schools. He said to definitely go way under. He said that if it's too long it really turns some readers off. My final version was 3600 characters and he said even that was a bit too long... you should check with anyone who would know, but my advice is to make it a short as possible such that it is still interesting and informative.

 

[BlueElmo]

Mine is like 5180 characters.

 

[FML]

When I was writing mine, I talked to a doctor who had been on the admissions team for one of the UC schools. He said to definitely go way under. He said that if it's too long it really turns some readers off. My final version was 3600 characters and he said even that was a bit too long... you should check with anyone who would know, but my advice is to make it a short as possible such that it is still interesting and informative.

yikes, if that's the case I'm screwed bc mine is exactly 5300 and that took a LOT of work and editing. I don't know if I could even cut out one word lol

oh well, just have to hope it's riveting enough to keep them reading 🙂

 

[BlueElmo]

yikes, if that's the case I'm screwed bc mine is exactly 5300 and that took a LOT of work and editing. I don't know if I could even cut out one word lol

oh well, just have to hope it's riveting enough to keep them reading 🙂

I'm sure you're fine.

 

[LaCasta]

yeah mine was 5300 characters exactly. i had to cut it down for TMDSAS though.. their max is 500 char... it was pretty difficult.

That's crazy. 500 is essentially only a paragraph or two to say everythig you need.

Cool. Congratz on staying within the parameters of the AMCAS personal statement...I don't really understand the question

The question was asking how many people used the entire length allowed for the personal statment. The reason I am asking is because I have heard from some people that even though 5300 characters are allowed, you should not make it that long as adcoms will probbably not read it in its entirety. They said around 2500 characters would be better.

I feel it is pretty hard though to get across everything you want to say (2500 characters would barely be half a page single spaced), so I was asking for other opinions.

When I was writing mine, I talked to a doctor who had been on the admissions team for one of the UC schools. He said to definitely go way under. He said that if it's too long it really turns some readers off. My final version was 3600 characters and he said even that was a bit too long... you should check with anyone who would know, but my advice is to make it a short as possible such that it is still interesting and informative.

I have been given similar advice. I don't think I could make mine much shorter than the 5300 characters though.

 

[Wheee]

At the moment, I have 41 more characters to use if necessary. I'll probably do one more edit and then call it a day. Or a month.

 

[scotsdoc54]

Mine is 5288 characters currently, barring any major revisions before I turn it in. I think its good there is a character limit, as a lot of folks would write way too much, but 5300 characters is kind of small to explain why you wanna dedicate the next 7+ years of your life to training for a career. Just my opinion though.

 

[Helen Wheels]

Mine is 5263. I figure that if the space is there you are allowed to use it. Also, if they don't want to read the whole thing they could just skim it quickly or read parts of it. Frankly, I agree that 5300 char, a mere page and a half, to explain why we want to spend the next 7-10 years working our butts off and going $160 K into debt is not that long.

 

[witness23]

some essays read faster than others even if you use the same amount of characters. don't get bogged down in strategy too much. make sure your essay is polished. keep them interested.

 

[longhorn09]

yeah mine was 5300 characters exactly. i had to cut it down for TMDSAS though.. their max is 500 char... it was pretty difficult.

Haha, same here.

 

[elyswim]

Not to scare anyone, but people I've spoken to (one of which is adcom @ WUSTL Med) have actually said the opposite of keeping it low. They said you're dedicating the next 7 years (+ the rest of your life), how could you NOT write 5300 characters about it?

Perhaps every school is different.

I'm at 5306 right now. Gotta find one word to remove.

 

[witness23]

Not to scare anyone, but people I've spoken to (one of which is at WUSTL Med) have actually said the opposite of keeping it low. They said you're dedicating the next 7 years (+ the rest of your life), how could you NOT write 5300 characters about it?

Perhaps every school is different.

I'm at 5306 right now. Gotta find one word to remove.

maybe you have already done this, but a lot of people put a space at the end of each paragraph and then hit enter. you can go to the end of your paragraph and delete those spaces and get rid of extra characters without sacrificing a word or changing January into a 1. you may have already done this.

 

[LaCasta]

Yes, 5300 characters, or about a page and a half, is not really that much considering we are trying to convey why we want to spend the rest of our lives in this profession.

The people who were saying to keep it condensed probbably meant you should not add stuff just to fill the entire space.

My final draft is about 5250, just made it 😀

 

[mvenus929]

Mine's in the 4900s somewhere. When I saw I was sufficiently below the character count, I didn't worry about the exact number. And I like my essay.

 

[wickwick]

Write until you are done, then stop.

There's no sense in arbitrarily stopping short, just as there's no sense in writing more just to fill the text box. You may have to cut down if you run over, but that's often just incentive to take a good look at what you wrote and boil it down to the words that are the most concise, clear, and powerful.

 

[BlackSails]

I started at about 5800, and have revised it down to about 5000.

 

[gnu]

Mine clocked in at 4208. It's weird Microsoft Word got a different count. I'm not sure where the extra characters came from. What ever its still the same essay, and I have nothing left to say...

 

[dw2158]

When I was writing mine, I talked to a doctor who had been on the admissions team for one of the UC schools. He said to definitely go way under. He said that if it's too long it really turns some readers off. My final version was 3600 characters and he said even that was a bit too long... you should check with anyone who would know, but my advice is to make it a short as possible such that it is still interesting and informative.

i tend to ignore advice like this-- advice that suggests something on either extreme. adcoms are made of people, each of whom will have a slightly different opinion on how long/detailed/formatted/etc everything should be. if your writing is good, 5300 characters won't make the reader feel like they're wading through something.

That's crazy. 500 is essentially only a paragraph or two to say everythig you need.

pretty sure he meant 5000 😉

some essays read faster than others even if you use the same amount of characters. don't get bogged down in strategy too much. make sure your essay is polished. keep them interested.

👍👍

 

[Appless]

Not to scare anyone, but people I've spoken to (one of which is adcom @ WUSTL Med) have actually said the opposite of keeping it low. They said you're dedicating the next 7 years (+ the rest of your life), how could you NOT write 5300 characters about it?

Perhaps every school is different.

I'm at 5306 right now. Gotta find one word to remove.

The point is that every adcom and school will feel differently. When the committee meets there will be people who are fighting for you to get in while others on the committee may think you suck and just not get in. adcoms are people too and each will have a different opinion. Theres a reason people call this process a crap shoot. If your essay is polished and good and you are hapy with it just send it. Whether that be 5300 exactly or 3500. Personally mine was 5300 but I had a lot of odd backround to add in and some things to explain like gaps in education and such. It was actually 6400 after the rough draft...took me a while to cut it down.

 

[Bryson17]

At the moment, I have 41 more characters to use if necessary. I'll probably do one more edit and then call it a day. Or a month.

I'll buy those characters off you for $2 each.

 

[ChairmanMao]

I'll buy those characters off you for $2 each.

If you pay me $2 per character, I could actually pay off all of my application fees from the words that I saved. 🙂

 

[ChairmanMao]

AMCAS should charge us per character. Those who have a lot of things to say would pay a higher application fee than those who are brief. This way, we actually have an incentive for brevity and the ADCOMS waste a lot less time going through those essays.

 

[Nafis64]

Does anyone know how to use up all the characters? it says in Microsoft word, that I am 5300 characters w spaces, but when I paste I'm over by a bit. I read the whole thing, and I don't see why. Anyone help of how to transfer it over.

 

[Mashizhao]

Same thing happened to me. I think AMCAS counts new paragraphs (when you hit enter) as a character. I had exactly 5300 characters on MS word but then I needed 5294 to copy to AMCAS and I had six paragraphs. Just reduce it by a word or two

 

[Mattabet]

I did my PS in text message before I uploaded to amcas. It was 142 characters.

"I rly want 2 be doc - im nice guy. Schools r hard but u lern things outside it too. Docs r gr8."

 

[Charles English]

I did my PS in text message before I uploaded to amcas. It was 142 characters.

"I rly want 2 be doc - im nice guy. Schools r hard but u lern things outside it too. Docs r gr8."

you could have trimmed that word. they get that bit of info elsewhere in the app. plus "be" could have been "b". still, you did a great job. 👍

 

[vickpick]

characters are numbered with or without spaces???

 

[vickpick]

you could have trimmed that word. they get that bit of info elsewhere in the app. plus "be" could have been "b". still, you did a great job. 👍

and he could've said "I rly wanna b" instead of " I rly want 2 be"...

good work, nevertheless

 

[ensuii]

I had to edit mine to be within 1 character short of the limit. I think my all my interviews brought up my PS (which isn't atypical) and comments ranged from "You have excellent written communication" to "Wow, you share incredible insight..." to "I'm not sure if you've considered..." but I don't think any of them were surprised by the length of it. Don't add BS or fluff to meet the character limit but also try to be as concise as possible, even if you have room to spare.

 

[UnfeatyOblation]

Mine was a shade under 5200

 

[vickpick]

mine is currently just 1200 charachters which is like 1 page.. double spaced..

 

[crazymedgirl]

Sorry--I'm confused. It seems to me that 5300 characters is about 3 pages, doublespaced. Where are people getting the one page guideline from?

Is it 5300 characters with spaces or without?

 

[dw2158]

Sorry--I'm confused. It seems to me that 5300 characters is about 3 pages, doublespaced. Where are people getting the one page guideline from?

Is it 5300 characters with spaces or without?

WITH spaces. IMO, it's useless to think about number of pages, since this is all done electronically. keep it under 5300.

 

[flip26]

Sorry--I'm confused. It seems to me that 5300 characters is about 3 pages, doublespaced. Where are people getting the one page guideline from?

Is it 5300 characters with spaces or without?

Spaces count.

About 1.5 pages, single spaced.

IIRC, mine clocked in around 4300 characters. No need to hit 5300.

 

[fastboyslim]

AMCAS should charge us per character. Those who have a lot of things to say would pay a higher application fee than those who are brief. This way, we actually have an incentive for brevity and the ADCOMS waste a lot less time going through those essays.

We would also be punished for going more in-depth.

 

[coat0023]

I kept reading this as 'words' and not 'characters' and started to freak out a little bit ha ha ha.