What is a good length for the personal statement?

[reese07]

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I'm using word right now and the word count is 2,276 or about 4 to 5 pages. Is this way too long?

 

[cdmarshbu]

Yes, this is probably too long. Of course it depends on content, but most good personal statements say what they need to say in about a page and a half.

 

[NickNaylor]

It has to be under 5300 characters (including spaces) for AMCAS and under 5000 for TMDSAS. Yours is way over the limit.

 

[xPersephone]

If you are applying through AMCAS, then this is way too long. You have to look at characters with spaces. With a character limit of 5300 (including spaces), mine was about 950 words. I'm sorry but you have some major editing ahead of you. Good luck

 

[ohgodidonteven]

Can we read it? It must be pretty amazing if you managed to write 5 pages. I can barely suffer out two pages.

 

[NickNaylor]

Just for comparison, my PS was just under a page and a half at 11 point font, single-spaced.

 

[reese07]

Uh oh, this sucks...Anybody out there want to read mines and point out what I should cut out?

 

[NickNaylor]

Uh oh, this sucks...Anybody out there want to read mines and point out what I should cut out?

Check out the official personal statement reader thread. It's probably within the first two pages of threads in this forum.

 

[rafflecopter]

Can we read it? It must be pretty amazing if you managed to write 5 pages. I can barely suffer out two pages.

A famous author once wrote a long letter to his friend. In the post-script he wrote an apology, saying he was sorry he didn't have enough time to write a shorter letter. Length =/= quality!

 

[45408]

that's ungodly long. If I were reading your application, I'd skip at least half of it, if not more.