venus603

Thank you all for your input. I've had numerous professors read it over and they've all told me not to change it, but I think you're all right, it is quite a bit over the limit.

I've just put the finishing touches on my personal statement and I'm very happy with it except for one thing: it comes to a little over 1,300 words, and I realized that a few of my schools specify a 1,000-word limit. I'm wary about cutting anything out of it, as I really feel that everything I say is important. What really puts it over is the long paragraph at the end where I talk about why I want to go to X university, but obviously that needs to be there. Initially, I didn't think that 1300 was too far over 1000 for it to be an issue, but I recently spoke with a friend of mine who is applying to law schools and she told me that for her applications, they say to follow every instruction to a tee or they won't even look at the application. Now, I'm applying to PhD programs in English, so obviously it's a totally different ball game. Do you think I should try to cut parts of it to make it adhere to the word limit, or is the limit to be treated more as a recommendation than a mandate? Is 1300 words really very far over 1000? Thanks in advance for your replies!