Word Limits

[nushi]

Hi guys...

If they tell me there's a 3,000 characters with spaces limit to my SOP, & I upload one with 3,764 characters with spaces, would they discard it or something? I mean, is the word-limit apps put on such essays "very" rigorous?

[fuzzylogician]

No one can tell you. One of several things might happen: it's possible that the application will actually only save the first 3000 characters, especially if there is a dedicated box to enter the response in. It's possible that you submit something longer and nothing happens. And it's entirely possible that you submit something that's clearly over the limit (as this will be), and your readers get pissed at you and hold onto that while they read the rest of your file, or they only read the first 80% of the statement. No way to know. What I can tell you is that word and page limits are extremely common in academia, and while they're hard to work with, anyone who wants a career in academia has to learn to deal with them. 

[ClassicsCandidate]

I was going to say the same thing as @fuzzylogician. I know that some programs might just throw those that go over the limit in the bin, and when I asked the director of the program I'm applying to what the parameters were (because when I looked on the site, the word count was nowhere to be found), I made sure to cut down my SoP to the most important meat of the information and got rid of any "fluff" I had gunking up my statement. I'm on version 10 over two months, and I'm still having people read over it and giving me feedback because I want to make sure it's well-done enough that there is no reason it'll be looked over. Now that there are parameters posted on the site, I'm still going with what the director of the program told me because I figured that would be the best route to take as it is likely she will be one of the people reading it on the admissions committee. 

Edited December 23, 2017 by ClassicsCandidate