Rules about PS length

[amc987]

Hey all,

I know that the common wisdom on TLS is that one should follow the directions re: personal statement and diversity statement length to the letter. However, does anyone know what schools think about obnoxiously following their rules? E.g. if I put my personal statement into Arial Narrow 11 point font with 1 inch margins and it's 2 pages, it technically fulfills the limit for Harvard and the other schools that explicitly have 2 page PS limits. It isn't 2 pages otherwise.

But is that really going to be ok with them? I know that if I got something like that, I wouldn't be touched that a kid actually followed the rules. I would change it to a more readable font and doubly penalize the kid for being a douchebag. I'd rather that they just kept it to Times or something and go over the limit. However, lawyers are clearly sticklers for following rules and this would be following the rules to letter. Do you think adcomms would be pissed off if I did this?

[Seneca]

Keep it to two pages (or whatever the limit is) with TNR, 11 or 12 pt font, 1-inch margins.

The page limit and formatting guidelines are there for a reason. Follow them.

[theadvancededit]

Adcomms look at hundreds, if not thousands, of essays a cycle so even the most minute differences in margins and font sizes will stick out to them. Concentrate on standing out for the right reasons, not the wrong ones.