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Length?

Posted: Sat Jul 13, 2013 8:37 pm
by anubis1911
I've seen some really short personal statements on here... what is the length I should be going for? I am currently at about 1 3/4 pages... but I've seen some here at about half a page. Doesn't Harvard have a 2 page limit? Isn't it best to meet that limit? So confused.......

Re: Length?

Posted: Sun Jul 14, 2013 3:29 am
by nugnoy
Write as concisely as possible without sacrificing the quality of writing.

For some schools like Harvard and UCLA, 2 page is the limit.

For other schools, there is none. But they "suggest" 3~4 pages.

I personally would do 2 pages, maybe 1~3 lines less if I feel comfortable for schools with 2 page limit.

For schools without length, I'd still recommend less than 3 pages - maybe like 2.5. I'd definitely wouldn't go over 4 though.

If you can get your point across well, don't need to stretch it to the max. But from my experience when I do have something good to say, it usually ends up being too long than being too short.