Updated November 29, 2024
Academic writing is not known for its brevity, and unfortunately, many of us have learned the wrong lessons about writing high school and college essays by the time we’re headed to grad school. (For a great take on this that has held up over time, read Dancing With Professors: The Trouble With Academic Prose. You can find it online here.
Don’t feel bad—we’ve all been there at times writing research papers and other academic papers! But the stakes are so high in the context of applying to grad school, and college admissions essays have such strict limits on the number of words you can use, that you feel it more in this context.
But college application essays are a lot different than your typical academic papers. It’s all about expressing detailed ideas as succinctly as possible.
We’ve got you covered. Here are our best application essay writing tips for keeping it short and awesome.
What are effective strategies for reducing essay word count without losing essential content or quality?
Delete the first few sentences. Most essays start with a lot of unnecessary introductory redundancies. Parachute right into the main point you want the reader to take away from the piece.
Use the short name of the school. Say HKS rather than “Harvard Kennedy School” for example.
Eliminate wordy phrases. How do you do this? Use good proofreading tactics. Here are some things to look for when you’re looking to cut fluff and redundant words out of your first draft:
- Look for unnecessary adverbs. Adverbs often add length without meaning. For example, you can replace “I carefully covered sensitive issues” with “I navigated sensitive issues.”
- Look for prepositional phrases. Similar to adverbs, prepositions can often be replaced with more direct, meaningful language. For example, rather than say “I had the opportunity to lead a team…” just tell the reader what you did: “I led a team…”
- Look for noun phrases to simplify or replace with single nouns. For example, instead of saying, “I conducted a detailed analysis of the findings,” say, “I analyzed the findings.”
- Look for unnecessary conjunctions. Avoid filler words like “that,” which is often unneeded. Replace phrases like “in order to” with “to,” and when a single word or a comma can do the work of multiple words without changing the meaning of the sentence, use that instead.
Write in the active voice. People often use the passive voice in academic writing, but this results in many unnecessary words and an essay that is less interesting to read.
Make every sentence stand up to the “stay or go” test. Read every sentence of your essay one at a time and ask, “Is this sentence essential to answering the essay question?” If it isn’t essential and you are over the word limit, it has to go.
Have a friend read it. Give your essays to a friend and tell them that you absolutely have to have the essay be within the word limit. They don’t need special skills or experience as an English teacher. Their power is that they won’t be as attached to every nuance of your essay as you are, so they can more easily remove extra words. Just make sure you don’t give your friend your only/original copies of your documents.
Here are some more FAQs about saying more with fewer words:
How can I cut my college application essay down 30 words?
Delete the last sentence or two. Similar to the earlier point about introductions, applicants often end their essays with a lot of extra niceties that do not add much to the essay. It reminds me of how difficult it is to get off the phone with some people. They keep saying different versions of goodbye, and won’t just hang up!
Can I go below the minimum word count?
Yes. Just as long as you’re answering the prompts fully and getting your main points across, being under the word limit is fine. Just use all the words you can to extoll your own virtues as an applicant!
How do you decrease word counts for personal statements? Is it different for this essay?
No! Follow these same tips to slash away. In fact, look for more unnecessary details and extra words in an essay with a more personal focus.
Should I worry about how to reduce word count on an essay with a page limit?
Yes. Although the exact word count may not be an issue, approach a page limit—even one that doesn’t sound as strict—by eliminating all of the filler words that you can.
Can you go over the essay word limit ever?
Not for an application essay. Think of yourself as a server in a fancy restaurant: if you bring anything out that the customer didn’t ask for, they’re probably not going to be happy.
Of course, you can always come to us and have us edit your essays as well! The Art of Applying team has an unrivaled Word Limit Guarantee. Our guarantee is that you can send us an essay that is up to double the word limit, and we will edit it down to the word limit for you.
A bonus to the word limit guarantee is that if we ask you to add content into your essays, we will edit them down for you to below the word limit to give you space to add in the content you need to add.
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