How long an essay should be

You need to follow directions to get your letters of recommendation, upload your essays, send supplemental materials, get your test scores sent, and so on and so forth. So it's just a good general rule to follow whatever instructions you've been given by the institution. Better safe than sorry! If you can truly get your point across well beneath the word limit, it's probably fine. Brevity is not necessarily a bad thing in writing just so long as you are clear, cogent, and communicate what you want to.

However, most college essays have pretty tight word limits anyways. So if you're writing words for an essay with a word essay ask yourself: is there anything more you could say to elaborate on or support your points? Consult with a parent, friend, or teacher on where you could elaborate with more detail or expand your points. Also, if the college gives you a word range, you absolutely need to at least hit the bottom end of the range.

So if you get a range from the institution like words, you need to write at least words. If you write less, it will come across like you have nothing to say, which is not an impression you want to give. Don't let this sinister hand stop you from writing everything you have to say! Some colleges don't give you a word limit for one or more of your essay prompts.

This can be a little stressful, but the prompts generally fall into a few categories:. Some colleges don't provide a hard-and-fast word limit because they want a writing sample from one of your classes. In this case, a word limit would be very limiting to you in terms of which assignments you could select from.

For an example of this kind of prompt, check out essay Option B at Amherst :. We are particularly interested in your ability to construct a tightly reasoned, persuasive argument that calls upon literary, sociological or historical evidence. You should NOT submit a laboratory report, journal entry, creative writing sample or in-class essay.

While there is usually no word limit per se, colleges sometimes provide a general page guideline for a writing samples. Typically, we anticipate a paper of pages will provide adequate length to demonstrate your analytical abilities. Somewhat longer papers can also be submitted, but in most cases should not exceed pages. So even though there's no word limit, they'd like somewhere in the pages range.

High school students are not usually writing papers that are longer than 10 pages anyways, so that isn't very limiting. Want to write the perfect college application essay? Get professional help from PrepScholar. Your dedicated PrepScholar Admissions counselor will craft your perfect college essay, from the ground up. We'll learn your background and interests, brainstorm essay topics, and walk you through the essay drafting process, step-by-step.

At the end, you'll have a unique essay that you'll proudly submit to your top choice colleges. Don't leave your college application to chance. Find out more about PrepScholar Admissions now :. Sometimes, while there's no word or even page limit, there's still an implicit length guideline. What do I mean by this? See, for example, this Wellesley supplemental essay prompt :.

Generations of inspiring women have thrived in the Wellesley community, and we want to know what aspects of this community inspire you to consider Wellesley. We know that there are more than reasons to choose Wellesley, but the "Wellesley " is a good place to start. Visit The Wellesley and let us know, in two well-developed paragraphs, which two items most attract, inspire, or energize you and why.

Not-so-secret tip: The "why" matters to us. There's no page or word limit here, but it does say to respond "in two well-developed paragraphs. That's what I mean by an "implicit" word limit—there is a reasonable length you could go to within the boundaries of the prompt. There is also the classic "treasure hunt" prompt. No, it's not a prompt about a treasure hunt.

It's a prompt where there are no length guidelines given, but if you hunt around on the rest of the website you can find length guidelines. Consult your department or tutor if you are unsure about how long your essay is supposed to be. In most cases, you will be assigned an essay with clear requirements regarding the number of pages to be included or the number of words to be produced pages, or words. It will make sense to consult your tutor if you are in doubt.

This article provides detailed guidelines for the length of different types of essays. An essay that is long enough but lacks depth in content and analysis will not fetch the required results. Rather than focusing on hitting a certain word count, you must look to write a high-quality essay that addresses the research problem and provides arguments for and against your thesis.

Expectations about university-level essays are almost always higher than primary and high school essays. You need to see the academic level requirements you are writing the essay for and ask yourself how long an essay has to be before starting to write the essay.

Underneath, we will discuss essay writing patterns that can be applied at different academic levels. Students are required to write essays normally consisting of words at this level. The essay comprises of 5-paragraph model, which includes 5 paragraphs starting from the introduction.

The last paragraph provides a conclusion. It is improbable that the introduction and conclusion chapters would go over one paragraph at this academic level. If you are a high school student and wondering how long is an essay, then there are a few things that you must keep in mind. Problem fixed! We can write any type of essay in any referencing style.

We ensure every essay written is beyond your expectations. Students have to cope with writing longer essays normally of pages. Special classes are designed for undergraduate students in most universities where they are taught essential essay writing skills. To make sure that all students undergo this writing practice, essays are assigned in assignments. As the semester progresses, students are required to submit a final essay assignment contributing a larger percentage to the overall grade.

Narrative Essay Writing Service. It mainly depends on the requirements of the university, topic , course, and specifically the tutor. Some university courses include several essay writing assignments because the course structure is designed as such. The word count for essays at this level ranges from words approximately. On the other hand, Susan belongs to a Chemical Engineering program that requires her to write just one or two essays throughout the year. Her program deals more with practical knowledge, experiments, and calculations.

The below table will help you to understand how long an essay should be. Interested in ordering an essay? It is possible that you could end up receiving a poor grade despite meeting the length requirements. Rather just focus on the length without setting boundaries for your arguments.

Here are some essay writing tips for you to consider when writing academic essays:. Psychology Essay Writing Services. Interesting in ordering an essay? In this regard, the best practice would be to write within the specified word count because the word count is decided to keep your academic course requirements and academic level.

Your tutor would state clearly exactly how many details should be provided in the essay. If you are struggling to reach the expected word count, then the following tips will be of great help;. Some tutors are flexible and lenient in their approach, while others are strict and may penalize you for exceeding the length.

If your essay is over the acceptable word count, it is recommended to consult your tutor and seek their permission. However, remember that longer essays will take your marker longer to grade your work and potentially annoy them. If your essay is well above the suggested benchmark, then you will need to edit it to bring it down to within the suggested limits;. Usually, their main goal is to show the board if you seriously a worthy applicant.

However, all the details you need to know about the admission essay will be available in the website section of the college. And if you are not familiar with what should be the length of an essay. Then here we have a quick answer for you that is an average college essay is about words long. According to college organization rules, the length of admission essays is kept very short near about words because the board officers have to go through them daily.

Keep in mind that when you usually exceed the word limit, the essay would be read till the end, so be mindful. If the institute from which you are studying has not offered you any standard guidelines about the duration of an essay, then here are the following things that you need to take care of because a school, college, and even universities will not indicate a length limit for.

Moreover, there is no firm rule that an essay should be of a specific length. But it is highly recommended that a good essay on average should be of 3 paragraphs. It is said that an essay should be about be written as a rule in three parts. The essay should start with an introduction that gives an overview of the topic to the readers.

The next part is the body of the essay in which you will discuss the detailed topic with supported arguments and discussion.

Finally, you will move towards the conclusion that gives readers about the fact or idea you was looking for into the appropriate circumstances and thinking through the topic.

Talking about the simple form of essay, each essay should consist of three paragraphs with a focusing point. There are different types of essays, such as academic, admission, and contextual. So, it depends on you, which you are going to write down. Therefore the components of this essay should be three paragraphs, but we can also go for the more than these as one can also write fewer paragraphs in the body section. The length of the essay depends on you how you write it. In general, narrative essays tell a story which means that sentences can be either l; song or story but not too long.