Writing a Statement of Purpose to the Ideal Length

[blerg]

I'm currently filling our applications and one of the applications requires a statement of purpose of "approximately 1000 words." The one I have written is currently 1500 words so it obviously has to be trimmed down. But as 1000 words is not a strict cap, I was wondering what a reasonable amount above 1000 words would be.

 

[Phyisab****]

***I don't know what I'm talking about, this is just my opinion.

I would adhere to their limit, unless your experience is so extensive that it simply cannot be done justice in 1000 words. Cut out any ramblings about the depth of your love for physics. Remove things which are not factual reasons they should consider admitting you.

 

[AlephZero]

I would say "approx 1000 words" means about 900 to 1000. If you can't convince them in less than 1000 words, another 100 or 200 isn't going to make much difference.

Just remember they won't read past the first 100 words, unless you pushed at least one of the right buttons by that time.

 

[Choppy]

For something like graduate school admissions or a summer internship, I highly doubt anyone is going to feed your application through a word counter. What will happen is that if you ramble on well beyond what other applicants have to say, the readers will get annoyed or stop reading - neither of which is what you want.

You could probably get away with 1100 words.

 

[blerg]

Ok so I'll have to cut it down. So does this mean everyone thinks that my ~1500 statement which I have been submitting to other places (without limits) is too long?