Cutting an essay to fit a word limit

Word limits are enforced, usually by a form that simply refuses the extra words. Cutting well makes the essay better anyway, which is the part students don't expect.

Start by deleting your first paragraph. In the overwhelming majority of drafts it's throat-clearing—context the reader doesn't need, a definition of a word everyone knows, or a wind-up to the actual opening sentence that sits underneath it.

Cut adverbs and intensifiers next. 'Very', 'really', 'incredibly', 'truly', 'deeply'. They add length and subtract force, and removing them almost never changes meaning.

Then hunt for sentences that restate the previous sentence in different words. Drafts are full of these because writing them is how you figure out what you meant. Keep the sharper version and delete the other.

Replace descriptions of qualities with the evidence for them. 'I am committed to my community' plus three sentences of explanation becomes 'I have run the food pantry's Saturday shift since sophomore year.' Shorter, and it actually proves something.

If you're still over, cut a whole example rather than trimming every example evenly. Two examples told properly beat four told in fragments, and committees remember the specific one.

Read the final version out loud. Over-cut essays develop a clipped, breathless rhythm, and hearing it is the fastest way to find the two or three places where you need a word back.