Columbia's PS Length Requirement

Noise Dogood

What does Columbia Law School's "approximately two pages in length" mean? Currently putting sentences to address the "why you're interested in Columbia in particular" component of the personal statement.

I'm assuming 2.3 pages is about the limit right, like 2 and a half pages is definitely too much?

gail7Sage

Hi Noise Dogood, I'd suggest keeping your Columbia PS as close to two pages as possible to demonstrate that you intended to follow Columbia's instructions. It's fine to reuse your existing PS and add a one or two sentence "why Columbia" ending, as long as you make a smooth transition to this.

sk144404

Exactly two pages or less; unless you have done something extraordinary. Keep it concise, avoid redundancy, and follow directions.

Few things bother admissions officers more than applicants who disregard instructions, especially when your 2.5pg PS could've been 2pg with 10 minutes worth of editing.

VerdantZephyr

I'd say that 5 lines over is perfectly fine. 15-20 lines probably less so. I will add to avoid being over by a single line or two, it looks bad and may feel lazy at that point since you can probably tweak word choice and get it down to exactly two pages. It was definitely something my professional editor friend cautioned against. A tip, if you are having problems with length you can switch to justified over left aligned, which I think looks better anyway.

I would add the rebuttal to sk's comment that if you can just cut out paragraphs of content with ten minutes of editing it shouldn't be there at this stage in the first place. I'll presume you've already gone through that step many times. For sure have writers or editors you trust look over it if you aren't using 7Sage's services for it.