Cut Down Characters in an Essay | 5 Helpful Tips

Meeting the character count for an essay can sometimes be really difficult and to cut down characters can be a hard ask. If you’re anything like me, your conversation style is more “short story long” and you feel the need to give context for every little detail. Well unfortunately with thousands of applications to review, admissions committees don’t have time to read limitless essays.

So you’ve done all that you can do to cut down on your characters but you’re still over the limit. I’ll be telling you how I reviewed my essays in order to cut down and maximize every character given. So if you’re looking to do the same, keep on reading!

This post will be detailing 5 helpful ways that you can proofread your medical school application essays in order to eliminate unnecessary characters and meet the character count.

5 Helpful Ways to Cut Down Characters in An Essay

1. Do You Really Need “That?”

“That” might as well be the “like” of written text. So many times we say the word “that” when it is completely unnecessary. Some sentences will read perfectly fine without this filler word (of course there are also appropriate times to use it). So use the “command + F” control on your keyboard and type in the word “that” and read every sentence that includes the word aloud. Try reading it eliminating “that” to see if it still makes sense. If it does, delete it.

2. Stop Overusing the Words “Experience” and “Opportunity.”

This is definitely a premed habit. We love using these words because they can invoke a sense of maturity, humility, wisdom, intentionality, etc. Overall, they’re just words every premed loves to use! The thing is they are 10 and 11 characters, respectively. If you use the word experience three times in one essay, that’s already 30 characters. You should use those 30 characters to describe that experience instead, the reader already knows it was an experience.

3. Replace Long Adjectives with Shorter Ones Without Changing Their Power

Any time you use an adjective it better be worth it. A lot of the time we use these words to “dress up” our writing when it’s completely unnecessary. You must use appropriate adjectives that really add to your overall message. If you have identified a long adjective try searching for shorter synonyms or decide whether or not you really need it or not. Ask yourself, “Does this really add to the overall message?” If it’s not useful, delete it. Also, avoid employing overused adjectives like “awesome,” “amazing,” “incredible,” etc. A lot of the time we use these to “fluff up” our writing. If you’re going to use adjectives, budget wisely and spend your characters on something meaningful and specific.

4. Search for Extra Spaces.

Sometimes when we are writing and then we take a break we instinctively hit the spacebar button when we begin to write. Double check after punctuation marks and sometimes even in between words for extra spaces that are hiding.

5. Chill Out with the Summary Sentences.

I get it, there’s this need to round out our thoughts and bring the reader back to our original point after we took them on a journey through our premed years. However, sometimes we end up trailing off for three or four sentences to summarize all of what has already been stated. Please review these sentences and see if you can cut down on them by making them stronger, shorter, and to the point. If the essay is short, you really should not be spending more than one to two sentences on this. Use your best judgement to decide whether a summary is necessary and what is a sufficient length.