What are some effective ways to shorten a college essay without losing quality?

It can be tough to cut down an essay when so much of it feels important, but there are strategic ways to trim without undermining your message. Here are actionable tactics to help you get from 780 to 650 words while still making your essay impactful:

First, focus on “show, don’t tell.” Review each paragraph and look for any sentences where you’re explaining an idea you’ve already shown through a specific example. For instance, instead of saying, “I learned about perseverance through robotics,” let a story or moment demonstrate this quality, and cut the explanatory sentence.

Next, target wordy phrases. Phrases like “in order to,” “the fact that,” or “due to the fact that” can almost always be shortened (e.g. change to "to," or rewrite as a simple phrase). For example, instead of “I was able to lead the team to success,” you could say, “I led the team.”

Cut background or context that isn’t strictly necessary for understanding later events. Sometimes students recap too much about how a club started or give a detailed history, focus instead on what you did, how you felt, and the impact. For example, you don’t need a whole paragraph about the club’s founding process unless it directly supports your story or growth.

Try reading each sentence and asking, “If I cut this, will my central story and message still make sense?” If yes, it’s safe to delete. Also, merge sentences where possible. For example: “I tutored middle school students. It was difficult but rewarding.” could become, “Tutoring middle schoolers was difficult but rewarding.”

Don’t forget to look for repetition. If you mention a challenge twice, keep only the stronger example. If you describe your excitement for engineering more than once, consolidate it into the most vivid, specific description.

Finally, ask someone unfamiliar with your essay to read it. Have them underline anything confusing and mark sentences that feel repetitive or less interesting. Sometimes an outside perspective spots what you missed.

For example, a student writing about founding a girls’ engineering club might originally describe every step of organizing meetings. Instead, they could focus on one key obstacle and how they overcame it, trimming less essential details about the planning phases.

Trimming is tough, but remember: almost every strong essay ends up leaner and more focused than the first draft. Good luck, you’ve got this!