College Essay Word Counter
Paste your college essay or personal statement and pick an application. You see words, characters with spaces and characters without spaces, plus how much room is left. Counting happens in your browser; your essay is not uploaded.
Essay and personal statement limits
Each limit below was checked on the official source on 27 September 2026. Limits can change between cycles, so the portal is the final word.
| Application | Limit | Counted in | Source (checked 27 September 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Common App personal essay (2026–27) | 650 words (maximum) | words | Common App: prompts unchanged for 2026–27 (blog, 27 Feb 2026). The 650 cap is enforced in the application; the public prompts page does not restate it. |
| UC personal insight questions | 350 words each, 4 of 8 questions | words | UC Admissions: Personal insight questions |
| UCAS personal statement (2026 entry onwards) | 4,000 characters in total across 3 questions; at least 350 per answer | characters, including spaces | UCAS: How to write your personal statement, 2026 entry onwards |
| AMCAS Personal Comments Essay (2027 cycle) | 5,300 characters | characters, including spaces | AAMC: 2027 AMCAS Applicant Guide, p. 59 |
| Coalition for College essay | about 500–650 words (guideline) | words | Coalition for College: Essay prompts |
Words or characters: which one your application counts
US undergraduate applications count words: the Common App personal essay, the UC personal insight questions and the Coalition essay. UCAS and AMCAS count characters, including spaces, so a long word costs more than a short one and every space and line break is part of the total. That is why this page shows both numbers at once.
For UCAS, the 4,000 characters are shared by all three questions. You can spend them however you like, but each answer needs at least 350 characters. For AMCAS, the AAMC recommends writing in plain text: bold, italics and indentation do not reach the medical schools.
What counts as a word or a character here
A word is a run of letters or digits. Hyphenated words and contractions count once, so well-known and it's are one word each. Punctuation is not a word. A character is every letter, digit, space, line break and punctuation mark.
Example: “I re-read my well-known draft, twice. It's 9:30 p.m.” is 11 words, 52 characters with spaces and 44 without. The full rules, with more examples, are on the methodology page (see also how characters are counted).
Application portals run their own counters, and a portal can differ from any other tool by a word or two on hyphens, dashes or numbers. Leave a small margin and do a last check in the portal before you submit.
Other tools for your essay
Use the word counter for readability, reading time and keyword density, the character counter for other character limits, and the grammar checker for a last proofread. For school essays in general, see how many words an essay should be, how long an introduction should be and how long a conclusion should be.
Frequently asked questions
How long is the Common App essay?
Up to 650 words. The Common App kept the same seven prompts for 2026–27. The limit is enforced in the application itself, so do a final check in the Common App text box.
How many words is each UC personal insight question?
Each answer can be up to 350 words. You answer 4 of the 8 questions, and each answer has its own 350-word limit. The limit is not shared between answers.
What is the UCAS personal statement character limit for 2026 entry?
From 2026 entry, the UCAS personal statement is three questions that share one 4,000-character limit, spaces included. Each answer needs at least 350 characters. The total did not change from the old single-statement format.
How many characters is the AMCAS personal statement?
The AMCAS Personal Comments Essay allows 5,300 characters, spaces included. The 2027 AMCAS Applicant Guide says you will see an error message if you go over.
Do spaces and line breaks count as characters?
Yes, in the “characters (with spaces)” number, and UCAS and AMCAS both count spaces. The “no spaces” number removes spaces, tabs and line breaks.
Is my essay uploaded or saved?
No. The counting runs in your browser and the text you paste is not sent to our servers. The page counts only; it does not grade or store your essay.