CASPA Character Counter

CASPA Personal Statement Character Limit

The CASPA personal statement has a maximum length of 5,000 characters. Spaces, carriage returns (line breaks), and punctuation count toward the limit.

This counter is designed to match the CASPA character-counting behavior we observed in the applicant portal and to help identify characters that may cause compatibility problems when you save your statement.

CASPA Personal Statement Formatting

• Do not exceed 5,000 characters.
• Spaces count toward the character limit.
• Each line break counts toward the character limit.
• Punctuation counts toward the character limit.
• CASPA recommends using simple formatting.
• CASPA recommends using a double return between paragraphs.

CASPA's official guidance states that formatting such as tabs, italics, and multiple spaces may not be preserved. For the safest result, use simple plain-text formatting.

View the official CASPA personal statement guidance

Unexpected Characters Rejected by CASPA

Some characters that CASPA rejects are easy to overlook, especially when a personal statement has been copied from Word, Google Docs, a website, a resume, or another application.

In our testing, CASPA rejected ordinary-looking symbols such as © ® ™ ✔ ☑ ↔ ☎ ✉ ✏. A statement containing one of these characters may look completely normal but still produce an invalid-character error in CASPA.

CASPA can also treat similar-looking characters differently. For example, ☑ was rejected while ☒ was accepted, and ↔ was rejected while ← and → were accepted.

The checker above automatically looks for characters that we have confirmed were rejected by CASPA.

Character Compatibility in CASPA

Most normal personal-statement text works without a problem in CASPA. Common punctuation, accented letters, mathematical symbols, and the international characters we tested were accepted.

Some less common symbols are rejected, which is why this checker looks for known problem characters. We also found that every emoji we tested was rejected by CASPA, although emojis would normally be unusual in a formal personal statement.

CASPA does not publish a complete list of every accepted and rejected Unicode character. Our compatibility warnings are therefore based on characters we tested directly in the CASPA applicant portal.

How CASPA Counts Characters

CASPA counts spaces, punctuation, and line breaks toward the 5,000-character limit. Our testing found that the character total shown by this counter matches the counting behavior we observed in the CASPA applicant portal.

Some unusual Unicode characters can behave differently when text is saved, so this checker also looks for characters that may be rejected, normalized, or removed by CASPA.

Some Characters Can Change After CASPA Saves

Certain Unicode characters can change when a personal statement is saved in CASPA.

For example, a letter followed by a separate combining accent can initially count as two characters. In our testing, CASPA normalized the combination into a single accented character after saving, reducing the final character count.

We also found that the invisible Unicode character U+FEFF was removed after the personal statement was saved.

The compatibility checker above alerts you when your text contains characters known from our testing to behave differently during CASPA saving.

Characters We Tested in CASPA

We manually tested a wide range of characters in the CASPA applicant portal. The examples below are provided as a technical reference and are not an official or complete CASPA character list.

How to Use the CASPA Character Counter

1. Type or paste your CASPA personal statement into the text box above.
2. Check the Characters count to see your total length.
3. Check Remaining to see how many characters you have left before reaching 5,000.
4. Review any character compatibility warnings shown below the text box.
5. Remove or replace characters identified as potential CASPA compatibility problems.
6. When finished, click Copy Text and paste your statement into your CASPA application.