Calculate the Hemingway Readability Score of Your College Essay

Paste your essay below to get a Hemingway readability score, the difficulty rating, and tailored advice for revisions.

What is the Hemingway readability score?

The Hemingway readability score is a number that estimates the U.S. school grade level required to read a piece of writing. It is calculated from the average number of letters per word and the average number of words per sentence, long words and long sentences both push the score up. The name comes from Ernest Hemingway, who was famous for writing in short, simple, declarative sentences.

For college essays, this matters because admissions officers read thousands of applications under time pressure. Essays that are dense or over-written slow them down. Clear, confident prose at roughly a grade 6–9 reading level usually lands better, not because the reader is unsophisticated, but because confident writing rarely needs complicated sentences to make its point.

How to interpret your score

Here is what each score band means and what to do about it:

• 0–6: Easy. Very accessible, but the writing may feel under-developed for a college essay. Consider adding more specific detail, sensory language, and reflection.
• 7–9: Normal. The sweet spot for most personal statements and supplements. Clear, confident, and easy to follow without feeling juvenile.
• 10–13: Hard. The reader has to work. Look for long sentences (over 25 words), stacked clauses, and abstract vocabulary that could be replaced with concrete words.
• 14+: Very hard. Likely to lose the reader. Break long sentences in half, cut qualifiers, and replace Latinate words (utilize, endeavor, facilitate) with their plain-English equivalents (use, try, help).

How to lower your essay’s Hemingway score

• Split any sentence longer than 25 words into two.
• Cut filler phrases, in order to, the fact that, it is important to note.
• Replace passive voice with active voice where the subject is clear.
• Swap a four-syllable word for a two-syllable word whenever the meaning survives.
• Read the essay out loud. Anywhere you stumble is a sentence to rewrite.

For a more detailed analysis of your essay, try the college essay grader.