"Being an editor" - Common Application Short Answer

Please briefly elaborate on one of your extracurricular activities or work experiences in the space below (150 words or fewer, 1000 character maximum).
So, that's the prompt and I'm having some trouble with it. My essay is a little long right now, and I need help figuring out what to cut and whether this essay is a suitable kind of answer. Here goes:

Being an editor was not what I expected.
I expected my staff to be motivated and to do their best for the paper and the class.
As it turned out, this was an extremely optimistic prediction.
But that didn't make the experience any less valuable; in fact, it probably made it more useful. I learned to push kids who were in a class solely for credits to do their best work, I helped them figure out story ideas they cared about, I fought with my Adviser in order to give kids the right to publish what they cared about. I consistently gave kids feedback on their writing, and while I still ended up with some who can't spell to save their lives, they improved, they got better. I didn't have the crack team I wanted, but I got a rag-tag bunch of troops who taught me more then any semi-colon wielding master journalist could ever teach me.

(157 words)

PS: What happens if send in a short answer over the word limit? Does anyone know?

you can always go over the limit but it has to be good enough. i mean your making them read more than they have to so it should be interesting worthy enough

idk thats what my teachers said

Actually, quite the contrary. Do NOT go over the word limit. It is hard (those damn constraints :) but if you do go over the word limit, your response will get cut off, which nobody wants.

This is ok (the last sentence eludes me though - they taught you what?) You need to elaborate on what you learned from the experience. You describe what you do a lot, but you should add details about what you gained from being an editor of a less-than-ideal staff.

you can still write more than 150 words, but the characters is what you should be looking for in these applications.