I voted for "Too Much".
From a gaming perspective- the academy was a tutorial into the NFS1.0 guild.
You had to learn the general NFS writing style: third-person perspective, writing as if you were writing a short story, ways to keep the roleplay going without the need for Game Master intervention.
You also had to learn the NFS mechanics a bit- such as how many lines it took to get an Stat-Point, or how many lines it took to get more Chakra, or learn a technique.
Now, with NFS2.0 / Redux, you don't really need to learn that whole mechanical thing.
I feel like it would make sense to tutorialize a level up or two, with a bit more detail to what's going on there.
If you want them to level up twice (and go into the world at Level 3), do 340.
If you want them to level up three times (and go into the world at Level 4), do 1360 words.
If you want to be tricky about it, you could word it like "Once you hit Level 3, you can leave and get into the main RP", then link to
this page. So they can do the math on their own.
Also- quick note- can that page I linked be reworded so 5 words = 1 EXP, instead of 20 = 5. That's a weird way of doing it.