For you, dear readers applying to college in the US, an essay gift. In this post, we take a deep dive into how to respond to common app Prompt #2 – The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?
PS. Comment below if you want us to tackle more essay prompts!
Setting up the essay and yourself for success
To begin, you must first think “what story can I tell that paints me as a hero in the end?” If not a hero, then you at least need to be painted as someone who can learn from their failures. Take stock of all the times you’ve experienced a setback or the times you’ve failed, and select your best story.
Here are some story examples/ideas to give you a better picture.
- The time you failed a test, and how you made a comeback.
- The time you convinced your friends to serve on the church harvest committee, but none of them showed up to assist with the event.
- The time you tried to learn to dance, but realized you had no rhythm.
Beginning the story/essay
Alright, so you picked your story, what next? Here’s where it gets hard. You only have ~500 words to convince the admissions officer that you are a great fit for this university. It is important that you lure them in in the very beginning. For example, if your story is about how you failed a test, perhaps a subject during your mock examination, begin by explaining the importance of the exam.
You could start the paragraph with a story as below which describes the importance of mock exams. “Mock exams are a good predictor of how well one would do in final school exams. Success in these final exams then determine what major you study in University. So, one could argue that not only do mock exams directly influence your college major, they also determine the trajectory of your life. And it was one of these mock exams, specifically, further mathematics, that I failed“.
In this set-up paragraph, you have laid out the problem/setback and also given substantial context for why it matters. Basically, you have given the admissions officer enough detail to want to root for you to pass this exam.
Getting to the heart of the essay
The next paragraph (paragraph #2) can delve very briefly into how you realized that you didn’t pass the exam.
Something along the lines of “Having studied rigorously for the mock exams, I expected that I was going to pass. In fact, this was not far-fetched given that up until now, I had only made at least a B in this class. Imagine my surprise when my friends and I skipped happily to the results board only for me to find out that I did not pass. I would end up being the only one in my friend study group that did not pass the exam.
This was a devastating blow to me because I worked really hard all year, to no avail, it appeared. This made me sad for many weeks, but then I recalled an African proverb which says {Insert corny proverb here about bouncing back from success}. Therefore, as a child of the African soil, I owed it to my ancestors to bounce back from this setback”.
In paragraph #2, you’ve spent some time really delving into the failure and how it made you feel. This is great. Your admissions officer is right there in your feelings with you.
Moving into paragraph #3, you want to describe the comeback explicitly. What did you learn from this experience? It would be good to talk about how you went back to your teachers and friends to identify the gaps in your knowledge. Perhaps, you misunderstood 3 big concepts that ended up being 50% of the questions on the mock exam. In summary, paragraph #3 should outline clearly what you did to bounce back.
Photo by Engin Akyurt on Pexels.com
The hero is transformed
Now for the last paragraph, hero transformation. In our opinion this is really the most transformative piece of your essay. You have a unique opportunity to show how the lesson you learned was applied to another area in your life.
Perhaps, as a result of your mock exam experience, you study differently. You now ensure that you explain the concepts to your study partners to cement your knowledge. Perhaps, your experience taught you to create a tutorial for other juniors in your school to ensure that no one else fails their mock exam. Perhaps, you recorded a pep-talk for upcoming final year students in the next year to teach them studying tips. There are many different ways you can spin the story. The most important thing is to show that you are able to see the big picture, and apply the lessons you learned from a microscopic event such as an exam, to a macroscopic event such as building up the next generation.
Whatever your prompt, or your specific story, be creative! And make sure you reveal a side of yourself that the admissions officer would not have gotten anywhere else. Check out this common app guide for more tips to help spark some ideas if you’d like!
Happy writing! Don’t forget to holla at us if you want a second pair of eyes on your essay
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