Write the Common App Essay Prompt 2 About Overcoming Obstacles or Challenges
Writing a good essay for your Common Application is tough. You have to dig into your life and find interesting nuggets to share with perfect strangers. Common App essay prompt 2 asks you about some things that perhaps you’d rather not talk about: your failures, your greatest challenges, and moments that just aren’t things you want to talk about all that much. So as we walk through how to answer this prompt, just know that we feel you. We know talking about mistakes and flubs is not fun. But Common App essay prompt 2 can lead to some of the best final products that can help you get into the school of your choice.
Common App Essay Prompt 2 Asks You to Reflect on Your Failures.
Here’s what Common App Essay Prompt 2 says:
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?
It’s the middle of the summer. While a refreshing glass of lemonade might be the ideal summer companion, the second essay prompt on the Common Application is a bit less inviting because it focuses on the subject we all wish we could avoid—but cannot: obstacles and challenges, failure and setbacks.
Let’s face it, failure is not a subject we enjoy talking about. But, it’s important to remember that obstacles can be opportunities to showcase personal growth and resilience. So, let’s dive into how to turn these challenges into opportunities and craft a winning Common App Essay!
Because this is such a loaded question to tackle, let’s start by breaking down the Common App Essay Prompt 2 into three distinct parts: Incident or Time, Affect, and Lessons.
Dissecting the Common App 2 Prompt About Obstacles and Failure
Let’s walk through the language of the prompt so we know what we can and should focus upon as we craft this essay.
Incident or Time
First, the prompt asks you to recount a time when you faced a challenge, obstacle, setback, or failure. The key word here is obstacle, along with its various synonyms that appear in the prompt: challenge, setback, failure. Very few things we achieve in life come easily on the first try. This means you’ll be sharing a specific event in time, so it should read like a story. Yes, it should be a very succinct story, but it should still have a beginning, middle, and an end. You want to include enough detail to make the story interesting and engaging, but not so long that it gets boring—or worse, go over the word count limit.
The goal here is to strike a balance between giving enough context and detail so the reader can follow your narrative, but not so much that it feels like a laundry list of events. You want to provide enough background information so the reader understands the true significance of the event. The story is the springboard of your essay, so it should lead the reader into what will follow. You want to make the story short and readable, as it’s not the heart of the essay but rather a tool to engage the reader and set the tone for the rest of your writing.
Remember, the goal is to use the story as a launchpad for your essay, not to get bogged down in the details or spend too much time on it. Keep it concise and focused, and use it to set the stage for what’s to come.
Affect
The last part of the Common App Essay Prompt 2 asks you to reflect on what you learned from this experience. How did this obstacle, challenge, or failure affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?
This is asking you how you looked at the situation just after it happened. In other words, this prompt is asking for your immediate reaction to the challenge, setback, or failure.
After experiencing a failure, the immediate impact can be profound. Often, something impedes our smooth movement toward our goals, and these roadblocks can bring up a range of emotions (some more negative than others). What was the impact of this failure? How did it make others see you? How did you react to this incident? You’re left wondering what happened, how it happened, and what the consequences will be.
Acknowledge your emotions. Did it make you angry, embarrassed, disappointed, secretly thrilled, or downright sad? What was the immediate impact of your failure? This is perhaps the hardest part of answering this prompt: you have to go into that mess of feelings that you’ve tried to put behind you. These emotions can be raw and intense, but the admissions office is asking you to share, so share you must.
Lessons
After recounting the incident or time of failure and your immediate reactions to that experience, it’s time to delve into its longer term impact. How did it change you? How did it make others see you? How did you see yourself after this incident? Don’t be afraid to dig deep and truly reflect on your experience. Examine your emotions.
This is the heart of the essay, in which you tie the story to broader lessons you can draw from the story you tell. Whenever we fail–and we all do–it can be difficult to face the consequences of our mistakes. However, failure is an opportunity to learn and grow. By reflecting on our experiences, we can gain valuable insights that can help us navigate similar situations in the future. It’s important to remember that not all lessons come easily, and sometimes it takes time for them to sink in. But by being analytical and intentional in our reflection, we can extract meaningful lessons from our failures.
Seems easy enough, right? But this can be very difficult to articulate. So begin with a list: how many things can you pinpoint that you learned from this mistake? Think about how you can learn things at different times, too. Sometimes we learn things from failure immediately. Other lessons take longer to sink in. Again, you have to be analytical. I recommend that you come up with three solid lessons for this essay.
Perhaps you have redirected our energies in a new way. Perhaps you have developed a greater understanding of your own strengths and weaknesses. The key element to successfully answering this prompt is to reflect on how this failure affected you and what you did as a result of it. So, after you have told your (brief) story, you should do quite a bit of reflecting on how this experience led to personal growth or greater understanding of the world around you.
Common App Essay Prompt 2: Embracing Maturity and Optimism
Lastly, the ultimate direction of this essay should be positive and optimistic. You should not worry too much about the nature of the mistake: we’ve all made them, and admissions officers, frankly, have seen them all. The point of this is to allow you to demonstrate your maturity, your humility, and your ability to turn a bad experience into a good one.
As they say, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.
Essays About Challenges, Obstacles, and Failures That Worked
With years of experience guiding and supporting hundreds of students, we have had the privilege of witnessing their remarkable journeys filled with challenges, obstacles, and even failures. These moments of struggle and disappointment have become pivotal opportunities for growth and self-reflection. These essay examples feature students skillfully utilizing challenging incidents, obstacles, or failures to craft compelling narratives.
- A student who forgot to send her great-grandfather a hand-made birthday card–after having sent one to him every year for the previous 10 years. She felt horrible about it, and she was able to articulate that this was a personal failure of not living up to her own values.
- This example stands out because it encapsulates a specific incident that holds personal significance for the student. The student’s heartfelt narrative of forgetting to send her great-grandfather a hand-made birthday card not only reveals her deep care and thoughtfulness but also demonstrates the profound effect it had on her emotionally. Through this experience, she learned the invaluable lesson of the importance of honoring commitments and cherishing loved ones, inspiring her to prioritize and express her appreciation more intentionally in the future.
- A student’s journey of embracing their short stature as a source of empowerment and resilience, using their voice and confidence to defy societal expectations and find self-acceptance.
- The student’s experience of being short and facing daily challenges becomes an incident that profoundly affects their sense of self-worth and determination. Despite societal misconceptions and physical limitations, they learn the valuable lesson of embracing their differences and using their voice and confidence to overcome obstacles.
- A student who hoped to cure his premature baldness, but upon learning that the treatments could give him a greater risk of cancer, he learned to put aside his vanity and worry less about his weak follicles and put this physical aspect of himself into a larger perspective of who is is and what he feels is important to him.
- The student started with an incident in a dermatologist’s office in which he was offered the choice to slow his balding by increasing his risk of cancer. After agonizing, he began to ask himself why he was so affected by the prospect of being bald. Gradually, he analyzed the reasons for his worry, and realized that he was being a bit silly. The lesson he learned is that we all have blemishes, and that we all age, and ultimately his hair is not a reflection of who he is as a person.
Essays About Challenges, Obstacles, and Failures That Do Not Work
In our years of experience, we have observed students who have attempted to write about challenges, obstacles or failures in ways that just do not work very well. While we do believe that pretty much anything can be made into a good essay, the following examples are demonstrations of weaker approaches to this prompt.
I tried to make a Hail Mary pass in the final seconds of the state championship football game, but I missed the mark. I felt terrible about it. But I learned that I can rise from disappointment.
This example is just a bit too trite. If the writer could deepen the reflection, it might work: how desperation can lead one to make wrong decisions, especially under pressure. Even better, if the writer could tie the rotten pass with other desperate and wrong decisions he has made, and how he recognizes this tendency in himself and is working to be more deliberate and less impulsive. Unless the writer can get to this depth of analysis, the story is going to make the essay superficial.
I studied hard for my calculus test, but I got a C on it. I was mortified. As a result, I learned to study harder and reach out for help earlier.
This approach is just too common, too mundane for your college essay. It focuses on scholastic performance, not on your development as a person. Pretty much every student has been challenged academically, and most of us have had to redouble our efforts when our performance slacks. It’s hard to see how this “failure” could become a solid college essay.
One possible exception might be the student who was failing a course or two but then was diagnosed with a learning difference—which meant that the student began studying and preparing in completely new ways–which, in turn led to greater success and the result that the student gained a much more positive–and lasting–vision of herself as an intelligent, capable student. In this case, the scholastic “failure” was a symptom of a larger “challenge”: the learning difference. But again, the success of this approach would depend on the depth of the analysis of the experience and the “lessons” that the student took away from the experience. If it’s merely a lesson that one must study harder and better, it’s not likely going to be a great essay.
Can I get help with my Common App Essay Prompt 2, and If So, Who Can I Turn to for Assistance?
Yes, you can certainly get help with your Common App essay! Writing a strong college essay can be a challenging and intimidating process, and it’s perfectly normal to seek guidance and support along the way.
At Great College Advice, we offer a wide range of services designed to help students with every aspect of the college application process, including writing and revising their Common App essay. Our team of experienced counselors and writing coaches can provide personalized feedback, guidance, and support to help you craft an essay that is compelling, authentic, and effective.
Whether you need help generating ideas, organizing your thoughts, or polishing your final draft, we are here to help. We offer a variety of service packages to fit your specific needs and budget, including comprehensive application counseling, essay coaching, and hourly consultations.
To learn more about our services and how we can help you with your Common App essay, please visit our website at GreatCollegeAdvice.com. We look forward to working with you!
Additional Resources for Common App Essay Prompt 2
- In this insightful video, Dr. Mark Montgomery offers expert advice and practical tips for tackling the Second Common App Essay Prompt. With a clear focus on this loaded question, he provides guidance on effectively addressing each component. Gain valuable insights and strategies for crafting a compelling response to Common App Essay Prompt 2.
For additional writing help, check out our Common App Essay Series for in-depth guidance on various topics. Our expert tips and insights will help you showcase your unique experiences and perspectives in a compelling way. Whether you’re just starting your essay or simply refining it, our series is designed to help you every step of the writing process. Make your Common App Essay stand out!
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