I had a question about the common application. I chose prompt 2, and wrote about a failure I found really embarrassing as a kid in like 2nd or 3rd grade, because it really changed me and how I did things in life. I wrote about how it made me less egoistic and such. While it is true that incident shaped me a lot, because it is one of the first times I was laughed at by a large crowd, I was also told that doing an incident that far back in life is a bad decision. I decided to ask here because I was wondering, is it okay to write about childhood experiences that far back?
Have your English teacher read over it. When it all comes down, it’s really about how you deliver yourself in the essay and less about the topic you decide to write about.
I think it depends. One of my kids wrote about something that had its roots when she was 8 years old. But she went on to talk about how it affected her through the years, and how she changed her viewpoint of it as she got older. She was able to talk specifically (anecdotally) about middle school and high school experiences related to it. It was a very popular essay with admissions officers, she got comments handwritten on her acceptance letters about it.
So if you just tell the story and how it changed you in 3rd grade. that might not be as strong an essay. If you can lead it into stories about your high school years, and ways it has impacted and changed your later experiences, that is better. If your viewpoint of it now is different (more mature? hopefully 
), that can give it an interesting turn.
If you really can’t do that – if all you have are generalizations about how it changed you, and it is a totally straight line of your perception from then to now, it is harder to make that compelling.
I mean, it taught to me work hard and not be egoistic. I wrote examples of course about how it still applies and has changed me in high school.