I am doing a common app essay for prompt #2 about my move from KY-> MI. Do I explain several things I learned or only 1
Your personal essay is how ever you want to write it. I’ve seen some examples where a student describes the entire situation where his/her cat dropped a dead bird in the room, and I’ve seen examples where a student wrote a play script talking to each other.
my friend who got accepted to usc and cornell actually started her essay with “a collection of short stories …(and so on)”. She actually wrote a lot of little paragraphs of short stories and what she learned from them, and they’re really fun to read.
There’s no right or wrong way to answer this, but the key is to be clear about what you did learn. If it was one thing, that’s great. Lead with that and break down exactly how the move helped you learn it.
If it’s more than one thing, that’s fine too, but it can be much clearer to your reader if you find a way to take multiple lessons and connect them under one “heading” so to speak. If you learned two or three distinct lessons, what category do they all fall into? For (a very pedestrian) example, instead of saying “I learned to pack well, to bring a good map, and always leave extra time in case of traffic,” say “I learned the importance of preparation” and then explain how those three elements are part of preparing. That can make your point far clearer.