<p>I finished the first draft of my essay and edited it a little, but I haven't touched it much since. I'm worried I both a)deviated from what the prompt asked and b)missed the point I was trying to make. I'm not posting my essay here or anywhere, and obviously there's some work I should do on my own before saying I'm done, but I'm scared it's just way off topic and I'll waste my time editing it further as it currently stands.</p>
<p>I chose the fourth common app prompt, the one about a place where you are perfectly content, what you experience there, and what makes it meaningful. The place I chose to write about is this tiny street we found in Mont st Michel. A couple weeks ago, I went on an amazing trip to France with 13 other students from my school. Half of them were from my classes, but I didn't know anyone in particular very well. Regardless, the trip was a beautiful and amazing experience. It took FOREVER to save up for the trip and there was more than one huge obstacle in the way. There's one place in particular I wanted to focus on in my essay: that side street. Mont St Michel is psychotic; I loved being there but walking through the tiny street with thousands of other people is very challenging. Before leaving the abbey, our teacher made sure everyone was in groups of at least three to go shopping and find lunch. I got lumped together with two girls I knew the names of but didn't personally know very well. We shopped a little and then went to get something to eat. EATING WHILE WALKING THROUGH A TINY STREET SMALLER THAN A SCHOOL HALLWAY WITH MORE PEOPLE THAN ARE LIVING IN YOUR TOWN IS IMPOSSIBLE. Randomly, one of the girls saw a teeny-itsy-bitsy staircase. We went up it and found a little side street to finish our food. We had some very intense conversations (regardless of not knowing each other well) and started to enjoy the side street more than anything else we saw that day.</p>
<p>My essay starts off talking about how hectic Mont Saint Michel is (I tried very hard not too focus on this bit as much as the side street) and then a description of the side street. I then tried to talk about how meaningful it was and got a bit lost. Our little street taught me how tolerable people can be outside of the classroom setting. Being in France showed me how much I loved exploring things on my own, getting away from both my town and usual constraints of being a shy girl in a tiny town at a horrible high school, and how desperate I am to just get away from my current environment. I felt more "perfectly content" 8 hours from New Jersey than I did in my bedroom all day. I was hoping this would show a readiness for college, but I didn't explain myself well and currently it just looks like angry rambling about how much my school sucks.</p>
<p>Is my "place or environment" alright? I thought I was being cool choosing a place I don't think many other applicants would, but now I feel like I might be coming off as fake by writing about a place I've only been to once for just a little over an hour. Is talking about how more of a home everywhere-but-home an acceptable answer to the "why is it meaningful" question?</p>
<p>Sorry for how unusually long this post became; if it wasn't already obvious, keeping my essay under 650 words has been a huge challenge (but I'll worry about that some other time). And sorry for my scary post count, I'm a long-time lurker and first-time poster. Thanks for reading through this :)</p>