How is my Common App personal Essay topic?

College Essays
1

Of course, it’s too late to change it now, but I’m just wondering if it’s as good as my teacher thought it was.

The prompt was about a failure or mistake, and what you learned from it.

I decided to write about when I fell during rock climbing for the first time. I started with a good hook, describing the situation with a colorful theme. For the next paragraphs, I talked about how the fall taught me about self-reliance, teamwork, and the importance of trust. Then, I finished the essay with another colorful paragraph, where I described how I came back to the gym, and beat the wall. So basically, I followed the prompt exactly. However, I didn’t talk about how I grew up…or how moving across country changed my life(which actually happened), or many of the other topics I hear discussed here.

Is the route I decided to go a good one? The most selective school I’m applying to is UofMichigan or Duke, if that matters.

2

The essay is about what you learned from the failure and how you responded to it. If you wanted to write about moving across country or something else unrelated to that response, you should have chosen a different prompt. Your approach as outlined above sounds okay provided your examples were well-grounded and tangible (following the guidance to show rather than tell).

3

Thanks for your response, and yes, I do believe I showed vs told. I was just hoping it was good enough, considering I didn’t really tell them anything specific, like where I grew up, how I like grass, or anything like that.