I need help with a college essay badly. Thanks so much.

College Essays
1

<p>Hey guys.
I'm applying to Purdue, and I don't really have a back up school, so getting in is very important to me. I'm writing an essay with the prompt: "If you had a second chance to do something over what would it be? What would you do differently?" -not verbatim.<br>
I was thinking about being vague and was wondering if it was alright if I could change like my temperament or mindset?<br>
Here's what I have so far for an essay about changing my mindset:
What if life had a rewind button? Everyone wants second chances from mistakes they have made in the past. Mistakes can affect us for our whole lives, and sometimes it’s not an action that hurts us, but a false mindset. If I could go back and do something differently, I would have been more careful. In retrospect, I was always too reckless. I established consequences as merely hypothetical. This false idea of immunity guided my actions from an early age.<br>
The first time I broke my left arm I was 6 years old. I rashly jumped off a 10 foot ledge to retreive a soccerball my dad kicked and landed on my arm, which broke in 6 different places. 7 years later I tried to jump off of a ramp with my skateboard and ended up breaking my left wrist. About a year later I rollerbladed in the dark and ran into a crevice in the sidewalk and ended up chipping off half of my front tooth from faceplanting. One would think that these actions would discourage furthur reckless behavior, however I was naïve.<br>
The summer before junior year I decided it was a good idea to skateboard down a long and steep hill in my neighborhood. As I was skateboarding down the hill I came across a path of gravel in the road and my board slid out from under me and my body violently whipped against the cold concrete. The ulna bone in my arm snapped in half and popped out of my skin and the radius bone shattered on impact. I was bleeding profusely, and luckily a neighbor took me to the hospital. I immediately cursed my reckless behavior. Not a year after the devastating break, I got into a brutal car crash because I wasn’t being careful enough and ran a red light. I could have died in that car crash, but I returned unscathed, even though my car was totaled.
This behavior caused me to miss my Junior and Senior Tennis Season at (highschool name). Not only did it directly impact the sports I played, but I became discouraged to live an active lifestyle. </p>

<p>Don't have a conclusion really. Don't know what to do.
Should I continue with this essay, or should i write an essay saying, "I would go back in time and convince myself to stop caring about what people think." I feel like that essay would better exemplify my writing skills.<br>
I need your help guys. This is making me so stressed. Any input at all is greatly appreciated.</p>

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<p>It seems to me like you’re tackling this essay from too many angles at once. You start it like a research paper (something you should generally try to avoid): your first paragraph is basically just philosophical ruminations. The rest reads like an SAT essay: it’s essentially a laundry list of things you would go back and change, and with so many examples you don’t have the time to go in depth on any of them.</p>

<p>My advice: pick a single experience you would genuinely want to go back and change and hone in on it. That’s basically what the prompt is asking of you: pick one event. Describe in vivid detail what happened, how you felt, and why you want to change it so badly. The end result should give the adcoms a good idea of your personality and character, something your essay currently lacks. </p>

<p>Also, please apply to more schools. It’s never a good idea to focus on just one, especially one like Purdue.</p>