Please help: Common App Essay Prompt!

College Essays
1

<p>I know this is really late, so I would really appreciate a quick reply!</p>

<p>I wrote an essay a while ago for the Common App Essay Prompt #4, which asked about a place or environment that I was really content. I was somewhat okay with that piece, until I wrote another essay for a completely different prompt. </p>

<p>The prompt (it's a supplemental essay for a specific college) was about a challenge that I had faced. The problem was, I completely exceeded the word limit for that prompt, but I really like the essay a lot, and I noticed that it was within the word limit of the Common App prompt. </p>

<p>So I was wondering which Common App prompt would suit this essay (given that the initial prompt was a pretty generic one, and I do intend to modify it to suit the Common App prompt better)</p>

<p>I narrowed it down to Common App Prompt #1 (background or story central to identity, which does seem like a catch-all), or Prompt #2 (failure and lessons learnt). I would very much rather choose Prompt #2, which begs the question: When they say 'failure', can it be a failure that I have already overcome, or must I talk about a failure that I have not yet succeeded, and therefore learnt something from it?</p>

<p>Please help!</p>

2

<p>That’s fine, the point of real failure is that you don’t always succeed in the end.</p>

3

<p>@jpheys alright, thanks for your input! That’s a relief to hear, because I just don’t want to seem like I am gaming the system by writing about something that succeeded after an initial failure (which really did stress me out a lot, at that time). </p>

4

<p>Oh, sorry, I misread your original post. Anyway I think either way is fine, the important part is how you reacted to and grew from failure, whether or not the failure was eventually resolved. Just make sure there is a period of time in the story when you truly felt you had failed.</p>