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A fictional student's second draft for Common App prompt 2. Everything below is interactive — tap a score, click a highlight, tick off the plan.
Common App · Prompt 2
The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?
Overall · Draft 2
6.3/10
+1.3 since Draft 1
“A vivid, honest failure story with a genuinely mature ending — held back by a generic middle and a lesson that's stated instead of shown.”
Clearly recounts a setback and what you learned; the 'how it affected you' part is the thinnest.
Read-through
Click a highlight to see its note. Tick notes off as you fix them.
The night before the regional science fair, our water filter made the creek water browner.1
I had promised my team it would work. For six weeks I had layered sand, gravel and charcoal in a two-liter bottle, and for six weeks the water had come out clearer every time. Now, at 11:40 p.m., Maya held the jar up to the kitchen light and said nothing, which was worse than anything she could have said.2
I learned a lot about teamwork and never giving up that night.3
We took the filter apart layer by layer on my mom's kitchen table. The charcoal was the problem: I had crushed it into powder to "increase surface area,"4 and the powder was washing straight through. Maya found a coffee filter in the pantry. Dev, who had barely spoken all project, asked whether we could rinse the charcoal first.5 By 2 a.m. the water was clear again.
At the fair, a judge asked why our results table had a crossed-out row. I could have hidden it. Instead I told her about the brown water, the powder, and Dev's question.6 She wrote something down and moved on, and I spent the rest of the afternoon convinced I had ruined everything.
We got third place. But that is not what I think about now. I think about how close I came to presenting the version of the project where nothing went wrong, and how much less interesting that version was7.
Everything changed for me after that night.8 I started showing my work in every class, including the parts that failed.
A great first line: specific, a little funny, and it drops us straight into the problem. Keep it exactly.
This is the kind of detail readers remember. The silence does more than any description of panic could.
This sentence could appear in a thousand essays, and it tells us the lesson before we've earned it. Cut it — the next paragraph shows teamwork better.
Nice: you name your own mistake precisely and with a bit of humor. This shows real scientific thinking.
What did you do that made Dev feel he could speak up? This is a chance to show your contribution to the team.
This is the turning point of the essay. Slow down: what did it feel like to say it out loud?
The most mature idea in the essay. Push one sentence further: interesting to whom, and why?
'Everything changed' tells instead of shows. Replace with one specific example from a class after the fair.
Cut the two summary sentences
high impactlifts ReflectionDelete 'I learned a lot about teamwork…' and 'Everything changed for me…'. They state lessons the story already shows, and they're the weakest lines in the essay.
Expand the judge scene
high impactlifts DetailSpend 60–80 more words on the moment you chose to explain the crossed-out row: what you were tempted to say, what you said instead, and how it felt. This is your real turning point.
End on a concrete example
medium impactlifts DetailReplace the last paragraph with one specific moment from a class after the fair where you showed a failed attempt on purpose.
Show how you changed the team
medium impactlifts ContributionAdd a line about what you did that let Dev speak up, so your contribution is visible, not implied.
Draft progress
Overall score across your 2 drafts.
How it compares
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