how to write a challenge essay

• Essay Guide
• Thesis Guide
• Student Tips

How to Write a Personal Challenge Essay (with Examples)

A personal challenge essay offers a singular chance for introspection and personal development. It gives you a chance to consider your past, face difficulties, and demonstrate your tenacity. This essay structure enables you to communicate your ideas and experiences with others, regardless of whether you’ve overcome hardship, dealt with a tricky circumstance, or chased an audacious goal. You’ll walk you through the phases of writing an engaging personal challenge essay in this in-depth guide, complete with samples that demonstrate the procedure.

Understanding the Personal Challenge Essay

The Personal challenges in life as a student essay asks you to describe an instance or time in your life when you had to overcome challenges, setbacks, or barriers. It’s an opportunity to demonstrate your resilience, your capacity to face adversity, and the lessons you’ve picked up along the road. This kind of article necessitates reflection, sincerity, and skillful narrative.

Selecting a Meaningful Challenge

It’s important to pick the correct challenge to write about. Think about Personal challenges in life as a student essay that profoundly influenced your development, principles, or attitude on life. It can have been an obstacle you overcame in your studies, relationships, sense of self, or any other area of your life. The task should have personal significance for you and provide information that your audience can relate to.

Structuring Your Personal Challenge Essay

To effectively portray your experiences, feelings, and growth, writing an engaging personal challenge essay involves careful thought and a well-organized format. The following steps will show you how to organize your essay such that it presents a logical and interesting story:

Introduction:

Beginning your essay with an attention-grabbing hook that draws the reader in and highlights the topic of the difficulty you’ll be exploring is a good idea. This might be a provocative inquiry, a moving saying, a detailed account, or a first-hand account associated with your issue.

Background & Context:

Make sure the reader has all the background knowledge they need to comprehend your dilemma. Describe the context, surroundings, and any other pertinent information that establishes the scene for your narrative. Additionally, you have the choice to ask for assistance from PhD thesis writing help if you run into difficulties when writing the background and context of your thesis or dissertation or if you are unsure owing to a lack of experience. They can offer helpful assistance to improve the caliber of your work.

The Challenge:

Describe the challenge in detail in a portion of your essay. When describing the challenges, difficulties, or setbacks you encountered, be descriptive and in-depth.

Your Reaction and Result:

Write about how you responded to the challenge in this part. What steps have you taken? Did you make crucial decisions, prepare a plan, or ask for assistance? Be sure to emphasize your ability to solve problems, tenacity, and any other traits that may have helped you overcome the obstacle.

Growth and Reflection:

Consider the encounter and share what you took away from it. What effects did the challenge have on your emotions, mind, and possibly even body? What new understandings did you get about who you are, your values, or your outlook on life? Describe how you overcame the obstacle to grow personally, discover yourself, or alter your perspective.

Takeaways & Lessons:

The exact lessons you took away from overcoming the obstacle should be highlighted. What priceless knowledge, abilities, or traits did you acquire as a result? Describe how these teachings have shaped your current behavior, choices, or attitude in life.

Conclusion:

Writing a compelling conclusion that connects everything can help you to conclude your essay. Write a summary of your shared journey, highlighting your personal development and new perspectives.

Include a Call to Action (Optional):

Depending on the nature of your issue, you might want to include a call to action that prompts the reader to reflect on their own issues, take action, or adopt a particular attitude.

After you’ve finished writing the essay, take some time to review and make any necessary changes. Check that the grammar, spelling, and punctuation in your writing are correct, as well as the flow.

Maintain You’re Authentic Voice Throughout the Essay:

While it’s crucial to follow a structured methodology, don’t forget to preserve your authentic voice. Remain sincere, honest, and personal in your writing. Your unique perspective and emotions will lend greater authenticity to your writing and make it more compelling. By adhering to the instructions outlined in this comprehensive guide, you’ll effectively organize your personal challenge essay. This approach will skillfully lead your readers through your journey, captivating their attention and leaving a memorable impression. Furthermore, if you find it challenging to maintain a systematic approach, consider seeking assistance from master thesis writing help. Their expertise can aid you in completing your work with precision and coherence.

Don’ts and Dos

Be upfront and honest when discussing your experiences. Do emphasize your development and lessons acquired. To keep the reader’s attention, employ colorful language and descriptions. Don’t make up or embellish details. Instead of blaming others for the difficulty, concentrate on your solution. Choose a challenge that had a significant influence rather than one that was inconsequential.

Examples of Personal Challenge Essays

Following are the Personal challenge essay examples:

Overcoming Academic Challenges:

Navigating the challenges we face in life essay can be a transformative journey that leads to personal growth and self-discovery. A prime example of this is when I confronted a series of academic setbacks. I realized that my ingrained fear of failing was standing in the way of my development. I, however, resisted allowing this fear to direct my course. I started a quest for self-improvement with pure tenacity. I reached out for guidance and support, shedding light on the power of seeking assistance when needed.

Overcoming Fear:

For instance, I had always been terrified of public speaking, but I had to face my phobia to present in front of a large crowd. I overcame my anxiety about public speaking over time with practice and confidence, and I also acquired speaking abilities that I still use today.

Dealing with Personal Loss:

Losing a loved one was a difficult emotional experience that altered my outlook on relationships and life. I learned the value of cherishing moments and helping others in need through my grief and contemplation.

Examples of challenges you have overcome as a student essay

I have encountered a range of challenges as a student, which has pushed my perseverance, adaptability, and resilience to the test. Even though they occasionally proved to be challenging, these obstacles ultimately helped me become a better and more capable individual. Here are a few instances of obstacles I overcame in my academic career:

Time Management Challenges:

Juggling schoolwork, assignments, extracurricular activities, and personal obligations can be difficult. There were times when I struggled to adequately manage my time, which resulted in missed deadlines and frustration. To overcome this difficulty, I started adopting time management strategies like making a thorough calendar, establishing priorities, and breaking work down into smaller, more manageable pieces. I became more organized about my obligations over time, which led to increased productivity and decreased stress. Furthermore, many students pursuing careers in the medical field face similarly demanding schedules that make it challenging to meet deadlines. In such cases, they often turn to nursing research paper writing services to ensure the quality and timeliness of their assignments.

Academic Setbacks:

It was demoralizing to experience academic setbacks, such as earning lower grades than expected. I decided to take advantage of these setbacks as chances for improvement rather than giving in to self-doubt. I requested input from my lecturers, made note of my weaknesses, and put focused study techniques into practice. I was able to improve my academic performance and regain my confidence by persevering and being willing to learn from my failures.

Language Barrier:

Navigating English as a second language introduced a unique set of challenges, especially in terms of effective communication and the completion of writing assignments. In essays and presentations, I often encountered hurdles in articulating my thoughts coherently and concisely. To overcome this hurdle, I actively expanded my vocabulary, engaged in consistent reading and writing exercises, and actively sought input from peers and professors. Furthermore, this drive to enhance my linguistic abilities not only improved my communication skills but also bolstered my confidence in expressing myself in academic and professional settings. My determination to conquer these language-related challenges demonstrates my commitment to growth and adaptability, qualities that I believe would make me a strong candidate for the Harvard Scholarship Essay .

Dynamics of Group Projects:

Due to the various work habits, schedules, and perspectives held by the group members, collaborative projects have occasionally proven to be difficult. I adopted efficient communication techniques, such as active listening and open discussion, to handle these circumstances. By praising each team member’s abilities and accomplishments, I helped to create a more effective and pleasant working atmosphere.

Personal Well-Being and Health:

It can be difficult to maintain a good balance between your personal needs and your academic obligations. I have occasionally overlooked my needs, which has resulted in burnout and a decline in drive. I gave exercise, wholesome eating, and regular breaks top priority since I understood how important self-care was. This all-encompassing strategy not only increased my general well-being but also sharpened my attention and increased my output. These examples collectively constitute my challenges in life as a student essay. They serve as valuable lessons that offer insights on how to navigate and overcome various situations.

How to Revise and Improve Your Essay

For instance, if you are given a topic such as “Essay on Environmental Problems and Their Solutions” and you’re not well-versed in it, it’s advisable to invest time in research. This will enable you to create quality content for your essay. After writing your personal challenge essay, it’s essential to engage in the editing and revision process. Ensure that your essay flows logically and that your ideas are well-organized. Edit for clarity, grammar, and punctuation. If you’re seeking a comprehensive perspective, consider seeking feedback from peers, professors, or mentors.

Frequently Asked Questions

Final thoughts.

Writing a personal challenge essay offers you the chance to share your unique journey and inspire others through your resilience and progress you can create an engaging tale that engrosses your readers by choosing a pertinent challenge, using a solid essay structure, and remaining honest. It’s crucial to remember that your essay about a personal issue demonstrates both your capacity for self-reflection and personal development in addition to your capacity for overcoming challenges. For those who face challenges in managing their academic tasks, there are online homework writing services available that can provide valuable assistance and support.

To Get 50% Discount

• Privacy & Policy

© 2024 EAZY Research . All rights reserved

Login to your account below

Fill the forms bellow to register

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

• [email protected]
• (650) 338-8226

Cupertino, CA

• Our Philosophy
• Our Results
• News, Media, and Press
• Common Application
• College Application Essay Editing
• Extracurricular Planning
• Academic Guidance
• Summer Programs
• Interview Preparation

Middle School

• Pre-High School Consultation
• Boarding School Admissions

College Admissions

• Academic and Extracurricular Profile Evaluation
• Senior Editor College Application Program
• Summer Program Applications
• Private Consulting Program
• Transfer Admissions
• UC Transfer Admissions
• Ivy League Transfer Admissions

Graduate Admissions

• Graduate School Admissions
• MBA Admissions

Private Tutoring

• SAT/ACT Tutoring
• AP Exam Tutoring
• Olympiad Training

Research Programs

• Science Research Program
• Humanities Competitions
• Passion Project Program
• Ad Hoc Consulting
• Athletic Recruitment
• National Universities Rankings
• Liberal Arts Colleges Rankings
• Public Schools Rankings

Acceptance Rates

• University Acceptance Rates
• Transfer Acceptance Rates
• Supplemental Essays
• College Admissions Data
• Chances Calculator
• GPA Calculator

National Universities

• College Acceptance Rates
• College Overall Acceptance Rates
• College Regular Acceptance Rates
• College Early Acceptance Rates
• Ivy League Acceptance Rates
• Ivy League Overall Acceptance Rates
• Ivy League Regular Acceptance Rates
• Ivy League Early Acceptance Rates

Public Schools

• Public Schools Acceptance Rates
• Public Schools Overall Acceptance Rates
• Public Schools Regular Acceptance Rates
• Public Schools Early Acceptance Rates

Liberal Arts

• Liberal Arts Colleges Acceptance Rates
• Liberal Arts Colleges Overall Acceptance Rates
• Liberal Arts Colleges Regular Acceptance Rates
• Liberal Arts Colleges Early Acceptance Rates

How to Nail Your Overcoming Challenges Essays

By Eric Eng

College essays are among the most influential and overlooked portions of college applications. By the time most students get to this part of the admissions process, they’re just ready to get everything completed and submitted so they can finally relax. On the other hand, though, it is the college essay that will help determine if your application gets a second look or is tossed to the side. Writing a personal essay effectively can make a significant difference in your application.

Although all colleges have different essays , many themes span across all of them. One of the most common and difficult prompts includes an essay about overcoming a challenge. Many students get stumped on this seemingly easy prompt for various reasons. When writing a personal essay on this topic, it’s essential to convey your unique experiences and growth.

We will be delving into this essay topic in this blog. We will investigate what the college admission officer is looking for and give you some tips that will help you in writing a personal essay on how to overcome challenges in life.

Diving Deep into the “Overcoming Challenges” Essay

Wondering what are some personal challenge essay examples? As the name implies, the ‘essay about overcoming a challenge’ prompt refers to any college essay question that asks applicants to address a difficult obstacle or challenge that they have had to overcome. There are many variations of the question, but it is essentially always the same basic material. Writing a personal essay for this prompt involves reflecting on these experiences thoughtfully.

College admissions officers are looking at how you cope with adversity and how the challenges you have faced have molded you into the person you are today. Much like many of the other college essay topics , writing a personal essay on overcoming challenges requires you to get a bit personal and open up.

This is an excellent opportunity for applicants to let admissions officers in on more about themselves as a person, helping them further qualify for an acceptance letter. While you may feel the urge to tell one of the most traumatic experiences you’ve gone through in your life, writing a personal essay does not require you to choose the most dramatic story. The challenge may be something very ordinary and common.

Admission officers will read and review your response based on how you faced the challenge, how you overcame it, and what you learned. Writing a personal essay on overcoming challenges is about showing colleges you can deal with setbacks and obstacles in your life and be resilient, resourceful, and able to push through.

No matter where you go, there’s a fair likelihood you’ll run into at least some of the obstacles that are going to be on your way to graduation. Colleges need to know that their students can overcome some of these barriers gracefully. The ‘overcoming challenges’ essay prompt helps colleges measure this capacity.

Rundown of Some Personal Challenge Essay Examples

Just to feel your way around what these essays look like, let’s take a glance at some real ‘overcoming challenges’ essay prompts. This first one is from Common App , which asks students to respond to the following question with a 650-word limit. When writing a personal essay for this prompt, it’s crucial to address each part thoughtfully.

“The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Describe a problem you’ve solved or a challenge you’ve faced and how you approached it. It can be a challenge you’ve faced, a setback, or a failure. How did it affect you? What did you learn from this experience?”

Notice that the question is not just about some setback or challenge that you had in the past. This is asking how this experience impacted you and changed you up until now. This means the real focus here will be more on how it affected the applicant rather than the seriousness of the challenge itself. Writing a personal essay that effectively highlights this transformation is key.

Another example of an ‘overcoming challenges’ essay question comes from MIT . For the 2018-2020 application, students were asked to answer the following question in 200 to 250 words. When writing a personal essay for this prompt, consider the specific aspects they are asking for.

“Tell us about the most significant challenge you’ve faced or something important that didn’t go according to plan. Tell us what you did to handle the situation.”

This is a ‘managed the situation’ prompt — not what you learn, or how have you been changed as a result. Writing a personal essay for this type of prompt involves focusing on your actions and decision-making process.

It’s important to key into the question because the ‘overcoming challenges’ essay prompts are very different in how they are worded and in exactly what they are looking for, even though the overall subject may be the same. Paying attention to these details can ensure you give admissions exactly what they are looking for when reading over your application. Writing a personal essay that addresses these nuances can make a significant impact.

Top Tips for Writing a “How to Overcome Challenges in Life” Essay

Excited to start on your college journey? Keep these tips in mind to ensure that your personal challenge essay impresses the admissions committee of your dream school:

1. Refrain from Writing About Common Topics

One major mistake students make when responding to the ‘overcoming challenges’ essay is writing a personal essay on a common topic. Since admissions officers have to read hundreds if not thousands, of essays answering the same question, writing on a common topic can seem trite and unoriginal.

Even if your essay is pristine, the topic still runs the risk of bringing down your overall response. Instead, it’s best to try and pinpoint a challenge or obstacle you’ve faced in your life that’s unique, or at least not as common. Some common ‘overcoming challenges’ essay topics to avoid include winning a difficult sports game or passing a course in which you were struggling.

Think back to events earlier in your life that impacted how you think and act today. Any of these experiences involved you in challenges you overcame and changed for the better? Don’t be afraid to get vulnerable and open when writing a personal essay. The more concrete, unique, and original you can make the topic, the better your chances at standing out from the crowd when you write your how to overcome challenges in life essay.

2. Highlight Your Emotional Intelligence

Colleges use ‘overcoming challenges’ essay prompts to get a better sense of the applicant than other areas of the application would be able to convey. Most notably, these essays are intended to highlight some characteristics that a student might possess that would prove valuable for their time in college. Writing a personal essay on this topic allows you to showcase these attributes effectively.

For example, an experience related to dealing with a challenging event in your life can show mental strength, social tact, perseverance, long-term thinking, follow-through, and other such qualities. One of the strongest ways to make your response even stronger, adding depth to your application, is through writing a personal essay that will reflect certain qualities you want to display to admissions officers. For example, overcoming a disagreement with a friend could strike a chord in you as a meaningful challenge.

However, the qualities it may demonstrate—forgiveness, understanding, and empathy, for example—are not necessarily those that you want to show to the admissions officers. Students should consider in advance what type of qualities they would like to convey in their answers and select a challenge accordingly when writing a personal essay.

Again, what this prompt is looking to effect is some positives about you and your personality. Contemplation, ahead of time, of how your topic is going to be read to the admissions officers can make the overall piece more impactful and calculated.

3. Steer Clear of Common Writing Techniques

Now, here’s the pro tip that most applicants won’t ever think about: this ‘overcoming challenges’ essay can stand out from other responses if one pays attention to its structure.

How you structure your prompt response can make a huge difference to the essay. Even if the topic is original, admissions officers will still spot the duplicated patterns of paragraphs. When writing a personal essay, to make sure that your ‘overcoming challenges’ essay stands out in the colleges’ eyes, you will have to give a due share of attention to how it is written. The majority of students stick to the following pattern:

Describe an event or experience that tested you → Describe how you overcame the challenge.

It’s not that this format is going to damage your essay. The thing is, hitting on something more unique and unexpected helps the essay to stand out. When writing a personal essay, it’s normal to feel stuck especially when you run out of ideas.  Instead of focusing on a singular event or occasion, you could write about a challenge you overcame over a prolonged period and events that helped you to push forward.

If you want to get creative, you could focus on something you’re still in the process of getting over. You could bring it into the present day and talk about what you plan to do in the future. Writing a personal essay with these variations isn’t essential but it is a great way to grab the attention of admissions officers.

4. Pay Attention to the Essay’s Substance

When the prompt asks for a description of an event or obstacle, as in the case of the ‘overcoming challenges’ essay prompt, too often students focus on the description of people, places, circumstances, and other physical or tangible things. That is a fine writing skill overall, but you’re not competing for a Pulitzer Prize when writing a personal essay for your college applications.

This all goes to giving admissions exactly what they want, making your responses outstanding, and showing off your strengths in the process. It is, therefore, best to focus more on the internal components of your topic rather than the circumstances. For example, rather than writing about what happened in the challenging event, you should focus on writing a personal essay about how you reacted, how you felt, what you thought, and how you overcame it mentally.

Were you anxious, worried, nervous, scared, confused? Was the event a surprise or frustrating one to you? It is this psychological experience and development in triumph over this obstacle that forms the true story. It’s more engaging; it tells more about who you are and who you became through this process. This narrative can give admissions officers the feeling of knowing you more as a person, which works wonders for making your essay stand out when writing an essay about overcoming a challenge.

5. Show the Impact, Not the Event

As mentioned earlier, the ‘overcoming challenges’ essay prompt gives admissions officers a better idea of who you are and how you deal with challenges. There are always some questions about a difficult/challenging situation in your life, but the key emphasis is on the reaction to the situation, rising to the occasion, and becoming a better person out of it. Some students feel a need to focus on the challenge itself, and not necessarily on what was learned from it when writing a personal essay.

Spending too much time describing the event, rather than how it impacted you, can ultimately hurt the quality of your answer. Remember, you are working with a strict word limit. While that varies between each school, many universities only allow applicants a few hundred words in which to respond. When writing a personal essay, the greatest portion of your response should deal with how the event affected your life, not how hard it was or the details about the challenge.

Now, this doesn’t mean you have to explicitly write that ‘from this event, I learned…’ You certainly can make it that evident, but it’s more effective to show the admissions committee rather than telling them by providing examples of how you’re better off having gone through the challenge. For example, let’s say you had a debilitating fear of public speaking .

You overcame this difficulty by joining a debate club and working through the discomfort to become an all-around stronger speaker. Rather than saying, ‘I became more confident in front of crowds,’ describe that transformation by saying, ‘Now, I can even give extemporaneous speeches easily.’ This describes the qualities you have developed, rather than saying them flat-out. When writing a personal essay, it’s one of those small things that can make all the difference for the admissions officers reading your essays.

Ready to Write Your College Application Essay?

You can think of your college application as your college resume. It’s a summary of performance and experience so far and of present knowledge and capability. In effect, the total of your application will be what dictates which college you get into. Writing a personal essay is a crucial part of this application process .

No matter what’s on your college list, it’s critically important to maximize your chances through the best possible college application. That is, saying it is much easier than doing it in a process with so many different parts to a successful college admission . Writing a personal essay effectively can greatly enhance your application. That is where Admission Sight can help!

For the last decade, we have been helping students like you refine applications and increase their chances of getting into their dream universities. And you know what? The results turn out to be great. Writing a personal essay with our guidance can make a significant difference.

Of the students we have helped, about 75% have gone on to be accepted into Ivy League or Top 10 Universities. We offer a range of services to help students enhance their college applications and be better prepared for the entire admission process at college. If you’re ready to get started on acing your college application, contact us today !

Want to assess your chances of admission? Take our FREE chances calculator today!

Why College Admissions Isn’t Perfect

US News Rankings

The Personal Statement: The Holy Grail of College Admissions

The Modern Day 4.0 and 1600 SAT Score Student Is No Longer Impressive

The Competitive Nature of College Admissions for Asian Americans

The College Application

Our Comprehensive Approach

Ivy League Schools

How Early Should You Prepare for College?

Featured in US News & World Report Best Colleges Publication

Congratulations to AdmissionSight Students and their Acceptances!

College Rejection

College Rankings

College Consultants Could Make A Difference

College Admissions Scandal and Higher Education

Dartmouth Pros and Cons: Is It the Right Ivy League School for You?

Life after College: Insights and Advice

11 Best STEM Colleges in the US

What Is Student Council? Here’s Why It Matters for College Admissions

Best Law Student Jobs to Make Money During Law School

The Top 5 Dental Schools in the US This 2024

Top Target Schools for Investment Banking Worldwide

Is Lehigh University a Good School? All You Need to Know Before Applying

The 7 Best Political Science Universities in Europe

How to Succeed in the Duke Premed Track

What Is Sorority Pledging and How Does It Work?

Top 10 Georgetown University Degrees

Is It Possible to Get a 5.0 GPA? Insights and Tips

The 7 Best Product and Industrial Design Schools in the US

How to Get into Columbia University: Admission Requirements and Tips

Everything You Need to Know About the IB Grading Scale

The 7 Best Colleges for Figure Skating

Leave a comment cancel reply.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Recent Articles

Dartmouth Pros and Cons: Is...

Life after College: Insights and...

11 Best STEM Colleges in...

What Is Student Council? Here’s...

Best Law Student Jobs to...

The Top 5 Dental Schools...

Top Target Schools for Investment...

Is Lehigh University a Good...

The 7 Best Political Science...

How to Succeed in the...

What Is Sorority Pledging and...

Sign up now to receive insights on how to navigate the college admissions process.

Admissions Counseling

• Academic & Extracurricular Profile Evaluation

Copyright © AdmissionSight 2024

Privacy Policy - Terms and Conditions

Are you seeking one-on-one college counseling and/or essay support? Limited spots are now available. Click here to learn more.

How to Write the Overcoming Challenges Essay + Example

April 17, 2023

At some point, most college-bound students are tasked with writing an overcoming challenges essay. The prompt crops up in various forms, as a supplemental short essay about overcoming a challenge, and in as the main essay itself.

Some students may feel inclined to write about a dramatic experience (say, spotting a grizzly bear outside the kitchen window), mistaking the drama of the moment for a significant challenge. Others may get to work, only to realize they don’t have much to say about the time they got a C in P.E. (that dreaded frisbee unit). Students who’ve overcome unspeakable difficulties, like a death in the family, may find that reducing the tragedy to 650 words feels insufficient, or worse—as if they’re attempting to profit from suffering. One or two students may stare down the blank computer screen as their entire existence shrinks to the size of a 12-point font. Should they write about the challenge of writing about the challenge of writing an overcoming challenges essay??

Don’t worry. Focusing first on how to tackle the essay will help any student decide what they should write about. In fact, how the essay is written will also prove more influential than the challenge itself in determining the strength of the essay.

Decoding the Prompt

Let’s take a look at the overcoming challenges essay question included among the seven 2023-24 Common App Essay Prompts :

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?

Notice how the prompt places an immediate emphasis on the “lessons we take,” rather than on the obstacles themselves, or any potential success. This is because the challenge itself often says less about the student than the way the student chose to tackle it, or the way they now reflect on it. In other words, obstacles often come at us randomly; it’s our personal response to the circumstances which reveals something of who we are.

While studying a prompt for clues, it’s helpful to think from the perspective of the admissions officer (the essay reader). What can they glean from an overcoming challenges essay?  A lot, actually. A thoughtfully written essay may tell them about the student’s personality, as well as things like problem-solving techniques, rigor, persistence, creativity, and courage. These insights can work to prove to the admissions officers that the student has what it takes to overcome challenges in college, too. These future challenges may range from the inevitable academic obstacles that occur with heavy courseloads, to social and moral challenges that arise as college students form their adult identities.

Picking Your Topic: A Brainstorming Activity

With the question of identity in mind, let’s now approach the overcoming challenges essay backwards, by brainstorming the final message the student wants it to contain.

For this three-part exercise, the student will first set a five-minute timer. With the clock ticking, they’ll jot down character traits, values, and any descriptive words or terms that say something about who they are. If stumped, change perspective. The student may imagine what their best friends, parents, coaches and siblings would say. (For example, tenacious , logical , scientific , peacemaker .) Even mild criticism can be helpful, as long as it’s not cruel. While a student’s brother may call him a “perfectionist,” perhaps this word will trigger other relevant words, like persistent and detail-oriented.

Next, the student will set the timer for another five minutes, pull out a second sheet of paper, and jot down any challenges, obstacles, setbacks, failures, and achievements that come to mind. Don’t hold back here or overanalyze. (For example: underdog at state swim meet , getting lost on the family hike , petitioning for a school compost system …)

Lastly, the student will place the two pages side by side, and draw lines between the items on the list wherever connections occur. One student may draw lines between persistent , curious , gamer , passionate about electronics , and saved the day during the power outage. Another set of lines might connect caring, observant, creative thinker , and helped sister leave abusive cult . Whatever ideas are sparked here, the goal is to identify which challenges will demonstrate something essential about the student to an admissions officer.

Topics to Avoid

The internet is rife with advice on what not to write when writing an overcoming challenges essay. Yet this advice can be confusing, or downright hypocritical. For instance, some may advise against writing about death. Yet a student who lost their father at an early age may be capable of writing a poignant essay about their search for an alternative father figure, and how they found one in their soccer coach.

I suggest avoiding guides on what not to write until after the student has done a thorough round of brainstorming. Otherwise, they risk censoring themselves too early, and may reject a promising idea. Once they’ve narrowed down their list to three ideas or less, they may want to check our guide on College Application Essay Topics to Avoid .

The reason why certain types of overcoming challenges essays miss the mark is that they emphasize the wrong aspect of the experience, which turns the topic into a cliché. While it’s generally a good idea to avoid trivial topics (again, that C in P.E.), any topic has the potential to be compelling, if it’s animated through personal opinions, insight, and description. Details bring an experience to life. Structure and reflection make an essay convincing. In other words, how the story is told will determine whether or not the topic is worth writing about.

So, rather than avoid specific topics, consider avoiding these scenarios: if you can’t show the essay to your best friend or grandmother, it’s probably not ready to show a college admissions officer. If you must write a clichéd topic, don’t choose a typical structure.

Techniques to Hone

Techniques that animate an overcoming challenges essay are the same ones used in storytelling. Think setting, visuals, sounds, dialogue, physical sensations, and feelings. “Showing” instead of “telling.” Crafting the essay with these inner and external details will bring the challenge to life, and catch the reader’s attention.

Another technique which works well when trying to avoid the trappings of cliché involve subverting the reader’s expectations. In storytelling terms, this is a plot twist. The student who got a C in P.E. may actually have a stellar essay on their hands, if they can break away from the “bad grade” trope (working harder to improve their grade). Perhaps this student’s story is actually about how, while sitting on the bleachers and not participating in the game, they found themselves watching the frisbee spin through the air, and realized they had a deep interest in the movement of astronomical bodies.

Some of the strongest overcoming challenges essays demonstrate what students have learned about themselves, rather than what they’ve learned about the obstacle they confronted. These essays may show how the student has come to see themselves differently, or how they’ve decided to change, thanks to the challenge they faced. These essays work because the reflection is natural and even profound, based on the student’s self-awareness.

Writing the Overcoming Challenges Essay, or Drafts, Drafts, Drafts

Everyone writes differently, some by outlining (never a bad idea), some by free-styling (good for capturing sensations and memories), some by lighting a candle—but don’t procrastinate too much. The only “must” is to revise. After a first draft, the student should begin to look for several things:

1) Clarity and Detail. Is the challenge recounted with precision? Is it personal?

2) Structure. Consider mapping the structure, to visualize it better. Does the structure suit the story? Can it be changed for clarity, or to keep the reader more engaged?

3) Cliché. Identify words, sentences, and ideas that are dull or repetitive. Mark them up, and in the next draft, find ways to rewrite, subvert, condense, and delete.

4) Lesson Learned. Has the student reflected adequately on the lesson they learned from overcoming a challenge? To add more reflection, students might ask themselves what they have felt and thought about the experience since. Would they do something differently, if faced with the same challenge? Has their understanding of the experience evolved over time?

By the final draft, the experience and the reflection should feel equally weighted. To get there, it may take five or six drafts.

Overcoming Challenges Essay Sample

The Happiness Hotline

First there were reports. Then we were told to stop socializing, go inside, wait. Covid struck. Everyone knows what ensued. It probably looked different from where we were all (separately) standing, even though we faced the same thing. Those first weeks, I stood at my bedroom window. It was dark by early evening in Oregon. The weirdest part—after the fact that we were collectively sharing the loneliest experience of our lives—was the silence.

… it was really quiet.

So quiet, I could hear my mom sigh downstairs. (So quiet, I couldn’t remember if I’d hummed aloud, or if I’d just heard myself in my head.) When I looked out the window, I could hear the stoplight at the end of our street. Green to yellow. Click.

Before going on, you should know three things. First, this is not a Covid essay. This is about melancholy, and the “sadness that has taken on lightness,” to quote Italo Calvino. Second, from my bedroom window, I can see down a row of oak trees, past the hospital, to my friend Carlo’s house. Third, Carlo is a jazz singer. Maybe that sounds pretentious, a freshman kid being a jazz singer, but that’s Carlo, and I wouldn’t be me without Carlo being Carlo. He’s someone who appreciates the unhinged rhythm of a Charlie Parker tune. He’s an extrovert who can bring introverts like me out of my shell. He convinced me to learn trombone, and together we riff in the after-school jazz club.

In the first month of the pandemic, we called each other nightly to talk rap albums, school stuff. At Carlo’s house, he could hear a white-crowned sparrow. He could also hear his parents talking numbers behind the bathroom door. The death toll was mounting. The cost of living was going up too. As the month wore on, I began to hear something else in our calls, in the way Carlo paused, or forgot what he was saying. Carlo was scared. He felt sad, isolated, and without his bright energy, I too, felt utterly alone.

Overcoming Challenges Essay Sample (Continued)

After some dark days, I realized that to help ourselves we needed to help others. It was pretty obvious the more I thought about it. People are social creatures, supposedly, even introverts. Maybe our neighbors needed to remember the noisiness of life.

We built a happiness hotline. That sounds fancy, though essentially, we provided three-way calls on my parents’ landline. The harder part involved making flyers and putting them up around town, in places people were still going. Grocery stores, the post office. We made a TikTok account, and then—the phone rang. Our first caller.

For months, if you called in, you could talk to us about your days in lockdown. People went really deep about the meaning of life, and we had to learn on the spot how to respond. I’d become a journalist and a therapist before becoming a sophomore. After chatting, the caller would request a song, and if we knew how to play it, we would. If not, we improvised.

Now we’re seniors in high school. Carlo visits the hospital with band members. As for myself, I’ve been working on a community music book, compiling our callers’ favorite tunes. I don’t want to forget how important it felt to make these connections. Our callers taught me that loneliness is a bit like a virus, a bit like a song. Even when it stops it can come back to haunt you, as a new variant or an old refrain. Still, sadness can take on lightness when voices call through the dark: sparrows, friends, strangers. I learned I’m good at listening into the silence. Listening isn’t only a passive stance, but an open line of receiving.

Analysis of the Overcoming Challenges Essay Sample

This student uses their musical passion to infuse the essay with vivid detail. There’s a focus on sound throughout, from the bird to the stoplight. Then there are the callers, and the clever way the student conceived of breaking through the silence. The narrator’s voice sharpens the piece further, elevating a clichéd Covid essay to a personal story of self-discovery.

In fact, the essay briefly breaks with structure to tell the reader that this is not a Covid essay. Although techniques like this should be used sparingly, it works here by grabbing the reader’s attention. It also allows the student to organize their thoughts on the page, before moving the plot along.

Outwardly, the student is overcoming the challenge of loneliness in a time of quarantine. Yet there seems to be an inner, unspoken challenge as well, that of coming to terms with the student’s introverted personality. The essay’s reflection occurs in the final paragraph, making the essay experience-heavy. However, clues woven throughout point to the reflection that will come. Details like the Italo Calvino quote hint at the later understanding of how to alleviate loneliness. While some readers might prefer more development, the various themes are threaded throughout, which makes for a satisfying ending.

A Last Word on the Short Essay About Overcoming Challenges

The short essay about overcoming a challenge requires the same steps as a longer one. To write it, follow the same brainstorming activity, then focus more on condensing and summarizing the experience. Students who’ve already written a longer overcoming challenges essay can approach the short essay about overcoming a challenge by streamlining. Instead of deleting all the extra bits, keep two interesting details that will flavor the essay with something memorable and unique.

• College Essay

Kaylen Baker

With a BA in Literary Studies from Middlebury College, an MFA in Fiction from Columbia University, and a Master’s in Translation from Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis, Kaylen has been working with students on their writing for over five years. Previously, Kaylen taught a fiction course for high school students as part of Columbia Artists/Teachers, and served as an English Language Assistant for the French National Department of Education. Kaylen is an experienced writer/translator whose work has been featured in Los Angeles Review, Hybrid, San Francisco Bay Guardian, France Today, and Honolulu Weekly, among others.

• 2-Year Colleges
• ADHD/LD/Autism/Executive Functioning
• Application Strategies
• Best Colleges by Major
• Best Colleges by State
• Big Picture
• Career & Personality Assessment
• College Search/Knowledge
• College Success
• Costs & Financial Aid
• Data Visualizations
• Dental School Admissions
• Extracurricular Activities
• General Knowledge
• Graduate School Admissions
• High School Success
• High Schools
• Homeschool Resources
• Law School Admissions
• Medical School Admissions
• Navigating the Admissions Process
• Online Learning
• Outdoor Adventure
• Private High School Spotlight
• Research Programs
• Summer Program Spotlight
• Summer Programs
• Teacher Tools
• Test Prep Provider Spotlight

“Innovative and invaluable…use this book as your college lifeline.”

— Lynn O'Shaughnessy

Nationally Recognized College Expert

College Planning in Your Inbox

Join our information-packed monthly newsletter.

How to Answer the Essay Prompt "Describe a Challenge You Overcame"

Late fall is officially college admissions season! Some students have already sent in their early decision applications and are working hard on those regular decision deadlines, which means it may be time to work on your essays.

These essays from the Common App , Coalition App , or your prospective school’s specific format can vary in topic, and you may get to choose what you write about. But no matter the school or set of schools to which you’re applying, you will likely come across a version of the “Describe a Challenge You Overcame” or “Overcoming a Challenge” essay prompt.

For some people, the answer to this could be evident. But if you have no idea what to write about, the first rule is:

Don’t panic

So many students are plagued with questions like: What if I’ve never overcome an obstacle? Is my life boring? What if I have nothing to write about, and the admissions officers hate me? What if they judge me for what I've been through?

Deep breath.

All of these fears are normal, but everyone has overcome some sort of challenge or obstacle, whether small or completely overwhelming. By being authentic to yourself, yours will be compelling to readers and help them get to know the kind of student you are now and will be at their college or university.

You will need more than panicking to help you write an essay. Remember that everyone has something valuable to say, and the obstacle you choose will matter less than your ability to write about it and highlight your resilience.

Brainstorm an authentic but impactful challenge

The first thing you'll need to do is think through some challenges you’ve faced . 

A challenge can be as seemingly simple as learning to trust yourself after a failure in school or an extracurricular activity or as complicated as overcoming significant discrimination and prejudice.

You had to overcome a specific fear to succeed at an activity you love. You may have had to rebuild your life after losing a relative. Maybe your family moved, which shook up your life. Or, receiving one terrible grade or criticism led you to change your outlook on life and motivated you to work harder than ever.

Whatever the obstacle you face (no inventing, please), it should be impactful.

That means thinking of a challenge that changed something about you. As a result of overcoming this obstacle, you should have learned significant lessons about yourself or the world around you and made changes in your life.

Colleges and universities want to know what traits you possess that will help you succeed in college and your future career, so the obstacle you choose to share should have helped you develop one of your defining traits. They will care more about your reaction to this challenge, how it shaped you, and how you articulate it than what the problem was in the first place.

Generally, the obstacle you choose to share should also be pretty recent or have had a current impact on your life, rather than a challenge that happened when you were very young that doesn’t impact you today.

Begin at the end

The opening sentence of your essay about overcoming a challenge should be compelling and make the reader want to continue. It can be tempting to tell the story chronologically, but it can sometimes be adequate to start with the ending or a positive memory.

So, think about when you overcame your challenge or realized that you had improved after facing an obstacle. You might even share a moment when you realized your chosen barrier significantly. Recount this moment as your introductory hook in some way.

You can even preview the lessons you learned in your introduction. That way, readers already know that you will share what you’ve learned rather than just share a story recounting a terrible moment or difficult challenge in your life. This can also make them want to keep reading to see how you got to that place.

Share context about the situation but make it brief

You want the reader to learn about you and your challenges rather than overdoing it in detail. They don't need to know every step of the process or every player in the story.

Of course, you should share the context behind what happened to you that challenged you and changed your life or perspective, but you should not dwell too much on the details. Provide only the ‘need to know’ moments and how they led to changes in your life.

With this kind of essay, readers want to know less about what happened and more about what you learned due to your experience.

Focus on what you learned

Your reflection about what you learned due to your experience should be your primary focus within your essay. This section will help readers understand how you’ve changed after facing your challenge or obstacle to become the stellar student you are today. It can also show the maturity and self-reflection colleges may seek in a student.

By sharing lessons learned in this type of essay, you also share how you will contribute to any college campus with your newly acquired traits and perspectives.

If you had to move from one city to another, perhaps you learned to be flexible or met new friends who helped you discover your fascination with science and technology. If you faced bullying, maybe you learned how to respect yourself without outside validation and gained resilience. Whatever the challenge, the lessons associated with overcoming it are most important.

Share actions you took as a result of overcoming the challenge

To help readers understand how you overcame the challenge and how the lessons you learned tangibly affected your life, you should also consider your actions after overcoming your obstacle.

For example, if you witnessed discrimination at school, you could have founded an anti-bullying campaign or student organization. If you lost a family member to a specific disease, you may have volunteered with an organization to help fund research for a cure.

Remember, all of this information needs to be authentic to your experience. Even the most minor actions can be impactful. So, truth is always best, even if you just learned to treat your family better or significantly improve your grades after facing this obstacle.

Connect the lessons you learned to your future

Finally, you can strengthen your response even more by connecting the lessons you learned and actions you took with your future goals.

Think about how you will show up in college after facing this challenge. And consider how you are better equipped now to achieve your future goals because of the lessons you learned. You can then tie this into how attending each college will help you reach those goals.

Seek support!

Admissions officers should never be the first people to read your essay. Get help from a teacher or college counselor, your parents or guardians, an online college essay writing site like Prompt , or fellow scholars like other NSHSS members   before you hit "submit." 

Have them read your essay and provide you with constructive feedback about content and structure. If you're stuck, you can ask for some "overcoming an obstacle" essay examples or ideas from those who know you well.

Then, submit your essay and enjoy that feeling of accomplishment!

Answering the essay prompt "Describe a Challenge You Overcame" offers a unique opportunity to showcase your resilience, growth, and problem-solving skills. By focusing on the specifics of the challenge, the steps you took to overcome it, and the lessons you learned, you'll answer the prompt effectively and make a lasting impression on the admissions team.

Follow us on Social Media

• Admission Essay
• Statement of Purpose Editing
• Personal Statement Editing
• Recommendation Letter
• Motivation Letter
• Cover Letter
• Supplemental Essay
• Letter of Continued Interest
• Scholarship Essay
• Role Model Essay
• Our Editors
• College Admission Essay Examples
• College Cover Letter Examples
• College Personal Statement Examples
• Graduate Personal Statement Examples
• Graduate Statement of Purpose Examples
• MBA Essay Examples
• MBA Personal Statement Examples
• MBA Resume Examples
• MBA Recommendation Letter Examples
• Medical School Personal Statement Examples
• Medical School Recommendation Letter Examples
• Pricing Plans
• Public Health
• Dissertation
• Research Paper
• Thesis Editing
• Academic Editing
• Motivation letter
• Letter of Recommendation
• Personal Statement
• Statement of Purpose

A Guide to Writing a Narrative Essay About Overcoming a Challenge

EssayEdge > Blog > A Guide to Writing a Narrative Essay About Overcoming a Challenge

What do you think of when you think of the word “challenge”? Do you think of a professional project? A class? Do you think of a family situation? A hurdle in your faith? Do you think of a health issue?

If you are an international candidate, perhaps what comes to mind is the “language barrier.” Whatever it is, there is a way to approach writing about challenges that can set you apart.

Table of Contents:

Selection of the Topic and Positioning

What first comes to mind as a possible topic is often the best topic, and one thing to keep in mind is this – how will the topic align with the rest of your packet? Will the challenge you talk about in your essay be something that is reflected in your overall packet? For example, if you are a business applicant, will you be describing a challenge in a professional situation that is referenced on your resume? If you are a Chinese applicant, is your essay about the challenge of learning English? It’s great if your essay helps the reader to understand your overall packet.  

Put the Reader in the Picture and Stay Humble

Your reader is in a hurry. Keep it simple. Use your opening paragraph to concisely explain the nature of the challenge and the particular setting. Keep it to four or five sentences. And keep in mind that your reader may not be familiar with the academic or professional setting that you are talking about in your essay, which means that it is a good idea to avoid any type of academic or professional “jargon” in this essay, because this can make you come across as someone who is trying to sound important.

Here is the thing: In your challenge essay, you’re going to have to convince the reader of how you overcame something, which is a form of promoting yourself. But as you have already learned in the process of developing your essays, promoting yourself can backfire very easily because nobody likes someone who toots her or his own horn. So you are walking a razor’s edge. Just stay humble, and you’ll be fine.

No problem. Everybody loves a challenge. No pun intended.

Don’t Overdo It

In fact, “downplaying” the challenge can be another effective strategy in this essay. This conveys to the reader that you realize that the challenge you are talking about is not a big deal in the overall scheme of things, but it is something that has given you some self insight, which is what you want to share with the reader.

Again, this essay almost always has to take the form of self-promotion. So how are you going to stay humble? Just don’t take yourself too seriously in this essay.

The Language Barrier

Let’s say that you want to write about the challenge of overcoming the language barrier. Think of it this way:

Technically the challenge was this:

• The language barrier

Need help? Check out EssayEdge editing services:

The challenge behind the challenge was this:

• My pride (the ego’s constraints in a new language)
• My fear (of never conquering the new language, if that would be true for you then or even now)
• The culture (if the language was not the problem at all, which is often the case)
• The timing (if you just were not ready for it)
• The setting (I was in the city, I’d been in the country all my life, for example)
• I was homesick (this can work but don’t let it get too negative)
• I was sick (but did not realize it, another not uncommon scenario)

The thing to do is to take a personal approach to set yourself apart. The way to do this is to consider what the challenge was “behind” or “underlying” your particular challenge with the language. By using this approach you can develop an essay that focuses on a psychological perspective, which works very well in response to this prompt.

We all regularly overcome various challenges. This fact tempts people to think that describing it in an essay is a piece of cake, but this assumption is wrong. If you need someone to assist you in presenting your experience, you can turn to our essay proofreading service .

Another tricky prompt can be “Discuss a time you failed.” Learn how to tackle it!

Popular Posts

April 8, 2024 How To Start a Scholarship Essay: Catch Reader’s Attention Fast

April 8, 2024 My Role Model Essay: A Few Ways to Elaborate on The Subject

April 8, 2024 How To Start a Personal Statement? | Writing Tips and Samples

Related Posts

June 20, 2024 UC Essay Prompts 2025

June 6, 2024 How to Conclude a College Essay?

July 9, 2024 Why AI Can’t Write Your Personal Statement (And Who Can Help)

©2024 Student Media LLC. All rights reserved.

EssayEdge: Essay Editing & Proofreading Service.

Our mission is to prepare you for academic and career success.

•   Log In  
•   Sign Up  
• Forgot password

Unable to log in? Please clear your browser's cache and then refresh this page and try again

Reset password Please enter your email address to request a password reset.

Check your email We’ve just sent a password reset link to your email.

This information is used to create your account

Which program are you applying to?

Accepted Admissions Blog

Everything you need to know to get Accepted

December 11, 2023

Three Ways Writing About Obstacles Strengthens Your Application Essays

Applicants love to write about their accomplishments, whether in a personal statement for graduate school or in a b-school essay that asks about one’s greatest achievement, challenge, or the like. And they are not shy about sharing their accomplishments, such as driving innovations that led to revenue boosts for their firm, conducting original and meaningful research in their field of study, or leading a volunteer group on a community service initiative. 

As genuine and significant as these accomplishments are, many initial essay drafts are often missing a key element: obstacles . In this blog post, we explain why you shouldn’t shy away from discussing obstacles in your essays and how doing so intelligently can help your candidacy.

Here are three ways that discussing obstacles enhances your application:

1. Sharing how you overcame an obstacle shows the adcom that you can navigate bumps in the road in a positive, proactive way.

All of us frequently encounter obstacles: the traffic detour, an incompetent customer service representative, a disagreement with your partner, the approval you expected on a project unexpectedly turning into a “No.”  Every single person faces challenges, but people deal with them in wildly varying ways. Those who are more successful in life succeed because they understand that obstacles are to be expected. They learn how to navigate them with patience, creativity, and a problem-solving attitude, and by – to borrow a phrase – “keeping calm and carrying on.” But too often, when asked to discuss their accomplishments, applicants selectively and completely forget the things that got in their way  en route to their achievement. When they experience this kind of amnesia, they are shortchanging themselves. Triumphing over the hurdles they encountered might well have been just as difficult as executing all the anticipated elements of their plans – and therefore worth sharing.

2. Details about how you overcame obstacles create an appealing image of you as a candidate with a can-do personality.

Look at the following examples and see if you don’t agree. First we have the “stop-putting-me-to-sleep” example : As the leader of my product research group, I came up with a plan for a new widget that would save us 10% in costs. After I communicated my vision to the team, we worked hard for four weeks on a prototype, completing it by the deadline, to the delight of management. Today, my widget is still the standard for my company, saving us over $300K annually. Okay, this sounds like a solid accomplishment, but it’s hardly memorable.  How  did the candidate communicate her vision? What specific example does she offer of the hard work that was done over four weeks on the prototype? We have absolutely no idea.  Now let’s look at a “dazzle-is-in-the-details” example : As the leader of my product research group, I came up with a plan for a new widget that would save us 10% in costs. But when I explained my vision to the team, two senior engineers immediately argued against it, saying that there were key flaws in the design. After revisiting my design and realizing that they were correct, I revised my plan and was able to eliminate the flaws. We worked on a prototype for two weeks before discovering that the cost of the material we had planned to use for it had increased by more than 30% in recent months. I worked many late nights that week researching alternative materials, before finding one that was both appropriate and cost-effective. By the skin of our teeth, we met our four-week deadline and presented the prototype to management, but the VP of Manufacturing argued that we would need to purchase major new equipment to produce the widget. I convinced the team to work overtime on a manufacturing proposal that proved we could craft the product with existing equipment. Today, my widget is still the standard for my company, saving us over $300K annually. There’s no contest here, is there? The second example, loaded with specifics about what went wrong and what almost derailed the project, is mighty impressive. The details highlight the applicant’s creativity, thoroughness, tenacity, communication skills, and leadership potential. When spelled out this way, discussing an obstacle can make your essays shine with the drama of the story and can  associate you with lively elements and images . For example, in the second example, it’s easy to visualize the two dissenting engineers, the surprise of discovering the price hike for the materials, and the VP’s frown. In the first, there’s only the haziest impression of an employee smiling about a job well done.

3. Discussing obstacles makes you a more fully developed, more relatable applicant.

Can you see through these examples how including specific, key obstacles in your essays and explaining how you negotiated them  showcases your ability to overcome the unexpected ? This will assure the adcoms that you can capably execute a well-defined plan – even when you face unexpected bumps in the road. Moreover, it shows the school how you spring into action when the chips are down. This adds to a fuller understanding of who you are as an individual – and as an applicant the school would like to have in its next class.

For more details about what the adcom actually wants to know about the challenges you’ve overcome, watch this short video, in which Linda Abraham shares the answer to this often-asked question:

Are you still wondering how to address obstacles you’ve overcome in your application essays? Leave a comment on the video on YouTube, and we’ll gladly offer some tips. 

There’s no substitute for one-on-one guidance when addressing your obstacles and writing essays that make you shine. Working with an experienced admissions consultant, you can apply with the confidence that you have presented yourself at your best and maximized your chances of getting accepted.  Click here to learn more.

For 25 years, Accepted has helped applicants gain acceptance to top undergraduate and graduate programs. Our expert team of admissions consultants features former admissions directors, PhDs, and professional writers who have advised clients to acceptance at top programs worldwide, including Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Princeton, Penn, Columbia, Oxford, Cambridge, INSEAD, MIT, Caltech, UC Berkeley, and Northwestern. Want an admissions expert to help you get Accepted? Click here to get in touch!

Related Resources:

• Five Fatal Flaws to Avoid in Your Application Essays , a free guide
• Four Tips for Highlighting Your Strengths in Your Application Essays
• Resilience: How Flaws and Failures Can Strengthen Your Application

About Us Press Room Contact Us Podcast Accepted Blog Privacy Policy Website Terms of Use Disclaimer Client Terms of Service

Accepted 1171 S. Robertson Blvd. #140 Los Angeles CA 90035 +1 (310) 815-9553 © 2022 Accepted

Essays About Overcoming Challenges: Top 5 Examples

Confront challenges in writing by reading our guide with example essays about overcoming challenges and helpful prompts. 

Whether your problems have been failing a subject, getting retrenched at work, or losing someone you love, overcoming challenges is a relief and successful feat always worthy of celebration. 

Overcoming challenges requires patience and persistence to advance your goals despite failures. If you aim for something great in life, you can anticipate facing constant obstacles on your way. However, to successfully hurdle them, a positive and focused mindset coupled with the ability to regulate your emotions will help you go a long way.

5 Essay Examples

1. ​​how to succeed at failure by arthur brooks, 2. how to overcome family problems by vinaya ghimre, 3. when obstacles become opportunities to work better by tim harford, 4. how you can stop global warming by melissa denchak, 5. how countries deal with debt, 10 helpful writing prompts on essays about overcoming challenges, 1. my inspiration for overcoming challenges, 2. helping persons with disabilities (pwds) overcome discrimination, 3. overcoming challenges for students, 4. overcoming mental health issues, 5. overcoming challenges in budgeting, 6. overcoming challenges from childhood, 7. how startups overcome financing challenges, 8. overcoming bullies, 9. overcoming challenges in memory retention, 10. overcoming challenges in income inequality.

“After you have been hurt by a failed relationship, for example, rumination can make you focus on the past instead of the future, so you are less likely to get out there and try again. You’re frozen in your moment of failure as you turn defeat over and over in your mind. You become fearful, lose confidence, and miss your opportunities for new success.”

This essay explores the cognitive studies of a professor’s happiness and includes success tips to help one overcome challenges. One tip that eches with relevance is our need to stop aiming for success and shift toward learning and improvement. For more, check out these essays about life challenges .

“Culture and tradition ask young people to respect their parents and elders’ decisions, whereas modern education teaches them to have their own view of life. Neither the educational system is wrong nor are the parents trying to harm their children. However, truth is, the difference in opinions creates family conflict.”

This essay strives to explain the root causes of conflicts to help readers better navigate the nature of their family problems. The author also offers tips to overcome family tensions, such as being more tolerant and understanding of family members. 

“A shock can prompt us to find new and better ways to live our lives, both individually and collectively. We try new ideas, develop new skills, invest in new kit and draw strength from the fact that others are doing likewise. Resilience is essential but not enough: we need to be able to explore, experiment and adapt.”

As COVID-19 redefined the way we live, we are forced to find new paths to rediscovering better ways of living. Offering lessons from the life of musician Django Reinhardt and the pandemic, the author notes that with the right mindset and commitment to more significant change, we can bring light to a dark period and even rebound stronger and better. 

“ The effects of climate change are already threatening our health, our communities, our economy, our security, and our children’s future. What can you do? A whole lot, as it turns out. ”

Slowing down global warming and building resilience against climate change are critical missions to the world that everyone has to be part of. This essay lists 12 specific actions one can take to help combat global warming in their day-to-day lives, with each tip backed by data showing how big this seemingly small act can mean.

“While higher debt can slow growth and slower growth may cause sovereign debt to rise, the level of debt at which it turns into a problem depends on a country’s particulars, including sources of its debt financing and economic growth catalysts.”

As debts in several countries have ballooned to record highs during the COVID-19 pandemic, governments are finding new sources of revenue to reduce this debt. The article explains dominant economic beliefs about debt and cites its negative consequences on countries. 

Whoever it may be, write about the person whose accomplishments and constant efforts always remind you that you can overcome challenges in life. List down the qualities you admire and how you practice adopting these qualities. You can also elaborate on why these qualities are crucial for the younger generations.

PWDs face discrimination every day and are forced to make adjustments to be part of society. So first, spell out the current challenges PWDs face. Next, you can narrow down this discussion to the situation in your locality. And then, write down what your government is doing to move toward genuine inclusiveness and enable PWDs to cope better in their daily lives. Some examples could be educating the public about how society should accommodate PWDs and creating more wheelchair-accessible destinations. 

Students may struggle in their academic and extracurricular performance while dealing with anxieties over social relationships and growing up. Enumerate the multiple challenges students face on campus and at home. You can share your own experiences and relay how you have overcome them. You can also interview some friends and consolidate their responses. 

With raging geopolitical tensions and the road to recovery from COVID-19 still a long way to go, cases of anxiety and depression are on the rise . First, write about the detrimental effects of such mental health issues on overall well-being and life – as depression is a trigger to suicide. Then write about what specific parts of society are doing to address the mental health crisis. For example, you can cite the efforts your city health office is providing.

With more uncertainties looming for the economy, overcoming bad money habits is imperative. This essay describes the colossal challenge of balancing the need to save, spend for basic needs and invest. Then provide tips on saving and doing away with bad habits. One prudent advice would be to review spending patterns through a statement of accounts. 

Feelings of emptiness can plague even the most successful people. Often, this emptiness could be traced back to challenges in childhood. This essay explains adults’ difficulties in facing their repressed childhood trauma—research recommendations by psychology experts on breaking free from the contempt against parents. Here, you can tackle the benefits of cognitive behavioral therapy to alter harmful thoughts and behavioral patterns.

The biggest obstacle to the commercial success of startups is adequate financing to bring their concepts into reality. For this essay, lay down the financing options available to startups in your country. Often, countries promoting innovative startups have assistance funds. You can encourage startups to tap these funds by enumerating the eligibility criteria of each fund. Look also into the latest surveys and reports showing trends in investing preferences worldwide. 

Bullying can come in different forms and may even initially disguise itself as a playful joke. Help your readers detect bullying and overcome these challenges early. Write about the early signs of bullying and the best ways to defend against it. Keeping records of the incident and immediately filing a report to higher authorities is often the best way to deter bullies. If you want to be guided more on this topic prompt, check out our essays about bullying . 

Forgetting is normal. But the pressures to remember an overwhelming load of information can be high during examination week. For an interesting kick in your essay, talk about famous memory theories such as the Forgetting Curve by German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus , which sheds light on why we forget and how we can remember better. Then, write more tips on how one can retain information longer. Not cramming is one helpful suggestion.

First, point out historical events and trends that have exacerbated the divide between the rich and the poor. For instance, several studies have blamed the digital divide. Next, think about what societies can do to narrow this gap. With this, you can also touch on how much your government is spending to improve digital infrastructure in rural areas and look into whether these resources are mobilized efficiently. 

For more help with your essay, check out our roundup of the best grammar checkers .  Grammarly is one of our top grammar checkers, and you can find out why in this Grammarly review .

How to Write an Essay on a Challenge

What Should a Narrative Essay Format Look Like?

University and internship applications often require an essay, which reflects the challenges and obstacles you have overcome in life. An essay based around the challenges in your life can be a fantastic way to illustrate how you have continued to move forward in life despite of, or because of, the challenges which have come across your path. With some preparation and editing, an essay based on a challenge in your life can be a cathartic writing experience.

List challenges which have come into your life on a blank sheet of paper. For each challenge, also list out how that challenge has shaped or inspired you to move forward. Look for a challenge which will create a powerful narrative for your prospective audience. Make sure you choose a challenge that remains authentic to you.

Outline the essay. This step will help keep you focused and clear during the writing process. An outline should consist of headers, which will represent a paragraph or topic. Underneath this heading write out a topic sentence for each paragraph. Continue creating an outline which reflects the structure you would like the essay to take. This structure will often be chronological and will take you from the beginning of the challenge to the present time -- and to the goals you have for the future.

Pull the audience in quickly, with a compelling first sentence. For example, “The teacher stared at me, frustrated, and uncertain of her next move, I still could not read the sentence out loud to the class.” Readers will want to find out what happens next in the story.

Write the challenge essay following the outline you constructed in Step 2. Utilize the topic sentences from the outline as starting points for each new paragraph. Illustrate what the challenge is, how it has changed you throughout life and, most importantly, how you plan to continue striving for more in life.

Use concise sentences to keep the narrative flowing. Stay on topic in each paragraph. You will ideally address one topic in one paragraph. Avoid cliches in the narrative. For example rather than simply saying, “I want to help children,” discuss how you will accomplish this goal and use specifics.

Avoid using contractions. Edit the essay a few times to catch any typos or grammar mistakes. Have a friend or classmate read the essay and give you feedback.

Related Articles

How to Close Your Graduate School Personal Statement

How to Write an Essay About Your Future Goals

How to Write a Fifth-Grade Essay

How to write a strong personal statement.

How to Write a Diversity Scholarship Essay

What Is a Bridge Statement in English Homework?

How to Build an Outline for a Personal Narrative

How to Start a Scholarship Essay About Your Accomplishments

• Purdue OWL: Starting the Writing Process
• Seton Hill University: Personal Essays
• Avoid using contractions.
• Edit the essay a few times to catch any typos or grammar mistakes.
• Have a friend or classmate read the essay and give you feedback.

Sarah Vrba has been a writer and editor since 2006. She has contributed to "Seed," "AND Magazine," Care2 Causes and "202 Magazine," among other outlets, focusing on fashion, pop culture, style and identity. Vrba holds an M.A. in history with an emphasis on gender and fashion in the 19th century.

What are your chances of acceptance?

Calculate for all schools, your chance of acceptance.

Your chancing factors

Extracurriculars.

How to Write the “Most Significant Challenge” UC Essay

This article was written based on the information and opinions presented by CollegeVine co-founder Vinay Bhaskara in a CollegeVine livestream. You can watch the full livestream for more info.

What’s Covered:

Understanding the prompt, avoiding common pitfalls, navigating more difficult topics.

The University of California system requires you to answer four out of eight prompts for its essays. Prompt five asks applicants:

Describe the most significant challenge you have faced and the steps you have taken to overcome this challenge. How has this challenge affected your academic achievement? (350 words)

As with any college essay, this prompt is an opportunity to convey a strong personal voice while communicating personal values and strengths that may not readily apparent in other parts of their application. In this article, we will discuss what the prompt is asking, how to approach writing your essay, and advice for navigating difficult topics. 

The first step in answering this prompt is identifying a challenge to reflect on. You’ll want to focus on a challenge that’s personal, genuine and authentic. A common issue that students struggle with is selecting a challenge that is appropriate in scale for the purposes of this essay. Choosing a challenge that may come across as minor in the eyes of admission officers, such as losing out on extracurricular opportunities because of COVID, for example, likely wouldn’t impress your reader in the same way that a more specific, personal challenge would. Navigating COVID as a challenge is going to be a completely overused response to this prompt, and if you want to stand out you should reflect more deeply on a challenge that is unique to you. 

You don’t want your challenge to come off as tone-deaf. For example, writing about a time that your parents refused to purchase something for you would not reflect very well on you and make you sound spoiled. On the flip side, you also don’t want to choose an outsized challenge that doesn’t resonate you. Your topic should be genuine and authentic.

Additionally, because this prompt specifically calls out an impact to your academic achievement, it’s a little bit more restrictive than the similar prompt in the Common Application . To be clear, you don’t have to write about something that directly affected your academics; however, you should be able to relate the process of overcoming this challenge back to your academic performance.

Focusing Only on the Challenge

We’ve already talked about writing a tone-deaf essay, but another trope you want to avoid is what we call a sob story. Writing an essay solely about the challenge and all the pain that it’s caused you is a good place to start an essay, but pain and struggle shouldn’t be where you end. A key element of the prompt is the act of overcoming the challenge and reflecting on that process and where you ended up. If you can’t end this essay in a better place than where you started, you’re not going to have a strong response to this prompt. 

Blaming Others

Additionally, avoid blaming others for your challenges. For example, if you struggled with a particular academic subject, focus on the specific aspects of that subject that challenged you and how you worked to overcome them. It’s easy to blame a bad teacher for a poor academic performance, and it is possible that the teacher might have objectively not been good. 

But think back to the purpose of the supplemental prompts. Colleges want to understand the person behind the application and how they think and relate to the people around them. Shifting blame to your teacher, even if it is  wholly deserved, could signal a lack of personal responsibility or immaturity to the admissions team. Remember that colleges are looking for students who will add to the vibrant campus community, which of course also includes their faculty and the other students.

Regardless of what you choose as your challenge, it’s important to think critically about how you will frame it within the context of your essay. Difficult topics like mental and physical health can be quite effective essay topics as they’re deeply personal and often quite substantial. However, as you begin to think through your essay, remember that two huge elements of the prompt are overcoming the challenge and reflecting on how it has impacted you academically. 

Remember to start with the end in mind. When we say start with the end in mind, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the challenge is now over. Colleges understand that challenges like mental health and chronic pain often don’t go away. It is important that, in the case of a challenge that you are constantly navigating, you clearly and effectively convey how you’ve overcome it or, in some cases, the ongoing steps you take to mitigate it. 

Ultimately, college is rigorous and challenging in itself, and no college or university wants to set you up for failure if they’re not confident that you can succeed. If you cannot effectively demonstrate that the challenge is no longer a risk to your success and wellbeing, consider choosing a different topic.

Looking for more information on how to attack the UC supplemental essays? Check out this post for a comprehensive guide on how to answer each of the eight prompts!

Related CollegeVine Blog Posts

Calculate for all schools

Your chance of acceptance, your chancing factors, extracurriculars, writing an essay about academic challenges.

I have to write a college essay about overcoming academic challenges, but I'm struggling to come up with ideas. Have any of you written on this topic before? What kind of challenges did you discuss? Looking for some inspiration!

I'm glad you're looking for inspiration! The topic of overcoming academic challenges can make for a compelling essay, showcasing your resilience and determination. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

1. Adjusting to rigorous coursework or increased workload: Discuss how you tackled a significant increase in academic rigor, such as enrolling in challenging AP or IB courses, or adjusting to the workload at a competitive high school. Focus on the strategies you employed to succeed, such as improved time management, seeking help from teachers, or forming study groups.

2. Overcoming a learning disability or difficulty: If you've been diagnosed with a learning disability or struggled with a specific subject, this can be a powerful topic. Describe the challenges you faced and the support systems or resources you utilized to improve, such as working with a tutor, implementing coping mechanisms, or seeking accommodations.

3. Balancing academics with extracurricular activities or a part-time job: Write about how you managed to excel in school while also dedicating time to non-academic pursuits, demonstrating your strong work ethic and ability to multitask.

4. Coping with personal or family circumstances that impacted your academics: If you faced external challenges that affected your academic performance, such as a personal or family situation, discuss how you persevered and maintained your academic focus.

5. Adapting to a new school or educational system: If you've transitioned between different schools or educational systems, reflect on the academic adjustments you had to make and how you worked to adapt and succeed in your new environment.

When writing your essay, ensure that your narrative is personal and genuine. It should highlight not only the challenges you faced but also the actions you took to overcome them, illustrating your growth and resilience as a student. Good luck with your essay!

About CollegeVine’s Expert FAQ

CollegeVine’s Q&A seeks to offer informed perspectives on commonly asked admissions questions. Every answer is refined and validated by our team of admissions experts to ensure it resonates with trusted knowledge in the field.

Think you can get into a top-10 school? Take our chance-me calculator... if you dare. 🔥

Last updated March 21, 2024

Every piece we write is researched and vetted by a former admissions officer. Read about our mission to pull back the admissions curtain.

Blog > Essay Advice , Supplementals > How to Write a Personal Challenge Essay (with Examples)

How to Write a Personal Challenge Essay (with Examples)

Admissions officer reviewed by Ben Bousquet, M.Ed Former Vanderbilt University

Written by Kylie Kistner, MA Former Willamette University Admissions

Key Takeaway

This post is one in a series of posts about the supplemental essays. You can read our core “how-to” supplemental post here .

What is a Personal Challenge supplemental essay?

Personal Challenge supplemental essays ask you to pick a personal challenge you’ve faced, detail how the problem affected you, and describe the action steps you took to overcome it.

These essays can be challenging for students for two main reasons. First, many students feel like they haven’t faced a problem significant enough to talk about. And second, other students have faced a significant problem but may not feel comfortable discussing it in a college essay.

So why do colleges want to know about a challenge you’ve faced anyway?

Well, admissions offices know that life in college and beyond doesn’t always go as expected. Colleges want to see that you’re resourceful, resilient, and capable of thinking critically to solve problems.

At their core, Personal Challenge essay prompts let you to strategically pick a problem you’ve faced and write about how you worked to solve it.

Before we continue, it’s worth saying explicitly: you do not have to talk about trauma you’ve experienced to get into college. No admissions officer will ever want to read anything you’re not ready to share. In fact, sharing negative experiences before you’re ready can actually work against you. Writing about a situation that you haven’t yet come to terms with can result in an essay that is overall too negative and not forward-looking enough to meet the requirements of Personal Challenge essay prompts.

That caveat out of the way, let’s look at three Personal Challenge supplemental essay prompt examples.

1: Brown University

Brown’s culture fosters a community in which students challenge the ideas of others and have their ideas challenged in return, promoting a deeper and clearer understanding of the complex issues confronting society. This active engagement in dialogue is as present outside the classroom as it is in academic spaces. Tell us about a time you were challenged by a perspective that differed from your own. How did you respond? (200-250 words)

2: Colorado School of Mines

Florence Caldwell was the first woman to graduate from Mines. She enrolled in 1895 and found that her fellow classmates discouraged her attendance. She persevered through that discouragement and graduated with a degree in Civil Engineering in 1898. She was described as a problem-solver, who was loyal, kind, and sympathetic to others and displayed unwavering courage. Describe a time when you overcame an obstacle, persevered through a situation, or displayed characteristics similar to Florence Caldwell. (500 words)

3: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Tell us about a significant challenge you’ve faced (that you feel comfortable sharing) or something that didn’t go according to plan. How did you manage the situation?

Personal Challenge Essay Strategy

When an admissions officer reads your essay among thousands of others , your supplemental essays are one of the main tools you have to stand out. The key to writing a strong Personal Challenge essay is picking the right challenge to talk about.

Personal Challenge essays are all about finding a delicate balance. While your challenge should be a genuine one that you’ve had to wrestle with, it shouldn’t be so challenging that you can’t write about it in a way that is ultimately positive.

While you don’t have to reveal anything you don’t want to, you should choose a genuine challenge.

“Genuine” problems are those that present real challenges to you, your way of thinking, or your overall lived experience.

They are significant. That means that a genuine problem is more than sleeping in late and missing a test. It’s more than losing your big baseball game or forgetting to put gas in the car before a road trip.

Genuine problems don’t necessarily have to be life-changing, but they do have to be deeply meaningful.

Significant challenges might include:

• conflict or disagreements with friends or loved ones
• information or an event that challenged your worldview
• a significant change or loss
• reconciling with differences
• Dealing with a disadvantage that sets you apart from others

Pick a challenge that lets you refer to one of your strengths.

Personal Challenge essay questions are actually questions about your strengths in the face of adversity. Since all college essays should be rooted in strengths, your supplemental essays should be no different.

The challenge you pick shouldn’t be a covert way to brag about yourself, but it should represent one of your personal characteristics that is ultimately positive.

Whether your goal is to show your resilience, problem-solving abilities, compassion, understanding, fortitude, or something else, your Personal Challenge essay should work to showcase one of your strengths.

Take the “more phoenix, less ashes” approach.

This is one of the most difficult parts of writing Personal Challenge essays. By nature, Personal Challenge essays are about a challenge. That means that you’re inevitably going to be writing about something difficult.

But essays that only focus on the negative aren’t ultimately serving your college admissions goals. The ultimate goal of a personal challenge essay is to demonstrate how you’ve grown, developed, and changed through dealing with a problem.

The essay isn’t about the problem itself. It’s about your growth.

“More phoenix, less ashes” is a helpful way to remember to focus on the positivity. The phrase refers to the mythology of the phoenix, which rises from the ashes of a predecessor. By focusing more on the phoenix and less on the ashes, you’re focusing on the life, hope, and resilience that comes in the aftermath of a challenge.

How to Write a Personal Challenge Supplemental Essay

Step 1: Read the prompt.

As you’ve seen from the example Personal Challenge prompts, there are a few ways schools ask these kinds of questions.

Some ask you to focus on a time your perspective was challenged, others ask you to discuss a time you overcame a challenge, and others yet give you the freedom to discuss any personal challenge you want.

You’ll need to know which kind of prompt you’re responding to before you begin brainstorming, so analyzing the prompt closely should always be your first step.

Step 2: Brainstorm some challenges.

Since picking the right kind of challenge is important to writing a good Personal Challenge supplemental essay, it’s probably a good idea to brainstorm a few different options.

This structured brainstorming chart might help you sort through different areas of your life to identify particular challenges.

Step 3: List your action steps, think about what’s at stake, and find a positive focus.

To maintain sight of “more phoenix, less ashes,” it may be helpful to list out a few specific details for each challenge you’re considering writing about.

Specifically, think about three criteria:

• Action Steps: What specific actions did you take to confront the challenge?
• What’s at stake?: Why is this challenge one of genuine concern? What implications did it (or its solution) have to your life?
• Resolution & Lessons: How was the challenge resolved? What were the positive lessons or outcomes that you learned as a result?

Step 4: Pay special attention to your essay structure.

“More phoenix, less ashes” also means structuring your essay in a way that keeps the focus on the positive outcome rather than the challenge.

If the story about your challenge or difficulty takes up 80% of your essay, then there’s a good chance that you haven’t written enough to address the phoenix instead of the ashes. The best way to structure a Personal Challenge essay is to quickly pivot from discussing the challenge to discussing your actions, solutions, and reflections.

Depending on the prompt you’re responding to, your outline may look something like this:

I. Introduce the challenge

II. Describe inciting incident (what caused things to change for the better?)

III. Detail the action steps you took

IV. Expand on your solution

IV. Reflect on the lessons you learned and relate them to the prompt

Personal Challenge Essay Mistakes

Writing about a fake problem.

Since Personal Challenge essays should be about genuine challenges, few things are worse than writing about a fake problem.

“Fake” problems are those that didn’t actually affect you very much. The stakes were relatively low, and your worldview wasn’t significantly altered.

An example of a fake problem would be

Writing about a “convenient” problem.

A “convenient” problem is like a “fake” problem, but it’s one that conveniently allows you to talk about an accomplishment.

Here’s an example:

The biggest obstacle I’ve faced was when my team was down 88-90 in the state basketball finals. There was only one second left on the clock. My team was really starting to get discouraged, so I called everyone together to rally them back up. When the clock started back up, I sunk a three-pointer.

While that obstacle was obviously important in the writer’s life, the story itself comes across as a convenient way to talk about their team leadership and athletic abilities.

Writing an essay that only discusses problems, not solutions.

To return to the phrase we’ve been using, it’s a mistake to write a Personal Challenge essay that is all ashes and no phoenix. If you weigh your reader down with all the heavy details related to your story, it’ll be hard for them to climb out of those details to see your overall message.

To make it easier for them, only include the details that are necessary to understanding your story. Then quickly move on to addressing your action steps, solutions, and reflection.

Personal Challenge Supplemental Essay Example

Example essay: lead pipes.

MIT: Tell us about a significant challenge you’ve faced (that you feel comfortable sharing) or something that didn’t go according to plan. How did you manage the situation? (~200 words)

Two times a day, I fill up my Hydroflask at the drinking fountain near Room 124. With over 1,000 Hydroflasks of water total, this daily ritual has sustained me through countless lectures, math tests, and in-class essays. What I didn’t realize until last May was that this ritual was also slowly poisoning me.(( This introduction draws the reader in and states a compelling and significant problem.))

Built in the 1920s, my school contains a network of lead-covered pipes. Recent tests of the drinking fountain by Room 124 found over 5,000 parts per billion (ppb) of lead–4,985 more ppb than is considered safe to drink. I started organizing my schoolmates immediately after learning this news, and I put together a petition to the school board. With my Hydroflask in tow, I stood before the board and made our case.(( The writer focuses on the latter part of the prompt to answer the question: “How did you manage the situation?” By focusing on the efforts rather than the problem, the student maintains a “more phoenix, fewer ashes” approach that highlights their strengths rather than the problem.)) Unsafe water in our schools was unacceptable, and the board needed to prioritize the health of its students and staff members. We needed renovations.

After weeks of deliberation, the school board announced its decision to delay renovations. They were concerned about budget constraints. My entire community felt betrayed and disheartened. Not one to settle, I decided if the current board members wouldn’t prioritize our health, then we would elect board members who would. Since then, I have been volunteering with two board campaigns, canvasing our neighborhood, and continuing to organize my classmates to advocate for our health.(( Even though the problem became worse, the writer continues to focus on their actions instead.))

There’s not much I can do about the lead I’ve already consumed, but I’ll continue fighting to keep future CHS students safe.

Interested in seeing even more supplemental essay examples? We've got some of our favorites in our list of college essay examples .

Liked that? Try this next.

The Incredible Power of a Cohesive College Application

How to Write a College Essay (Exercises + Examples)

How to Write Supplemental Essays that Will Impress Admissions Officers

21 College Essay Examples (Graded by Former Admissions Officers)

"the only actually useful chance calculator i’ve seen—plus a crash course on the application review process.".

Irena Smith, Former Stanford Admissions Officer

We built the best admissions chancer in the world . How is it the best? It draws from our experience in top-10 admissions offices to show you how selective admissions actually works.