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"Here's your winner and new state champion" - Common app #2 Prompt


TheBestK 3 / 9  
Jan 29, 2015   #1
Universities where I applied:
MIT, Vanderbilt, Stanford, Duke, Cornell, Columbia, UDenver, UChicago, U Notre Dame, UMiami, Washington at St. Louis, Harvard, Upenn, Rhodes College, Grinnell, Trinity College and Colorado Boulder

Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what lessons did you learn?
"Here's your winner and new state champion, Khaled Aounallah".

For all I can remember, I always aspired to be state champion. Since my first day of Kung-Fu, I had that championship in sight. This tournament was the best opportunity to demonstrate the skills I gained during an assiduous three-year journey as a martial arts disciple. My hard work made everyone believe I would win. My teammates nominated me for the gold and my friends assured me that my chances of winning were good. However, instead of being humble about my capacities, I was convinced that I was unbeatable.

The big day arrived and I knew the identity of my opponent: a novice with only a two-month training. Smiling, I strolled to the ring sedately. I was overly confident thinking: "What can a rookie do?"

Well, as you have already guessed.I was KNOCKED-OUT. Ten seconds were enough to see me on the ground. I blacked out. I couldn't even hear the referee's ten-count. The "rookie" did it: He shattered my dreams. I had worked painstakingly towards something only to have all that effort taken away.

The pain I felt on my way to the locker room was so intense that I cannot articulate it into words. My shame knew no bounds. I spent the car ride home neglecting my parents' words of consolation, the ten-second-knockout replaying in my head. The fact that I betrayed everyone who stayed in my corner immersed me in a deep melancholy. I couldn't stop obsessing over my failure.

I was so disheartened that I never imagined the sting of my disappointment fading away. But one day, as I was rearranging some old books, I found my first diary. Twelve years ago, I wrote: "When I grow up, I want to be a superhero like Batman."

It might seem implausible but my dream never changed. I still want to be a superhero; except that this heroism is linked to engineering and Kung-Fu. That sentence I wrote a long time ago made me remember an incident that happened to Bruce Wayne, the Batman. As a kid, he was trapped in hole. His father came to his rescue and consoled him: "Why do we fall Bruce? ...So that we pick ourselves up."

How can I be a superhero then if I'm unable to pick myself up after every fall? How can I become a successful man if I can't cope with such failures? At that moment, a myriad number of great people names started popping inside my head and I was thinking: If Thomas Edison had believed in failure, we would be living in darkness. If Henry Ford had given up, we would be riding on horseback. I came to the conclusion that anyone who has achieved anything great has failed someday. What made the difference was that while ordinary people were moping about their past mistakes, these "heroes", not smarter or biologically different, woke up everyday to perform better by learning from their past failures.

This experience was more than didactic. It enabled me to learn two major lessons: Firstly, I realized that my haughtiness had cost me my dream. Since that fateful day, I changed my mindset at Kung-Fu, at school and at everything I do. I was able to perceive that humility is a cornerstone of success and that perfection can never be attained; there is always a room for progress. The minute we start thinking we're perfect, we're always setup for a fall.

Secondly, this experience made me rethink my conception of failure. It's a powerful learning tool and if we don't learn to fail, we fail to learn. This way, failure doesn't oppose success but it's a part of it: They are both sides of the same coin. Nobody is lucky enough to always get the winning side. What matters is that even after we fail, we keep flipping the coin until we succeed.

Any feedback is appreciated. Be Objective, please!!
Thank you
vangiespen - / 4,134 1449  
Jan 31, 2015   #2
this is a highly effective essay that presents a clear idea of your progression from being self-centered and over confident, to failure, to redemption. Your story of redemption though, ran a bit long in terms of the back story that you provided. If you could accentuate more upon the lessons that you learned, it may serve a better purpose for your essay. While mentioning some historical names of people who changed the course of mankind is a nice effect, I don't really get the connection between their experience and yours. If you can make a clearer connection between the two, you will be able to more effectively use that passage. the conclusion should be stronger and longer since that is where you are discussing the two lessons that you learned from your experience. Make sure you also make mention of how you apply those lessons in your life today.
OP TheBestK 3 / 9  
Feb 1, 2015   #3
Thank you for your help Vangiespen. I will try to make some corrections.
Katiepegasus 2 / 4 1  
Feb 1, 2015   #4
Wow great essay!

One grammar suggestion for you. When it says not smarter or biologically different, I believe it should be neither smarter nor biologically different,


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