Common App Essay

Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you. (250-500 words)

The hardest two-weeks of my life were spent in the backwoods of Western Maryland with ten other teenagers. It was the summer after my sophomore year and I had received a scholarship to go backpacking with Outward Bound. Initially, I was drawn to the concept of pushing myself beyond what I thought I was capable of doing. I did not know exactly what that would mean for me, but I was eager to find out.

I had expected challenges like conquering my fear of heights or hiking more than I had ever hiked in my whole life, but it was the unexpected obstacles that were the hardest. On the tenth day, I was navigator. The panic first began to set in as I stared at our topographical map: the trail was unmarked and we needed to cross a mountain. It was impossible. By lunch, I was close to tears. The more I looked at the map, the more helpless I felt. I had never felt so completely inadequate in my whole life. In that moment, I realized the limit of what I could accomplish alone.

I asked the counselors for help and they gave me a set of directions to the effect of turn right at the train tracks and left at the pile of garbage. My group and I took turns reading the map and consulted each other before taking shortcuts. Grateful, I smiled. All of a sudden, reaching the campsite seemed less impossible. Together, we finally stumbled onto our campsite as the sun lowered over the horizon. We had to set up camp in the dark.

That trip was more than a series of close calls and exhausting labor. It was about finding out what I was capable of and using that drive to do more. I had thought I was incapable of navigation, but I just needed help. When my task seemed impossible, I broke it apart and figured out a way to make it possible. I learned that fear does not move mountains, but teamwork does. Sometimes I wonder if I would have been able to navigate without any help and I realize that of course I would have. It just would have taken a lot longer. Part of growing up is realizing that a team is far more effective than one person. In that case, I grew up a lot that day.