College Prep: Writing a Strong Essay

with Leigh Ann Chow

Sample Essay for Chapter 3

Prompt: Describe the best bad decision you ever made. (650 words or fewer)

Thesis: Taking a risk in order to get what I needed showed me that I could control my future.

Hitchhiking to Independence (638 words)

The reek of roadkill filled my nostrils as I trudged into the blazing sun. I squinted into the shimmering
heat rising off the asphalt at the remains of an armadillo, buzzing with flies. Maybe this hadn’t been such
a good idea, I thought. Then, in the distance, I heard a car approach. I pried my eyes from the maggotty
armadillo, spun around, and stuck out my thumb.

Transportation has always been difficult. We live about 20 miles outside a rural Florida town on a flat
stretch leading to the edge of the Everglades. Other than the Exxon station down the road, there’s
nothing within walking distance.

During the school year, it wasn’t so bad. The school bus dropped me off about a quarter mile down the
road. By the time I got home, it was nearly time to start dinner for me and my mom who got home around
5:45 or so.

But summers were worse. I was trapped. From the time my mom left the house at 7:00 until she got home,
I was stuck in our tiny two-bedroom bungalow. Mom took me to the library on Saturdays so I could load
up on stuff to read and watch during the week. We didn’t have Wi-Fi or cable, but I could watch DVDs on
the tiny black-and-white TV.

I knew my mom felt bad. Somehow, there was never enough money left over at the end of the month to
get me a bike. She already felt guilty enough about how things had worked out for us; I couldn’t bear to
make her feel any worse by complaining.

But that July day after eighth grade, I couldn’t take it any more. I read the last book in the Game of
Thrones series and pretty much memorized the dialogue of the Dr. Who DVDs I borrowed last weekend. If
only I could get back to the library.

I don’t know what came over me. To this day, I still haven’t told my mother I did it. I knew hitchhiking was
dangerous; we had only been living in this part of Florida for a few months at that point. Anyone could
have picked me up. But the car that pulled over was a woman in a minivan with two young kids. “What
in the world are you doing hitchhiking?” she scolded. And after listening to the stranger danger lecture I
knew I deserved, I told her where I was going and why.

Before dropping me off at the library, she asked if knew about the middle school’s bike exchange
program. She was on the PTO, she explained, and helped to organize it. My mom was always too busy
to volunteer for the PTO and only skimmed over the countless papers that came home in my backpack. It
wasn’t a surprise that we’d never heard about the bike exchange.

College Prep: Writing a Strong Essay with Leigh Ann Chow

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She would get in touch with the person who organized the bike exchange, she told me, and get me set up
with a bike in the next week or so. In the meantime, she would pick me up at the library again in an hour
after she finished her grocery shopping.

I know that my decision to hitchhike when I was 13 years old might not have been the smartest thing to
do. But, looking back, I can point to that day as a turning point: I realized that I was not trapped. Not by
my lack of transportation, not by being poor. I had taken a chance to change my situation and, as a result,
things got better.

The next week as I pedaled toward town, I swerved to avoid what was left of the poor armadillo. The
smell was gone, I thought. Or maybe I just couldn’t smell it because the wind was blowing in a different
direction.

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