AP Nightmare by Marigny

AP Nightmare by Marigny - July 2026 Scholarship Essay

Throughout my academic life, the subject that came the easiest to me was English. I was always in an advanced English class. I had the best handwriting and a crazy imagination, and my essays just poured out of the tip of my fingertips. For my last two years of high school, I took AP Language and AP Literature, thinking it was going to be a breeze and it would be an easy college credit to earn. I wish I could warn my past self how wrong I was. I have so much frustration and disappointment in myself. How could I have not passed either of the AP tests after all the work I put in throughout the year? It was the hardest pill to swallow.

I continue to torment myself in the back of my head: "How could you be so stupid?" and "You failed one of the easiest exams." It all felt like a waste of time; it felt like I had wasted my favorite teacher's time. The guilt continues to linger, and it's unbearable. Though, as I look back over the past two years, my skills and knowledge have still developed tremendously.

I now realize that walking into those classes, I wasn't the most talented writer in the class. There were kids in there that could write a perfect essay on their first try. They knew the template of a Q1, Q2, and Q3 front to back. They were written with such great detail and so much personality. Everything was broken down. They could explain who the writer was talking about, why the story was structured with the techniques the way it was, why the setting was significant to the characters, and how it affected them. The list can go on and on. I was only a surface writer, a straight-to-the-point girl.

All year, I worked on being a descriptive kind of girl. I wanted to put everything that was going through my head into the most detailed writing. I started to dig deeper in my essays, not just answering the prompt but sharing my opinions as well, questioning the characters' and authors' motives and how that would be significant in the story and if it related to me and the real world. I could see myself developing over time. My essays became more complex. I could explain the situations in the book more thoroughly than before, making what I say meaningful in group conversations, impacting their thoughts too! I gained confidence in myself. I could connect the theme of books to modern day society.

My critical thinking skills shot up dramatically. I was able to take constructive criticism from my teacher and my peers, who were stronger writers than I was. By asking my teacher how I could make myself better and being able to ask him questions every day, I felt comfortable in what I was doing as a student. Doing this led to progress in real time. Now, instead of “How did I fail my AP exams?” It's, “These college-level classes push me to think deeper than before. On the more optimistic side, I will be well prepared for English classes in college.