I’ve had two versions of my personal essay written for a few weeks and I’ve been consuming as much material as I can on what makes a good personal essay, but I feel stuck on which one to go with. They both follow the same central idea, but one is much more opinionated, and the other is just a personal narrative.
I know that the safe choice would be to pick the personal narrative one, because everything I’ve read and listened to emphasizes that the best way to show AOs who you are is through a narrative. But—and please tell me if this is just presumptuous on my part—I feel like my opinionated version (which is the original) is a lot more “me.” I’m a solid writer, but I just don’t click with the personal narrative style. I can do it, but it’s never my strongest work and I don’t feel happy with it.
So, that’s my dilemma. For reference, the opinion version does have a contextualizing narrative in the beginning, but it’s roughly 1/3 of my essay as opposed to the entire thing. The “meat” of it is a retrospective opinion piece about a belief I was raised with and the impacts of said belief on a societal scale. My target/dream schools are a few LACs that emphasize strong writing capabilities, so I’m trying to go with what feels strongest instead of what feels safe.
Thank you in advance : ) and happy new year!