Each year, the Common Application asks students to address one of several prompts around which to build their college essay. In this article, we will examine the prompt that focuses on the subject we all wish we could avoid—but cannot: FAILURE. Writing about failure can be difficult, but it also can make for an excellent college essay. Read on to learn how you can turn a failure into a successful college essay.
So, here’s how the “writing about failure” prompt reads:
The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?
Below we will review all the key words of this prompt, and give some tips about how to address this prompt of writing about failure.
Recount a Time
First, you are being asked for a specific event in time in which you encountered some sort of obstacle. Thus you will tell a story to your reader in which you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. This story should be a very succinct one, but it should have a beginning, middle, and an end. You also want to give enough detail that your reader can follow the narrative, but not so long that you get boring—or worse, go over the word count limit. But bear in mind that the story is merely the entry point to the heart of the essay: your “reflection” on this failure.
Also keep in mind that the “failure” at the heart of this essay does not have to be a big, embarrassing, terrible event. In some cases, a failure might be one that is otherwise invisible to other people. It could be an incident in which you failed to live up to your own moral standards. Thus the magnitude of the setback or challenges is not what is important; rather it is how you responded to these obstacles is what will be at the heart of your essay.
Bombing a math test is not the best topic when sriting A college essay about failure
However, one set of failures is unlikely to be good stories at the center of this essay: a failure in a class or on a test in high school. While you are applying to college–where academic credentials are central to the application–it’s rare that an essay about the time you failed a math test or did poorly on a paper is going to be a great topic. While we “never say never,” consider other sorts of failures before you decide to write about an academic failure at school. Most of these sorts of essays come off as trite and mundane, and really don’t tell us much more than “I learned my lesson and ever since I study harder and now I get much better grades.” Think about failures or obstacles or
How did this experience affect you?
What was the impact of this failure? How did it make others see you? How did you see yourself after this incident? Be reflective. Examine your emotions. Did it make you angry, embarrassed, disappointed, secretly thrilled, or downright sad? What was the immediate impact of your failure? This is perhaps the hardest part of answering this prompt: you have to go into that mess of feelings that you’ve tried to put behind you. But the admissions office is asking you to share, so share you must.
What did you learn?
This seems obvious, but these lessons can be hard to articulate. So begin with a list: how many things can you pinpoint that you learned from this mistake? Think about how you can learn things at different times, too. Sometimes we learn things from failure immediately. Other lessons take longer to sink in. Again, you have to be analytical. I recommend that you come up with three solid lessons for this essay.
Writing a college essay about failure: Summary
Writing about failure can be difficult. And when writing about failure, the fear is that the essay will come off as too negative, too self-critical. The ultimate direction of this essay should be positive and optimistic. You should not worry too much about the nature of the mistake: we’ve all made them, and admissions officers, frankly, have seen them all. The point of this is to allow you to demonstrate your maturity, your humility, and your ability to turn a bad experience into a good one.
So in order to really turn this negative experience into a positive one, you really do have to dig into the ways in which this challenge or obstacle affected you. And if you can carefully and thoroughly present the ways in which you have learned from this failure, you will be on the road to writing an amazing college essay that will convince readers that you are just the sort of human being that belongs on their campus.
Need help writing a college essay about failure?
The team of expert college counselors at Great College Advice have helped thousands of students write excellent college essays on every Common Application prompt. We can help you brainstorm topics, structure your prose, hone your messages, and edit the essay to perfection.
If you’d like more information about our college essay services or our comprehensive college advising packages, please contact us. Or just give us a call. We would be happy to chat with you.
VIEW THE COMPLETE SERIES OF POSTS ANALYZING THE COMMON APPLICATION PROMPTS
Writing About A Belief or Idea
Writing About A Place or Environment
Writing About the Transition to Adulthood
Writing About Your Background Story
