Hey there.
It's Dr. Bernstein.
Welcome to the second video in the series on understanding the new Common App question
that asks you to "recount an incident or time when you experienced failure" and to describe
how it affected you and the lessons that you learned from it?
In the first video, I gave you the inside scoop on why colleges want to know how potential
students handle situations that involve failure.
Now I'm going to help you understand what you shouldn't write about and what a lot of
your peers are likely to write about (and how you need to position yourself in a way
that stands out).
So stay tuned.
Okay.
Let's get right into two things you should avoid if you choose this essay option:
#1 Don't write about an experience with failure that didn't meaningfully change the way you
think and/or act.
The structure of the question reveals that you need to have a compelling narrative about
how this experience affected you and what lessons you've learned from it.
#2 You also want to avoid any excuse making in your essay.
This is the kind of essay where you have to demonstrate your ability to take responsibility
for things that didn't go as planned and show how this experience changed you in some way.
Now, I've got to call your attention to something both obvious and important.
If you're writing the essay on failure, you need to realize that there are some very common
failures that lots of students are likely to be writing about.
Failing a test, getting a bad grade in a course, losing a game. . .these are just a few of
these common failures.
Does this mean you shouldn't write about these types of failures?
No.
Not at all.
It's perfectly fine to write about them, though you should keep in mind that there are many
other types of failure and perspectives that you could explore.
For now, though, we're just focusing on the common "failures" that high school students
experience.
If you've had an experience of failure in one of these areas that feels significant
to you--you have to find a way to stand out from the crowd.
Right?
You don't want your essay to sound like all the ones other people are writing about this
type of failure.
You have to use the essay as a chance to help admissions officers get to know you and what
makes you tick and what makes you different.
. .in a good way.
Standing out doesn't involve gimmicks or anything like that.
You need to do a few key things in order to stand out:
1.
Describe your failure in a compelling way that grabs the attention of the reader.
This is where your writing ability comes into play.
You've got to set the scene for the admissions officer, and you have to find just the right
angle and scope for your description.
You don't want to go and on about the failure, but you can't just gloss over it.
You also have to figure out where it belongs in your essay--right at the beginning?
After an opening paragraph?
2.
You need to help admissions officers understand your process of responding to and handling
the failure and how you've grown from the experience.
If you choose to write about failing a test and your big lesson is that you realized you
need to set aside more time to study, this essay isn't going to set you apart from all
the other applicants because basically anyone could write this essay.
You have to do something different--share information and
perspectives that other applicants couldn't.
So, in this case, you might want to share how you used to approach studying and why
you approached this way--even if you didn't have very good reasons for it.
Let's say you were a procrastinator and left studying to
the last minute.
Then, you'd describe how and why this particular failure was a
turning point
for you, what you learned from the experience, and how and why you've changed since then.
It's the details that
are going to make you stand out.
Of course, there are other types of failure that you might not have thought about yet.
If you want to gain access to far more detailed approaches to creating an essay about failure,
learn how to actually write a great college application essay, and gain access to eye-opening
case studies that guide you through the process?
Get access to my online Get Yourself Into College program.