How to Answer The Common App Essay Prompt #2
How to Answer The Common App Essay Prompt #2:
The lessons we take from failure can be fundamental to later success. Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?
This is my favorite essay prompt.
I’m not saying it’s the easiest Common Application Essay prompt, but it’s a great one to showcase various aspects of your personality that are pretty enticing to admissions officers.
So, what do admissions officer want to see in an admissions essay, you ask?
Well, they want to see that you’re likeable. They also want to see that you’re resilient and gritty. Why? Because college is HARD, dude.
Really, college is difficult. Don’t get me wrong — college is super fun, but it will challenge you on many dimensions — academically and socially. Thus, showing that you’re mature and able to navigate and bounce back from challenges is extremely attractive in the eyes of an admissions officer.
You see, it’s no fun to read about someone who’s seemingly perfect. So, don’t portray yourself as such. Everyone who has amounted to anything has failed at some point.Stories about bouncing back from challenges and obstacles tend to make for a juicy story.
Alright, so, there are “good” failures and “bad” failures for this essay. Let’s unpack this a bit more.
How to Write About Failures for The Common Application Essay
A “bad” failure is an essay about failing something and that’s it. There’s no story about what you learned and how you bounced back from failure.
For instance, a “bad” failure is when you get a “D” on a test and that’s it. Or, maybe you flopped during soccer tryouts for your school’s team and you didn’t make varsity. Ok, so what?
A “good” failure for the college admissions essay is to write a time that you tried something, but it didn’t work out.
If I were you, I’d actually rephrase this question: “Describe a time you didn’t succeed or things didn’t go according to plan… and what did you learn from it?”
You see, a failure for this essay doesn’t have to be catastrophic. Focus more on the juicy problem and how you overcame the obstacle.
Is Showing Failure in The Common App Essay a Sign of Weakness?
A lot of students (and parents) shy away from this essay prompt because they’re worried about sounding “weak.”
Don’t worry about being vulnerable and sounding weak.
For an over-achieving student like you, I know it sounds like failure is a baaaad thing… but failure is just a part of life.
As J.K. Rowling said in her Harvard commencement speech:
It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all — in which case, you fail by default.
Actually, It takes a high level of maturity to talk about failure and the takeaways from the failure.
I live here in Silicon Valley. This is where a bunch of companies like Apple and Google started. The founders of these companies don’t shy away from talking about failure because it’s inevitable. Steve Jobs, who was once an iconic figure at Apple, had failed multiple times before Apple really took off.
So, don’t worry about sounding weak. Challenges and obstacles make good, memorable stories as long as you write about your learnings and takeaways from failure.
Are science fairs meaningful experiences “for college”?
Are science fairs meaningful experiences “for college”?
Almost weekly, students and parents jump through the doors of my college admissions coaching office with the same question: “I wanna be pre-med! So, do I have to participate in science fairs (and win) to get into a good college? And do I have to get my research published?”
To this, I say: what would be a meaningful experience for you?
Meaningful is a powerfully thought-provoking word that teenagers on the road to “getting into college” must consistently ask themselves.
Let’s be blunt: As a college admissions professional, I can easily pinpoint an applicant who is clearly doing initiatives, from journal publications to science fairs, simply to beef up their resume “for college.”
Where do I get this data point?
Most notably: their list of activities and college application essays.
When the time comes to actually write the college application essays, I’d ask these students:
- What inspired you to tackle this research problem?
- What’d you learn in the process of conducting this research?
- How’d you grow — as a person and as a student of science — from these experiences?
Very rarely do students have an answer with a layer of depth.
Depth and reflection are incredibly important. Why? Because you must convey what you’ve learned, and how you’ve grown from an experience in your college application essays (if you choose to write about your research, of course).
Students who approach research, science fairs, and journal publications with the end goal of winning in mind haven’t stepped back to think about the why’s behind their actions. Why is this research meaningful to me? Why is it meaningful to others? Because, after all, research at its core is to tackle tough problems with the hopes of translating solutions into real world applications.
I have the incredible opportunity to work with extremely motivated high school students — those who are admitted into coveted Ivy Leagues and top tier schools, from MIT to Stanford.
And you know what? Do they all do science fairs? No. Are they all published? Nope.
But they do have several themes in common, and I’ll give you one hint: They all take action on meaningful opportunities. They find meaningful experiences.
So the next time you find yourself asking this question, “Do I have to do X to get into a top college?” STOP. Instead, ask yourself: “Do I find this opportunity meaningful to me? Can this be a meaningful contribution to others?”
How to Revamp Your Draft into a Winning Admissions Essay (Part 2)
This is lesson 3.2 from the series, The Free Guide to Writing a Winning Admissions Essay.
To edit your own piece of writing, pretend that you’re no longer the writer. Pretend you’re a random person reading your essay for the very first time. A fresh pair of eyes will help you spot issues in your essay that you didn’t notice before.
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How to Pick the Perfect Story
This is lesson 1.3 from the series, The Free Guide to Writing a Winning Admissions Essay.
Alright, you’ve convinced me. I’ll tell you a secret.
When picking that perfect story, there’s a biiiiig mistake that students tend to make (more…)