<p>I am thinking about writing my essay on "Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what lessons did you learn?" but I'm afraid that colleges would view my "failure" as something weak like getting a B on a report card or losing a sports game.
So for those of you who chose this topic last year (or going to choose this topic and want to share although I don't think it's good idea to post here if you are going to apply this coming year), can you share what kind of failure you wrote about?</p>
<p>I decided to go a little bit quirky with this: I am a germaphobe, and one time, my mom asked me to fix our vacuum, which was absolutely disgusting. I, of course, failed to fix it. In general, it was a humorous essay, but I ended up connecting it to risk-taking, challenging my own beliefs, etc. I got some personalised notes from adcoms on acceptance letters mentioning how much my essay helped me.</p>
<p>I wrote mine about why I got a C+ in physics my junior year. There were teacher issues, but I also ignored my own problems and “stuck my head in the sand”. I was careful not to whine and make it seem like I thought it was the teachers fault completely (the I did give the entire backstory about what happened though which was also included in my GC rec, so they knew I didn’t make it up). I talked about how I learned the importance of advocating for myself and getting help when I need it. I bought additional textbooks and even went as high up as the principal on the issues with the teacher. I got a personal response on one of my acceptance letters that they enjoyed reading about me learning to advocate for myself, so I think it was a good topic!</p>