Failure Secondary Essay

[babykarat]

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I am considering 2 ideas for "describe a time you failed" secondary essays, and would appreciate your thoughts on which would be more interesting!

1) Applied for a bunch of research fellowships, but my scientific writing was far too dense and I ignored advice from my reviewers. The experience taught me to value peer feedback, write for a target audience rather than myself, and persevere through failure. I took these lessons to heart, refined my writing, and eventually earned a fellowship.

2) An especially difficult research project where I made essentially no progress for a year, but through various modifications to my protocols I finally got informative results (I already described this in my "significant research experience" essay for AMCAS though)

My struggles with #1 and #2 actually happened at the same time, so could I work them both in?

 

[helpmeout441]

1 makes you sound super pretentious and full of yourself. 2 is the safer option. Try to think of new ways to approach it or new problems you faced that you didn't put int he significant research experience essay

 

[907914]

2>1 - but do you have a better failure?

 

[deleted972488]

1 makes you sound super pretentious and full of yourself. 2 is the safer option. Try to think of new ways to approach it or new problems you faced that you didn't put int he significant research experience essay

Hmm... yikes. I used something similar to #1... I think it shows perseverance despite setbacks.

 

[babykarat]

I think it could come off poorly if you frame it like I did briefly. It is not as if I put ear plugs in and ignored everyone; rather, I thought my writing was good, my readers suggested significant edits, but I only made small ones. If you frame it as a failure you actually grew from I don't see how it could make Current Day Me look bad

 

[deleted972488]

I think it could come off poorly if you frame it like I did briefly. It is not as if I put ear plugs in and ignored everyone; rather, I thought my writing was good, my readers suggested significant edits, but I only made small ones. If you frame it as a failure you actually grew from I don't see how it could make Current Day Me look bad

Or you could leave the part out about you ignoring advice... I guess that’s what makes our experiences different. Just say you kept trying and trying until you succeeded.

 

[Moko]

I'll go against the grain here and say that #1 can work as it does show significant growth and receptiveness to feedback. I also appreciate that you described an actual failure, and not a strength masquerading as one ("I care too much"). However, I also agree with others here that you should not inadvertently portray yourself in a bad light by suggesting that you outright ignored suggestions by mentors.

As part of the brainstorming process, I would challenge you to think of situations outside of academics when you failed as well. I would avoid talking about #2 if you have already addressed the exact same scenarios in your primary application.

 

[deleted688779]

I would avoid talking about #2 if you have already addressed the exact same scenarios in your primary application.

Would your advice be the same if I only briefly mentioned it in primaries and then further elaborated the situation in the "failure" prompt? Or still a bad idea?

 

[Moko]

Would your advice be the same if I only briefly mentioned it in primaries and then further elaborated the situation in the "failure" prompt? Or still a bad idea?

That's different. As long as it's actually adding something new then it's fine. But it shouldn't simply be a rewording