Expertise from Calvin, College Essay Guy coach
The short answer is yes. Yes, you can write about a failure or mistake in your college essay. The trick is in how much room you give it—and what you do with it.
Don’t make the whole essay about the mistake
In my experience, it doesn’t work to write your whole essay about a failure or mistake. Some students overemphasize the negative things about themselves—I think because they want to appear humble and show that they can make mistakes and don’t have it all figured out.
It’s okay to have notes of humility in your essay. But you don’t want the whole thing to focus on failures or mistakes.
If you’re going to include one, make sure you spend more time on what you learned from it—and, even more importantly, how you put that learning into action.
A structure that works
Here’s a shape you can borrow:
- I made this mistake, for these reasons.
- Through that mistake or failure, I learned X, Y, and Z.
- Then in this later situation, I applied that learning this way, which changed the outcome this way.
- And in this later situation, I applied that learning again—and ultimately learned this other thing.
Notice where most of the words go. Not on the mistake, but on what you did with what you learned.
Where students stop too early—and how to stand out
A lot of students will stop at “here’s what I learned from the mistake.” That’s the natural ending, and it’s where the essay starts to feel like every other reflection a reader has seen that day.
The way you can really stand out is by including clear, specific examples of applying the learning from the mistake. Show the reader the second and third time it came up, and what you did differently because of the first time.
That’s the part that turns a mistake into evidence of who you’re becoming. It also can showcase continued growth. Your learning didn’t stop after making the mistake, you continued to grow beyond that moment.
Your next step
Look at your draft and count: How many sentences are about the mistake itself, and how many are about what you did with the lesson afterward?
If the mistake is getting more airtime, flip the ratio by cutting a few lines describing the failure and adding a specific example of the learning in action.
Calvin, CEG’s Director of Coaching, is an ardent reader, writer, and all-around communicator with a deep love of stories. He has a dog, Seymour, whom he loves—in fact far more than Seymour loves him.
Top Values: Adaptability | Meaningful Work | Fun
