{"id":45444,"date":"2019-05-08T03:31:39","date_gmt":"2019-05-08T10:31:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/2019\/05\/business-school-application-failure-essays-series-part-ii-experienced-failure\/"},"modified":"2019-05-08T03:31:39","modified_gmt":"2019-05-08T10:31:39","slug":"business-school-application-failure-essays-series-part-ii-experienced-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/business-school-application-failure-essays-series-part-ii-experienced-failure\/","title":{"rendered":"Business School Application Failure Essays Series \u2013 Part II: Experienced Failure"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Failure<\/a><\/figure>\n

[Don’t forget to dig into Part I<\/a> of this series! Wahoo!]<\/p>\n

Dartmouth Tuck<\/a> used to ask applicants to \u201ctell us about a time you: received tough feedback, experienced failure, or disappointed yourself or others. How did you respond, and what did you learn about yourself as a result?\u201d<\/p>\n

The multi-part question is a lot to bite off, but the idea
\nbehind each of these sub-topics is the same: how do you handle failure? Do you
\ngive up, do you blame others, or do you take responsibility and improve? This
\ntopic is absolutely worth taking the time to think through, because it contains
\nbasically every version of the \u201cfailure story\u201d question all in one prompt. If this
\ntype of question doesn\u2019t come up on any of your application essays, it almost
\ncertainly WILL come up in the interview, and folks, this one is a biggie. <\/p>\n

Think of this as a drill you run in football practice. The exercise may seem like it has nothing to do with the game, but when you\u2019re at the season playoffs and you complete the game-winning pass you\u2019ll realize all that prep you did WAS relevant: you were building muscle memory. In this series, we\u2019ll break down this question and address each piece, building that muscle memory so that when you come across a \u201cfailure\u201d question either in an essay or in an interview, you can make like Tom Brady and bring home the ring. Here, we dig into Part II. <\/p>\n

PART II: Tell us about a time you\u2026experienced failure. <\/h3>\n

This is the quintessential failure essay. Just as in the first option<\/a>, the key here is to OWN it. Applicants who describe a failure while trying to avoid owning up to the mistake, weakness, or knowledge gap that LED to that failure are shooting themselves in the foot, while applicants who ADMIT to the failure and take responsibility are striking gold. <\/p>\n

First things first, you need to bring the reader into your
\nthought process, your mindset, your M.O. BEFORE you bombed. You were certain
\nthat XYZ steps were the way to go, you were positive you were on the right
\npath, and sure of success. Drop the reader into the story there, and only once
\nyou\u2019ve convinced us of that line of thinking can you begin to show us where it
\nall went sideways. Less than halfway into the essay we should have gone from
\n\u201ceverything\u2019s going swimmingly and I know exactly what I\u2019m doing,\u201d to \u201cthis is
\nan unmitigated disaster!\u201d <\/p>\n

The next step is the most vital aspect of this essay: As you
\ntell us how it all came tumbling down around you, make sure you identify where
\nand how YOU were at fault. This is that \u201cownership\u201d piece, and shows the adcom
\nthat you can honestly self-reflect\u2014the key to being able to improve and grow.
\nThis is difficult for two reasons. Firstly, you need to be confident enough to
\nbe completely vulnerable. As we often discuss, this is simply a matter of
\nknowing that admitting to failure and weakness will actually STRENGTHEN your
\napp, while trying to hide it or justify it will WEAKEN it. <\/p>\n

\n

Recommended Reading: <\/strong>How to Nail the MBA “Impact Essays”<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\n

The second reason this can be difficult is much more
\npractical: sometimes it is simply difficult to know why exactly things went
\nwrong. This is where a little reflection will go a long way, and taking the
\ntime to do this NOW, before you write this essay or hear this question in an
\ninterview, will serve you well. The key to figuring this out is to \u201cun-know\u201d
\nwhat you learned as a result of this failure; take yourself back to the
\ndecision or set of decisions that led to your failure and remind yourself of
\nwhat you DIDN\u2019T know back then. This would be like showing us charts and graphs
\nfrom just before the 2008 crisis and selling us on the idea that NOTHING was
\nwrong, and there\u2019s absolutely no way that a housing bubble is imminent. <\/p>\n

Once you\u2019ve convinced yourself (and us) of this logic, go back in time again, but this time bring the sports almanac with you. Suddenly, you\u2019ll see all the ways in which you were dead wrong. You\u2019ll end up with as clear a sense of what caused the failure, and how you were responsible, as you could hope for. This should help clarify what you LEARNED as a result of that failure, and how you grew from it. And that, folks, is the key to the failure essay in a nutshell.<\/p>\n

Truly successful people have learned to think this way
\nreflexively. The really successful CEOs, game-changers, and badass innovators
\nhave learned that rather than erase the stain of their previous misguided
\nthinking, they need to remember EXACTLY how and why they shanked it the first
\n(or first hundred) times. That\u2019s the kind of thought process you should emulate
\nin this essay. <\/p>\n

===<\/p>\n

***NEW Admissionado Products & Services for MBA\/Masters!<\/a>***Now, read up and get smart:<\/p>\n