How to write a winning scholarship essay - Gen Tanabe, Kelly Tanabe 2018

Learning from failure
12 essays that bombed

In this chapter:

■ 12 disastrous essays

■ “Where’s the Point”

■ “Attempted Tearjerker”

■ “Miss America”

■ “Behold! My Statistics”

■ “My Life as Seen on TV”

Learning from failure

History has shown that some of our greatest successes have been inspired by failure. Akio Morita’s automatic rice cooker was a huge failure and burned the rice it was supposed to boil. In desperation, Morita and a partner turned to building cheap tape recorders. From this single product came Sony Corp. Across the ocean a high school coach cut a young varsity football player. That athlete’s name was none other than Michael Jordan. The founder of the automobile industry, Henry Ford twice filed for bankruptcy before he finally stumbled onto the product that would launch his company, the Model T.

In keeping with history’s tradition we bring you 12 essays that failed.

These essays, however, provide an extremely important lesson: they help you learn what not to do. As you read each essay along with our comments you will understand why they fell short of the mark. While you are writing essays, keep the lessons from this chapter in mind. These essay writers lost the various competitions in which they entered, but at least in doing so they are helping you to avoid the same fate.