If you are too embarrassed to admit that your career choice or project implementation failed, then take courage from the words of the some of the greatest achievers in the field of technology, arts, sciences, and politics.
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” - Winston Churchill
First of all MBA Admission Committee wants to learn whether you are a responsible and mature professional. A key characteristic of such a professional is the ability to recognize failure. Too often, the AdCom has read about applicants disguising success in various forms of failures. The only success that should come out of your failure or mistake essay is that you have learned from your mistakes. No matter how good you are at implementing a particular task, lack of coordination between the team members or a decision taken with limited information can hamper the achievement of the intended result.
“I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying” - Michael Jordan
As the all-time greatest Basketball player has echoed, the AdCom also believes that trying something that is outside your comfort zone or atypical of your profile is where the real risk taking lies. If you are a tech student, and you are trying to implement something that is creative, and different, and fails, it does not show that you are a failure. Remember F. Scott Fitzgerald words:
“Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat” - F. Scott Fitzgerald
The AdCom will not consider a single defeat in a task or project, as your failure as a competent MBA candidate.
“We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse.” - Rudyard Kipling
A Key attribute of a leader, which AdCom loves, is the ability to take personal responsibility of the project or task in hand. If you take responsibility of the failures, you will be respected and considered for candidacy in top schools. There are no extra credits for making excuses.
“The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.” - Henry Ford
An integral part of a mistake or failure essay is your ability to articulate what you have learned from your mistakes. Another important element of the essay is the proof that you have implemented something unique with the newly acquired knowledge.
About the Author
I am Atul Jose, Founding Consultant of F1GMAT, an MBA admissions consultancy that has worked with applicants since 2009.
For the past 15 years I have edited the application files of admits to the M7 programs: Harvard Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, the Wharton School, MIT Sloan, Chicago Booth, Kellogg School of Management, and Columbia Business School, together with admits to Berkeley Haas, Yale School of Management, NYU Stern, Michigan Ross, Duke Fuqua, Darden, Tuck, IMD, London Business School, INSEAD, SDA Bocconi, IESE Business School, HEC Paris, McCombs, and Tepper, plus other programs inside the global top 30.
My work covers the full MBA application deliverable: career planning and profile evaluation, application essay editing, recommendation letter editing, mock interviews and interview preparation, scholarship and fellowship essay editing, and cover letter editing for funding applications. Full bio with credentials and admit history is here.
I am the author of the Winning MBA Essay Guide, the best-selling essay guide covering M7 MBA programs. I have written and updated the guide annually since 2013, which makes the 2026 edition the thirteenth.
The reason I still write and edit essays every cycle: a good MBA essay carries a real applicant's voice. Writing essays for F1GMAT's Books and Editing essays weekly is how I stay calibrated to what current admissions committees respond to.
Contact me for school selection, career planning, essay strategy, narrative development, essay editing, interview preparation, scholarship essay editing, or guidance documents for recommendation letters.