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Mission Admission is a series of MBA admission tips; a new one is posted each Tuesday.

“I am self-employed.”

“I am a vice-president in my family’s business.”

“I am a freelancer.”

“I am a contract consultant.”

If you can describe your professional situation using any of these statements—or something very similar—you may very well be thinking (and worrying), “I have no supervisor! Who is going to write my recommendations?!”

Before we address this problem, let us first remind you that MBA admissions committees have indeed seen it all. Your situation is most likely not unique, so you do not need to fret. Let us consider the example of the family-business vice-president and add a detail—that the family business is in manufacturing. This hypothetical MBA candidate could contact one of the company’s long-standing clients or suppliers, who may be able to write about the applicant’s integrity, growth, sense of humor, determination and more, all in relation to other comparable individuals.

If these constituents were not able to offer adequate feedback, however, the MBA candidate might instead ask the head of a trade association or possibly even a respected competitor to write on his/her behalf. If the applicant really needed to get creative, he/she might even consider asking a service provider; for example, getting a letter of reference from an architectural firm that collaborated with the candidate to build a new manufacturing facility could be an interesting solution.

In short, most MBA candidates have more potential recommenders to choose among than they realize. Keep looking and try not to get discouraged—someone out there knows you well and can write objectively on your behalf.

In the past, we have advised MBA candidates to exercise caution in choosing to write the optional essay. (See our Monday Morning Essay Tip: The Optional Mistake.) Our philosophy has not changed on this point, but we do want to make MBA candidates aware of certain circumstances, other than discussing a problem area, that may necessitate writing an optional essay.

For example, if you have achieved something absolutely extraordinary that is relevant to your candidacy—something that truly strikes at the essence of who you are—but that will simply not fit as an answer to any of the school’s essay questions, then you should consider writing the optional essay to illuminate the experience and its importance to you. We would advise a candidate to make this exception only in the most unique of circumstances and remind applicants that they should still be quite conservative in their use of this space. Again, this is not the place for a 500-word “extra” essay, but a few sentences illustrating the extraordinary experience and its significance would be appropriate. Such an experience should be able to stand on its own, so you do not need to belabor the point and agitate the admissions committee with a long essay detailing a variety of themes and accomplishments.

In our “What I Learned at…” series, MBAs discuss the tools and skills their business schools provided as they launched their careers.

Sandra Persing is the founder and farmer of Persing Woods LLC, a holistic wellness company that includes a working goat farm and apiary and that provides business development support for local farmers and other wellness professionals. Sandra believes that wellness is fundamental in living a good life. In this four-part series, Sandra reflects on how her business acumen and MBA education from the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University helped her turn this belief into a solution that future MBAs can  embrace as part of their own life journey.

After working in the publishing industry for five years and reaching the position of international sales manager, I found myself at a crucial point in my professional development. I needed something to get more out of my life, and investing in myself seemed like a good bet. If I were to go back to school, I wanted to return to the work force with a solid degree that confirmed my ability to read a P&L (profit and loss statement) and create solid strategic plans. Earning an MBA seemed like the most logical path for someone like me. I was sure of advancing my skills, but I wasn’t sure in what capacity, or even in what industry.

After completing my first year at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, I realized that a business degree is not just a means to climb the corporate ladder. The beauty of such a flexible educational experience is that it opens doors to many possibilities, including nontraditional options like farming! I, like many MBA candidates, started my program with the goal of improving my financial and management skills. Investment banking seemed like a great option to recoup my investment with a positive return. So did a sales and marketing position with a top-ten consumer packaged goods company. I could have also returned to my former employer in publishing, as a more valuable contributor. The possibilities seemed endless, and at the same time, limiting.

The opportunities seemed limiting because, at the end of the day, the work was essentially the same. Analyze data, churn out reports in one Microsoft Office document or another, present PowerPoint slides to mid-level managers and do it again the next quarter, hopefully with the graph moving in the general northeasterly direction. At one point, after going through a few informational interviews—a standard procedure during the first year—I didn’t feel as though I fit into this mold. I began considering the possibility of trying something else. It wasn’t easy to leave the close-knit community of the MBA crowd, but I began attempting to break away from the group and step into a new direction—by myself. I looked inward, evaluated my resources and decided that I should at least go exploring.

I was surprised to learn that one of Cornell’s best assets is that there are so many resources packed into one expansive campus, and there is actually a drive toward entrepreneurism within the Johnson community that runs beneath the surface of the search for traditional jobs.  For example, the Entrepreneurs In-Residence at the school coach and mentor students wishing to strike out on their own. The entrepreneurship courses Cornell offers are usually oversubscribed, attracting both curious and serious students. Entrepreneurship@Cornell hosts an annual weekend-long symposium to celebrate entrepreneurship, and this is open to the entire university. The Cornell Center for Technology Enterprise and Commercialization is a tech-focused research center that fosters collaboration with the business school to launch R&D into real businesses. The resources and support were obviously available, but it was challenging for me personally to break away from the herd and integrate into this entrepreneurial community.

When it comes to the GMAT, raw intellectual horsepower helps, but it is not everything. In this weekly blog series, Manhattan GMAT’s Stacey Koprince teaches you how to perform at your best on test day by using some common sense.

We have been hearing from admissions officers for quite some time now that they will not be using Integrated Reasoning (IR) scores much, if at all, this first year—but these comments have always been off the record or made during private conversations. Well, Stanford has now gone on the record on its own blog.

Allison Davis, associate director of MBA admissions at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business (GSB), affirms that, during this admission’s season, the school “will focus on the verbal, quantitative, AWA [analytical writing assignment], and total scores.” She goes on to state explicitly that the school will use this first year to study the IR scores so that it can “determine how to evaluate them in our process for next year.” Nor does the GSB care whether you have taken the old or new version of the GMAT—the old version is still perfectly valid and will not in any way detract from your chances for admission.

Further, Ms. Davis says that the GSB does not “play favorites” with respect to the GMAT and the GRE; the school accepts both exams equally, apparently. (I have heard admissions directors from other schools say that they discount the GRE quant scores a bit because they feel GMAT quant is harder.)

In a nutshell: Stanford has confirmed publicly that it will not be evaluating IR scores as part of this year’s admission process. I would expect other schools to follow suit.

Note also that Stanford has said that it will be using the data from this first year to figure out how to bring IR into the admissions process starting next year—so if you are taking the GMAT now but might want to use the score next year (or later), then you do have to think a bit more carefully about IR. My guess is that there will continue to be a bit of leeway next year as well, but the IR score will be a factor.

Longer term, assuming that GMAC has done its job (and I see no reason to think that it will have failed), the IR score will eventually become an important part of the admissions process, possibly on par with quant and verbal scores.

“The semester I spent in France during high school was a unique experience.”

“I want to attend Columbia Business School because of its unique Entrepreneurial Club.”

“The opportunity to do hands-on consulting at Ross is unique.”

“My finance background and strong interpersonal skills will allow me to make a unique contribution to Cornell’s Investment Management Club.”

One of mbaMission’s consultants recently counted five uses of the word “unique” in a single 600-word essay.  What is more, not one of the uses actually fulfilled the term’s correct definition: “existing as the only one or as the sole example.” Applicants tend to use the word “unique” as a way of trying to make themselves stand out to the admissions committee. However, because they use the word imprecisely—and often too frequently—it instead has the opposite effect of making the essay lose its distinctiveness and believability. Another danger of using the term too casually is that you risk exposing your lack of research about the school if you claim something is unique to the school when it really is not.

Here are the same four statements written without the generic “unique.” In each case, the sentence is far more descriptive and therefore much less likely to appear in any other applicant’s essay!

“The semester I spent in France during high school was eye-opening, from the frogs’ legs I was served at dinner to the concept of shopping daily for my food.”

“I want to attend Columbia Business School because its Entrepreneurial Club offers an incredible range of activities that will prepare me to better run my own company.”

“The opportunity to do hands-on consulting at Ross will complement the theoretical background I will gain by taking classes on consulting.”

“My finance background and strong interpersonal skills will ensure that I will effectively coach and mentor classmates new to finance through Cornell’s Investment Management Club’s mentorship program.”