{"id":2113,"date":"2010-09-07T10:40:01","date_gmt":"2010-09-07T16:40:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/?p=2113"},"modified":"2010-10-07T08:06:44","modified_gmt":"2010-10-07T14:06:44","slug":"admissions-myths-destroyed-my-weakness-is-that-i-am-awesome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/admissions-myths-destroyed-my-weakness-is-that-i-am-awesome\/","title":{"rendered":"Admissions Myths Destroyed: My Weakness Is that I Am Awesome!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Most business schools will ask your recommenders to describe a weakness of yours, or a time when they offered you constructive feedback. You may face great temptation to ask your recommenders to avoid writing anything critical or to present a \u201cdisguised strength\u201d as a weakness. So your recommender might write something like one of the following entirely disingenuous statements, believing that he\/she is helping you, when in fact he\/she is not:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cJohn needs to learn to balance his work and home life better&#8212;he is always at work, making sure that he stays on top of every detail.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cMary is a perfectionist and holds others, who just may not be capable, to the same high standard that she holds herself.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Alternatively, a recommender who is afraid of hurting your candidacy may write about a \u201cprofessional development\u201d weakness, focusing on a business skill that you have not yet had the opportunity to learn or develop, rather than describing an area in which you need to improve:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cRodney is an excellent communicator in small group settings; he has not, however, had the opportunity yet to give presentations to large groups, and I think doing so is the next important step in his career path.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cTo move to the next level, David needs to start sourcing his own deals, rather than just working on deals that others have found.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This may be shocking, but admissions officers understand that there is no such thing as a perfect employee\/MBA candidate and are skeptical of the sincerity of any recommender that presents you as such. Such falsely positive comments do nothing to help the admissions committee get to know you better and instead undermine the integrity of your recommender&#8217;s letter. Although you do not want your recommenders to present unprofessional traits (e.g. \u201cDenise is lazy\u201d), recommendation letters should involve honest, detailed reflection using a critical (not negative) eye. Remember, when it comes to recommendations, too much of a good thing can actually be a bad thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Most business schools will ask your recommenders to describe a weakness of yours, or a time when they offered you constructive feedback. You may face great temptation to ask your recommenders to avoid writing anything critical or to present a \u201cdisguised strength\u201d as a weakness. So your recommender might write something like one of the &hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/admissions-myths-destroyed-my-weakness-is-that-i-am-awesome\/\">Read&nbsp;More&nbsp;&nbsp;<i class=\"fal fa-sm fa-angle-right\"><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-admissions-myths-destroyed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Admissions Myths Destroyed: My Weakness Is that I Am Awesome! | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/admissions-myths-destroyed-my-weakness-is-that-i-am-awesome\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Admissions Myths Destroyed: My Weakness Is that I Am Awesome! | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Most business schools will ask your recommenders to describe a weakness of yours, or a time when they offered you constructive feedback. You may face great temptation to ask your recommenders to avoid writing anything critical or to present a \u201cdisguised strength\u201d as a weakness. So your recommender might write something like one of the &hellip; Read&nbsp;More&nbsp;&nbsp;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/admissions-myths-destroyed-my-weakness-is-that-i-am-awesome\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-09-07T16:40:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2010-10-07T14:06:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/mbam-yoast-fallback-image.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"675\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jeremy Shinewald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jeremy Shinewald\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Admissions Myths Destroyed: My Weakness Is that I Am Awesome! | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/admissions-myths-destroyed-my-weakness-is-that-i-am-awesome\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Admissions Myths Destroyed: My Weakness Is that I Am Awesome! | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","og_description":"Most business schools will ask your recommenders to describe a weakness of yours, or a time when they offered you constructive feedback. You may face great temptation to ask your recommenders to avoid writing anything critical or to present a \u201cdisguised strength\u201d as a weakness. So your recommender might write something like one of the &hellip; Read&nbsp;More&nbsp;&nbsp;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/admissions-myths-destroyed-my-weakness-is-that-i-am-awesome\/","og_site_name":"mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","article_published_time":"2010-09-07T16:40:01+00:00","article_modified_time":"2010-10-07T14:06:44+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":675,"url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/mbam-yoast-fallback-image.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Jeremy Shinewald","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jeremy Shinewald","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":["Article","BlogPosting"],"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/admissions-myths-destroyed-my-weakness-is-that-i-am-awesome\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/admissions-myths-destroyed-my-weakness-is-that-i-am-awesome\/"},"author":{"name":"Jeremy Shinewald","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/74216774a1761e746e2426c9c8171f5f"},"headline":"Admissions Myths Destroyed: My Weakness Is that I Am Awesome!","datePublished":"2010-09-07T16:40:01+00:00","dateModified":"2010-10-07T14:06:44+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/admissions-myths-destroyed-my-weakness-is-that-i-am-awesome\/"},"wordCount":345,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#organization"},"articleSection":["Admissions Myths Destroyed"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/admissions-myths-destroyed-my-weakness-is-that-i-am-awesome\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/admissions-myths-destroyed-my-weakness-is-that-i-am-awesome\/","url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/admissions-myths-destroyed-my-weakness-is-that-i-am-awesome\/","name":"Admissions Myths Destroyed: My Weakness Is that I Am Awesome! | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-09-07T16:40:01+00:00","dateModified":"2010-10-07T14:06:44+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/admissions-myths-destroyed-my-weakness-is-that-i-am-awesome\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/admissions-myths-destroyed-my-weakness-is-that-i-am-awesome\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/admissions-myths-destroyed-my-weakness-is-that-i-am-awesome\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Admissions Myths Destroyed: My Weakness Is that I Am Awesome!"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/","name":"mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","description":"World&#039;s Leading MBA Admissions Consulting Firm","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#organization","name":"mbaMission","url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/mbam-yoast-organization-logo.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/mbam-yoast-organization-logo.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"mbaMission"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/74216774a1761e746e2426c9c8171f5f","name":"Jeremy Shinewald","description":"In addition to being Founder and President of mbaMission, Jeremy Shinewald is a Darden MBA, published author, and the recipient of Poets&amp;Quants\u2019 Lifetime Achievement Award in MBA Admissions Consulting. With more than 20 years of experience and a background as a professional speechwriter, he combines deep industry insight and exceptional storytelling skills to help applicants create powerful, distinctive MBA applications.","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/who-we-are\/team\/jeremy-shinewald\/","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/jeremyshinewald\/"],"url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/author\/jeremy\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2113\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}