{"id":21385,"date":"2016-06-27T10:00:02","date_gmt":"2016-06-27T14:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/?p=21385"},"modified":"2022-07-25T02:45:36","modified_gmt":"2022-07-25T06:45:36","slug":"monday-morning-essay-tip-personal-but-not-too-personal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-personal-but-not-too-personal\/","title":{"rendered":"Monday Morning Essay Tip: Personal, but Not Too Personal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-make-it-personal\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Last week\u2019s essay tip<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0focused on\u00a0how important thoroughly exploring and accessing your personal stories is when writing your business school application essays. Of course, having too much of a good thing is always a risk as well\u2014admissions committees can be put off by candidates who go too far and become<em>\u00a0too<\/em>\u00a0personal.<\/p>\n<p>Some stories are particularly challenging for admissions committees. For example, we strongly discourage candidates from writing about divorce as a moment of failure. If an individual were to take responsibility in an essay for a failed marriage, he\/she would likely end up revealing intensely personal issues, rather than portraying him-\/herself as having learned from a constructive professional or personal challenge.<\/p>\n<p>Always keep in mind that in many ways, the admissions committee is meeting you for the first time via your application. So, a simple way to judge whether you are being too personal in your materials is to ask yourself, \u201cWould I be uncomfortable if, immediately upon meeting someone, he\/she were to share this sort of information with me?\u201d If your answer is \u201cyes,\u201d you should most likely consider changing your topic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week\u2019s essay tip\u00a0focused on\u00a0how important thoroughly exploring and accessing your personal stories is when writing your business school application essays. Of course, having too much of a good thing is always a risk as well\u2014admissions committees can be put off by candidates who go too far and become\u00a0too\u00a0personal. Some stories are particularly challenging for &hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-personal-but-not-too-personal\/\">Read&nbsp;More&nbsp;&nbsp;<i class=\"fal fa-sm fa-angle-right\"><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-application-tips"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Monday Morning Essay Tip: Personal, but Not Too Personal | 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\/monday-morning-essay-tip-personal-but-not-too-personal\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Monday Morning Essay Tip: Personal, but Not Too Personal | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Last week\u2019s essay tip\u00a0focused on\u00a0how important thoroughly exploring and accessing your personal stories is when writing your business school application essays. Of course, having too much of a good thing is always a risk as well\u2014admissions committees can be put off by candidates who go too far and become\u00a0too\u00a0personal. 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Of course, having too much of a good thing is always a risk as well\u2014admissions committees can be put off by candidates who go too far and become\u00a0too\u00a0personal. Some stories are particularly challenging for &hellip; Read&nbsp;More&nbsp;&nbsp;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-personal-but-not-too-personal\/","og_site_name":"mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","article_published_time":"2016-06-27T14:00:02+00:00","article_modified_time":"2022-07-25T06:45:36+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":"Erika V\u00e4\u00e4t\u00e4inen","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Erika V\u00e4\u00e4t\u00e4inen","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":["Article","BlogPosting"],"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-personal-but-not-too-personal\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-personal-but-not-too-personal\/"},"author":{"name":"Erika V\u00e4\u00e4t\u00e4inen","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/8239bb74f0e5086e58417043b2ff94c6"},"headline":"Monday Morning Essay Tip: Personal, but Not Too Personal","datePublished":"2016-06-27T14:00:02+00:00","dateModified":"2022-07-25T06:45:36+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-personal-but-not-too-personal\/"},"wordCount":199,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#organization"},"articleSection":["Application Tips"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-personal-but-not-too-personal\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-personal-but-not-too-personal\/","url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-personal-but-not-too-personal\/","name":"Monday Morning Essay Tip: Personal, but Not Too Personal | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2016-06-27T14:00:02+00:00","dateModified":"2022-07-25T06:45:36+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-personal-but-not-too-personal\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-personal-but-not-too-personal\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-personal-but-not-too-personal\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Monday Morning Essay Tip: Personal, but Not Too Personal"}]},{"@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\/8239bb74f0e5086e58417043b2ff94c6","name":"Erika V\u00e4\u00e4t\u00e4inen","description":"Erika V\u00e4\u00e4t\u00e4inen has been mbaMission\u2019s Writer\/Researcher since 2015. She is in charge of updating and revamping most of our publication materials, ranging from the extensive Insider\u2019s Guides series, the Interview Guides, and the International Program Guides to our shorter publications, including the HBS 2+2 and Deferred Admissions Guide and numerous blog posts.","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/who-we-are\/team\/erika-vaatainen\/","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/erikavaatainen\/"],"url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/author\/erika\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21385","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\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21385\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}