{"id":30309,"date":"2024-08-29T08:27:21","date_gmt":"2024-08-29T12:27:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/?p=30309"},"modified":"2024-08-29T08:29:35","modified_gmt":"2024-08-29T12:29:35","slug":"why-personalized-recommendations-matter-but-some-details-may-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/why-personalized-recommendations-matter-but-some-details-may-not\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Personalized Recommendations Matter but Some Details May Not"},"content":{"rendered":"

If your supervisor is writing your business school recommendation and you are having trouble ensuring that they are putting the proper thought and effort into it, you are not alone. Because of this asymmetry of power, junior employees can only do so much to compel their supervisor to commit the necessary time and write thoughtfully. So, before you designate your supervisor as a recommender, you must first determine how committed this person really is to helping you with your business school candidacy. In particular, your recommender needs to understand that using a single template to create identical letters for multiple business schools is not<\/em>\u00a0okay. Each letter must be personalized, and each MBA program\u2019s questions must be answered using specific examples.<\/p>\n

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If your recommender intends to simply write a single letter and force it to \u201cfit\u201d a school\u2019s questions or to attach a standard letter to the end of the school\u2019s recommendation form (for example, including it in the question \u201cIs there anything else you think the committee should know about the candidate?\u201d), then they could be doing you a disservice. By neglecting to put the proper time and effort into your letter, your recommender is sending a very clear message to the admissions committee: \u201cI don\u2019t really care about this candidate.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you cannot convince your recommender to write a personalized letter or to respond to your target school\u2019s individual questions using specific examples, look elsewhere. A well-written personalized letter from an interested party is always far better than a poorly written letter from your supervisor.<\/p>\n

In addition, although details are important in recommendation letters, remember that sometimes small points in MBA applications are really just that\u2014small points. We are often asked, \u201cShould this be a comma or a semicolon?\u201d and want to respond, \u201cPlease trust us that the admissions committee will not say, \u2018Oh, I would have accepted this applicant if they had used a comma here, but they chose a semicolon, so DING!\u2019\u201d That said, we are certainly not telling you to ignore the small things. Details matter\u2014the overall impression your application makes will depend in part on your attention to typos, font consistency, and grammar, for example\u2014but we encourage you to make smart and reasonable decisions and move on. You can be confident that your judgment on such topics will likely be sufficient.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If your supervisor is writing your business school recommendation and you are having trouble ensuring that they are putting the proper thought and effort into it, you are not alone. Because of this asymmetry of power, junior employees can only do so much to compel their supervisor to commit the necessary time and write thoughtfully. … Read More  <\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":35760,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[118],"tags":[470,99],"class_list":["post-30309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-application-tips","tag-lor","tag-recommendations"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhy Personalized Recommendations Matter<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If your supervisor is writing your business school recommendation and you are having trouble ensuring that they are putting the proper...\" \/>\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\/why-personalized-recommendations-matter-but-some-details-may-not\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Personalized Recommendations Matter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If your supervisor is writing your business school recommendation and you are having trouble ensuring that they are putting the proper...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/why-personalized-recommendations-matter-but-some-details-may-not\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-08-29T12:27:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-08-29T12:29:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Why-Personalized-Recommendations-Matter-but-Some-Details-May-Not.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"360\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Erika V\u00e4\u00e4t\u00e4inen\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Erika V\u00e4\u00e4t\u00e4inen\" \/>\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":"Why Personalized Recommendations Matter","description":"If your supervisor is writing your business school recommendation and you are having trouble ensuring that they are putting the proper...","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\/why-personalized-recommendations-matter-but-some-details-may-not\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Why Personalized Recommendations Matter","og_description":"If your supervisor is writing your business school recommendation and you are having trouble ensuring that they are putting the proper...","og_url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/why-personalized-recommendations-matter-but-some-details-may-not\/","og_site_name":"mbaMission - 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