{"id":3850,"date":"2010-11-02T08:18:33","date_gmt":"2010-11-02T12:18:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/?p=3850"},"modified":"2022-01-27T11:52:25","modified_gmt":"2022-01-27T16:52:25","slug":"mission-admission-not-a-standard-recommendation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-not-a-standard-recommendation\/","title":{"rendered":"Mission Admission: Not a Standard Recommendation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Mission Admission is a series of MBA admission tips; a new one is posted each Tuesday.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>If you are having trouble negotiating with your supervisor to ensure  that he\/she is putting the proper thought and effort into your  application, you are not alone. Because of this asymmetry of power,  a junior employee can only do so much to compel his\/her  supervisor to sit down and write thoughtfully. So, before you designate your supervisor as a recommender, you must first understand  his\/her level of commitment to helping you with your candidacy. In particular, your  recommender needs to understand that he\/she cannot create a single template and  must personalize each letter and answer each MBA  program&#8217;s questions using specific examples.<\/p>\n<p>If your recommender intends to simply write a single letter and force it to \u201cfit\u201d the school&#8217;s questions, or if he\/she plans 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 that  you think the committee should know about the candidate?\u201d), then your  recommender is not helping you&#8212;in fact, he\/she is hurting you!\u00a0 By neglecting  to put the necessary time and effort into your recommendation, your recommender  is sending a very clear message to the admissions committee: \u201cI don\u2019t  really care about this candidate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If you cannot convince your recommender to write a personalized  letter or to respond to your target school&#8217;s individual questions using specific examples, you will need to 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","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mission Admission is a series of MBA admission tips; a new one is posted each Tuesday. If you are having trouble negotiating with your supervisor to ensure that he\/she is putting the proper thought and effort into your application, you are not alone. Because of this asymmetry of power, a junior employee can only do &hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-not-a-standard-recommendation\/\">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":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mission-admission"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Mission Admission: Not a Standard Recommendation | 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\/mission-admission-not-a-standard-recommendation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mission Admission: Not a Standard Recommendation | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Mission Admission is a series of MBA admission tips; a new one is posted each Tuesday. If you are having trouble negotiating with your supervisor to ensure that he\/she is putting the proper thought and effort into your application, you are not alone. Because of this asymmetry of power, a junior employee can only do &hellip; Read&nbsp;More&nbsp;&nbsp;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-not-a-standard-recommendation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-11-02T12:18:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-01-27T16:52:25+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=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Mission Admission: Not a Standard Recommendation | 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\/mission-admission-not-a-standard-recommendation\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Mission Admission: Not a Standard Recommendation | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","og_description":"Mission Admission is a series of MBA admission tips; a new one is posted each Tuesday. If you are having trouble negotiating with your supervisor to ensure that he\/she is putting the proper thought and effort into your application, you are not alone. Because of this asymmetry of power, a junior employee can only do &hellip; Read&nbsp;More&nbsp;&nbsp;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-not-a-standard-recommendation\/","og_site_name":"mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","article_published_time":"2010-11-02T12:18:33+00:00","article_modified_time":"2022-01-27T16:52:25+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":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":["Article","BlogPosting"],"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-not-a-standard-recommendation\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-not-a-standard-recommendation\/"},"author":{"name":"Jeremy Shinewald","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/74216774a1761e746e2426c9c8171f5f"},"headline":"Mission Admission: Not a Standard Recommendation","datePublished":"2010-11-02T12:18:33+00:00","dateModified":"2022-01-27T16:52:25+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-not-a-standard-recommendation\/"},"wordCount":284,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#organization"},"articleSection":["Mission Admission"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-not-a-standard-recommendation\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-not-a-standard-recommendation\/","url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-not-a-standard-recommendation\/","name":"Mission Admission: Not a Standard Recommendation | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-11-02T12:18:33+00:00","dateModified":"2022-01-27T16:52:25+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-not-a-standard-recommendation\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-not-a-standard-recommendation\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-not-a-standard-recommendation\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Mission Admission: Not a Standard Recommendation"}]},{"@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. 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