{"id":469,"date":"2009-04-27T08:00:08","date_gmt":"2009-04-27T14:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/2008\/04\/21\/monday-morning-essay-tip-bringing-focus-to-professional-needs\/"},"modified":"2022-07-25T02:32:28","modified_gmt":"2022-07-25T06:32:28","slug":"monday-morning-essay-tip-bringing-focus-to-professional-needs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-bringing-focus-to-professional-needs\/","title":{"rendered":"Monday Morning Essay Tip: Bringing Focus to Professional Needs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In previous essay tips, we advised candidates\u2014with respect to their personal statements\u2014to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-contextualizing-academic-objectives\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong><span style=\"color: #db2128;\">contextualize their academic objectives<\/span><\/strong><\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-ensuring-that-your-personal-essays-are-truly-personal\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong><span style=\"color: #db2128;\">ensure that their essays are truly personal<\/span><\/strong><\/a>; an additional concept to consider is bringing focus to your professional needs. We at mbaMission have found that many candidates attempt to cover all of their reasons for targeting a specific MBA program and ironically, as a result, make a weak argument.<\/p>\n<p>Example 1:<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>As an aspiring entrepreneur, I need Professor John Smith\u2019s Fundamentals of Finance course. I also need skills in marketing and will take Small Business Marketing and Internet Marketing. I will need to supervise the operations at my firm and look forward to the Operations Challenge. My leadership skills will be tested, but I will have access to the XYZ Leadership Center. Finally, I will look to the Strategy Seminar series to round out my management skills<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>We can identify a variety of problems with the paragraph above, but the most pressing is that it is simply a list of reasons to attend an unspecified MBA program and not a thorough discussion of how this particular MBA program meets the candidate\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n<p>This candidate would be better off focusing his\/her argument on just two or three crucial elements (depending on the length of the essay) and exploring them in depth (most likely via a dedicated paragraph per item). In the following example, we will assume that the candidate is applying to Columbia Business School and that his\/her primary academic need is in entrepreneurship:<\/p>\n<p>Example 2:<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>As an aspiring entrepreneur, I find Columbia\u2019s academic offerings in this field\u2014particularly, Introduction to Venturing and Launching New Ventures\u2014very attractive, but I am truly compelled by the experiential opportunities provided by the Lang Center. I would aspire to join the Entrepreneurial Greenhouse, a crucial opportunity for me to nurture and grow my idea during its most vulnerable stages, and I would complement this experience by taking advantage of the constructive feedback of experienced entrepreneurs via the Entrepreneurial Sounding Board. Only with this combination of\u2026<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the first example, we have a chaotic argument that moves in many different directions. In the second, the reader focuses on a main concept and is thus far more persuasive and able to connect with the reader.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In previous essay tips, we advised candidates\u2014with respect to their personal statements\u2014to contextualize their academic objectives and ensure that their essays are truly personal; an additional concept to consider is bringing focus to your professional needs. We at mbaMission have found that many candidates attempt to cover all of their reasons for targeting a specific &hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-bringing-focus-to-professional-needs\/\">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":[118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-469","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: Bringing Focus to Professional Needs | 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-bringing-focus-to-professional-needs\/\" \/>\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: Bringing Focus to Professional Needs | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In previous essay tips, we advised candidates\u2014with respect to their personal statements\u2014to contextualize their academic objectives and ensure that their essays are truly personal; an additional concept to consider is bringing focus to your professional needs. We at mbaMission have found that many candidates attempt to cover all of their reasons for targeting a specific &hellip; Read&nbsp;More&nbsp;&nbsp;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-bringing-focus-to-professional-needs\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-04-27T14:00:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-07-25T06:32:28+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":"Monday Morning Essay Tip: Bringing Focus to Professional Needs | 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\/monday-morning-essay-tip-bringing-focus-to-professional-needs\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Monday Morning Essay Tip: Bringing Focus to Professional Needs | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","og_description":"In previous essay tips, we advised candidates\u2014with respect to their personal statements\u2014to contextualize their academic objectives and ensure that their essays are truly personal; an additional concept to consider is bringing focus to your professional needs. We at mbaMission have found that many candidates attempt to cover all of their reasons for targeting a specific &hellip; Read&nbsp;More&nbsp;&nbsp;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-bringing-focus-to-professional-needs\/","og_site_name":"mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","article_published_time":"2009-04-27T14:00:08+00:00","article_modified_time":"2022-07-25T06:32:28+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\/monday-morning-essay-tip-bringing-focus-to-professional-needs\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-bringing-focus-to-professional-needs\/"},"author":{"name":"Jeremy Shinewald","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/74216774a1761e746e2426c9c8171f5f"},"headline":"Monday Morning Essay Tip: Bringing Focus to Professional Needs","datePublished":"2009-04-27T14:00:08+00:00","dateModified":"2022-07-25T06:32:28+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-bringing-focus-to-professional-needs\/"},"wordCount":390,"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-bringing-focus-to-professional-needs\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-bringing-focus-to-professional-needs\/","url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-bringing-focus-to-professional-needs\/","name":"Monday Morning Essay Tip: Bringing Focus to Professional Needs | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-04-27T14:00:08+00:00","dateModified":"2022-07-25T06:32:28+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-bringing-focus-to-professional-needs\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-bringing-focus-to-professional-needs\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-bringing-focus-to-professional-needs\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Monday Morning Essay Tip: Bringing Focus to Professional Needs"}]},{"@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\/469","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=469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}