{"id":7051,"date":"2011-10-04T10:10:00","date_gmt":"2011-10-04T16:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/?p=7051"},"modified":"2011-10-07T11:24:08","modified_gmt":"2011-10-07T17:24:08","slug":"mission-admission-recommendations-should-be-personal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-recommendations-should-be-personal\/","title":{"rendered":"Mission Admission: Recommendations Should Be Personal"},"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 actually helping you\u2014in fact, he\/she is hurting you! 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-recommendations-should-be-personal\/\">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-7051","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: Recommendations Should Be 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\/mission-admission-recommendations-should-be-personal\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mission Admission: Recommendations Should Be Personal | 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-recommendations-should-be-personal\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-10-04T16:10:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-10-07T17:24:08+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: Recommendations Should Be Personal | 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-recommendations-should-be-personal\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Mission Admission: Recommendations Should Be Personal | 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-recommendations-should-be-personal\/","og_site_name":"mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","article_published_time":"2011-10-04T16:10:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-10-07T17:24:08+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-recommendations-should-be-personal\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-recommendations-should-be-personal\/"},"author":{"name":"Jeremy Shinewald","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/74216774a1761e746e2426c9c8171f5f"},"headline":"Mission Admission: Recommendations Should Be Personal","datePublished":"2011-10-04T16:10:00+00:00","dateModified":"2011-10-07T17:24:08+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-recommendations-should-be-personal\/"},"wordCount":285,"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-recommendations-should-be-personal\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-recommendations-should-be-personal\/","url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-recommendations-should-be-personal\/","name":"Mission Admission: Recommendations Should Be Personal | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-10-04T16:10:00+00:00","dateModified":"2011-10-07T17:24:08+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-recommendations-should-be-personal\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-recommendations-should-be-personal\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-recommendations-should-be-personal\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Mission Admission: Recommendations Should Be 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\/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\/7051","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=7051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7051\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}