{"id":9285,"date":"2012-06-25T08:32:29","date_gmt":"2012-06-25T12:32:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/?p=9285"},"modified":"2022-02-07T14:15:56","modified_gmt":"2022-02-07T19:15:56","slug":"monday-morning-essay-tip-personal-and-too-personal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-personal-and-too-personal\/","title":{"rendered":"Monday Morning Essay Tip: Personal and Too Personal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week<\/a>, we talked about how important thoroughly exploring and accessing your personal stories is when writing your 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 too personal.<\/p>\n

Some stories are particularly challenging for admissions committees. For example, we have strongly discouraged 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 problems and issues, rather than portraying him-\/herself as having learned from a constructive professional or personal challenge.<\/p>\n

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":"

Last week, we talked about how important thoroughly exploring and accessing your personal stories is when writing your 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 too personal. Some stories are particularly challenging … Read More  <\/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":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-application-tips"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMonday Morning Essay Tip: Personal and 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-and-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 and Too Personal | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Last week, we talked about how important thoroughly exploring and accessing your personal stories is when writing your 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 too personal. Some stories are particularly challenging … Read More  \" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-personal-and-too-personal\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-06-25T12:32:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-02-07T19:15:56+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":"Monday Morning Essay Tip: Personal and Too 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\/monday-morning-essay-tip-personal-and-too-personal\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Monday Morning Essay Tip: Personal and Too Personal | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","og_description":"Last week, we talked about how important thoroughly exploring and accessing your personal stories is when writing your 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 too personal. Some stories are particularly challenging … Read More  ","og_url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-personal-and-too-personal\/","og_site_name":"mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","article_published_time":"2012-06-25T12:32:29+00:00","article_modified_time":"2022-02-07T19:15:56+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\/monday-morning-essay-tip-personal-and-too-personal\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-personal-and-too-personal\/"},"author":{"name":"Jeremy Shinewald","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/74216774a1761e746e2426c9c8171f5f"},"headline":"Monday Morning Essay Tip: Personal and Too Personal","datePublished":"2012-06-25T12:32:29+00:00","dateModified":"2022-02-07T19:15:56+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-personal-and-too-personal\/"},"wordCount":197,"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-and-too-personal\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-personal-and-too-personal\/","url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-personal-and-too-personal\/","name":"Monday Morning Essay Tip: Personal and Too Personal | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2012-06-25T12:32:29+00:00","dateModified":"2022-02-07T19:15:56+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-personal-and-too-personal\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-personal-and-too-personal\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-personal-and-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 and Too Personal"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/","name":"mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","description":"World'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&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\/9285","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=9285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9285\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}