{"id":23925,"date":"2014-05-19T08:00:38","date_gmt":"2014-05-19T15:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/2014\/05\/mba-admissions-myth-i-have-no-weaknesses\/"},"modified":"2014-05-19T08:00:38","modified_gmt":"2014-05-19T15:00:38","slug":"mba-admissions-myth-i-have-no-weaknesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/mba-admissions-myth-i-have-no-weaknesses\/","title":{"rendered":"MBA Admissions Myth: \u201cI Have No Weaknesses!\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/gmat.kaptest.com\/2014\/05\/19\/mba-admissions-myth-i-have-no-weaknesses\/\" title=\"GMAT weakness\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"GMAT weakness\" src=\"https:\/\/gmat.kaptest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/GMAT-weakness.jpg\" alt=\"MBA Admissions Myth: &quot;I Have No Weaknesses!&quot;\" width=\"132\" height=\"200\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t<\/div>\n<p>\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/gmat.kaptest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/GMAT-weakness.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-3603 alignright\" alt=\"GMAT weakness\" src=\"https:\/\/gmat.kaptest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/GMAT-weakness.jpg\" width=\"139\" height=\"210\" \/><\/a>Most\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kaptest.com\/GMAT\/Business-School\/deciding-on-b-school.html\" target=\"_blank\">business schools\u00a0<\/a>will ask an applicant\u2019s recommenders to describe a weakness of yours, or a time when they offered you constructive feedback. You may face great temptation to ask your recommenders to avoid writing anything critical or to present a \u201cdisguised strength\u201d as a weakness. Your recommender might write something like one of the following entirely disingenuous statements, believing that he\/she is helping you, when in fact he\/she is not:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cJohn needs to learn to balance his work and home life better\u2014he is always at work, making sure that he stays on top of every detail.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cMary is a perfectionist and holds others, who just may not be capable, to the same high standard that she holds herself.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Alternatively, a recommender who is afraid of hurting your candidacy may write about a \u201cprofessional development\u201d weakness, focusing on a business skill that you have not yet had the opportunity to learn or develop, rather than describing an area in which you need to improve:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cRodney is an excellent communicator in small group settings; he has not, however, had the opportunity yet to give presentations to large groups, and I think doing so is the next important step in his career path.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cTo move to the next level, David needs to start sourcing his own deals, rather than just working on deals that others have found.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This may be shocking, but\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kaptest.com\/GMAT\/Business-School\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">admissions\u00a0<\/a>officers understand and know that there is no such thing as a perfect employee or MBA candidate and are skeptical of the sincerity of any recommender that presents you as such. Such falsely positive comments do nothing to help the admissions committee get to know you better and instead undermine the integrity of your recommender\u2019s letter. Although you do not want your recommenders to present unprofessional traits (e.g. \u201cDenise is lazy\u201d), recommendation letters should involve honest, detailed reflection using a critical (not negative) eye.<\/p>\n<p>You should also avoid presenting \u201cdisguised strengths\u201d in any essay prompt that asks for a weakness, such as Harvard Business School\u2019s \u201cTell us about something you wish you had done better\u201d or Dartmouth Tuck\u2019s \u201cDescribe a circumstance in your life in which you faced adversity, failure, or setback\u2026\u201d See our\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/category\/mba-essay-analysis\/2013-2014\/\" target=\"_blank\">essay analyses<\/a>\u00a0for strategies for writing these types of essays.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Most\u00a0business schools\u00a0will ask an applicant\u2019s recommenders to describe a weakness of yours, or a time when they offered you constructive feedback. You may face great temptation to ask your recommenders&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,558,243,940],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gmat","category-kaplan-blog","category-blog","category-gmat-prep-gmat","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23925\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}