Insead September 2014 Intake- Calling all applicants

Thank you so much!

Just received the interview invite! Rd 3 applicant.

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Thank you sooo much! I am definitely buying you drinks if at all I get into INSEAD from waitlist. :p Do keep us posted if there is any further decrease in the count in next week!

No worries. I was on the waitlist so I know exactly how closely one would want to monitor the stats Give me a nudge if I forget to update next week.

Good luck!

FROM Insead Admissions Blog: Moving at the speed of INSEAD

Only eight weeks have passed since we first stepped foot onto INSEAD’s Singapore campus, wide-eyed and over-eager, but already it feels light years away.  Orientation week gave us a taste of what the rest of the year would be like. Each day was packed with presentations, events and social activities. We fought to handle the flood of information breaking over us. We tried hard to memorize our classmates’ names and backgrounds. But by the end of the week we were positively exhausted, both mentally and physically. Then P1 came and went in a heartbeat. While in the beginning it still seemed feasible to manage the course load with all the student activities, career events and parties, it soon became evident that the “magical triangle” of sleep, studies and social life is indeed elusive. So we simply try to squeeze in as much as possible into the meager 24 hours the day holds (and up the coffee intake). This leads to very busy schedules and often times, feeling like a hamster running in a wheel, forever trying to catch up with time. Now we’re already halfway through P2, fretting over internship applications and fantasizing about the next break. The pace at INSEAD is breathtaking and leaves you feeling like you can never accomplish everything you set out to do. However, it is also exhilarating because it forces you to set clear priorities and stretch yourself to the maximum. And once you reach the limit, you realize it’s actually not the end and that you are capable of more than you ever thought possible. So you just take a deep breath and continue to move forward at the speed of INSEAD…

FROM Insead Admissions Blog: Metamorphosis Underway

After almost 3 months of job hunting, course cramming, and networking-like-my-life depends on it (it does!), I see green shoots to a more structured mind, a broader hustling network, and a business gun-belt filled with powerful weapons. Now, I just need to get my fat ass in gear and close a job deal. Oh, it’s so stressful… Unfortunately, I did not survive the consulting house-of-horrors. While I was impressed with the sheer number of interviews my classmates obtained (great job….best friends), I failed to convince any firms of my entrepreneur-turned-business guru value. Still, supposedly, internships are more difficult to obtain than full-time offers and I do have a grisly, tenacious streak (think of Lloyd from Dumb and Dumber-“So, you’re telling me there’s a chance!”). In fact, most of my entrepreneurial successes were built around brushing off the first 100 no’s. So, I’m recalibrating, seeking Zen, and renewing my focus. With a calm mind, I shall move forward. But back to metamorphology, INSEAD is paying off big time for me. My initial pre-MBA goals were to build up my network in Asia, advance my understanding of important business concepts, and re-brand myself away from frantic deal-making entrepreneur to wise corporate and strategy “badass”. I already feel like I have gained a foothold towards reaching these heights. In discussions with my former partner at my last (and still alive) venture, I can see how the strategic frameworks I’ve studied: Blue, Green, Brown, and Yellow Oceans, are helping me view the firm’s problems through the “competitively advantageous Harry Potter’s 5 Magic Forces ” business lens. Eureka! Business knowledge doth flow-eth from my mind. In reality, I do think the quantitative and communication tools are, indeed, very valuable despite our cumbersome handling and not-so-“out-of-the-box” application. Unfortunately, every time I hear someone say “Blue Ocean” in class now though, I pass a kidney stone. What’s the value proposition to this post for the key strategic stakeholder’s takeaway you might ask? I’ll email you the answer and deliverables in a cash cow matrix later…..Peace.

Hello GMATCLUB Members,

GMATClub and Admissionado Consulting are conducting a webinar for the applicants got dinged this year. This is your opportunity to get expert guidance and build a smart strategy for the next application round/season. Webinar will be conducted by Admissionado's Founder and HBS Alum Jon Frank. Jon will share his suggestions followed by a Q&A session - this is your opportunity to ask your specific questions.

One lucky attendee will get the opportunity to have his/her (dinged) profile evaluated by Jon Frank during the session. If you'd like to be chosen for this opportunity, please email info@admissionado.com with the subject line "GMAT Club Webinar - Choose me!". Please include your name, nationality, age, GMAT score and a list of schools where you were dinged. And please also attach your essays + resume + LORs from one of your applications. Winner will be notified via email on April 16th!

This forum seems to be very quiet. No updates from round 3 applicants? How are the interviews coming along?


It seems very less round 3 applicants?

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FROM Insead Admissions Blog: View from the orbit

As P4 comes to an end, there is finally some time to reflect. Looking back at the last 8 months, I notice how very different each of those months have been. The first two periods, when we get to know the people around us and study core courses, were really like a hurricane. Things were flying in front of my eyes with incredible speed – faces, cases, formulas, parties, national weeks, exams… Core courses were certainly useful, but not all of them particularly exciting. I was also not always sure I really captured what I had to capture, when flying by at this incredible speed… In P3 things have changed. Now that you have a choice of electives to choose from, it makes so much of a difference – finally, more of the things discussed in class are closer to my true interests and are really engaging. The cases we studied have also changed – this certainly depends on the course, but many cases I read started with the main character being an INSEAD alum! Not only that – for many of the entrepreneurial courses, such as New Business Ventures and Realising Entrepreneurial Potential, the protagonists of the case would actually come to INSEAD on the day of the case discussion, stand in front of the class in person and participate in the discussion together with us. It is amazing to hear the guest speaker start by saying “I was sitting in this very same amphi in your place X years ago…” In some cases X is 2 years ago and in others it was 20 years ago… For me personally, not only did this make the discussed case more interesting, but it also helped us better understand the potential of our post-INSEAD career and life choices. Another aspect which stands out in the way the courses in this second part of INSEAD year are being taught (again, this mainly relates to entrepreneurial electives), is that in many cases we learn from FAILURE. The more I think about it, the more I am convinced, that there is no better way to learn entrepreneurship than through failure – by digging deep into the stories of various businesses that failed or went in the wrong direction, INSEAD gives future entrepreneurs a unique opportunity to learn from someone else’s mistakes. This certainly does not mean that you will not go out and still do your own mistakes, but hopefully you will do them less… With less than 3 months to go until graduation, it feels like for the last 8 months I was living in a virtual world – a world with infinite concentration of professional and personal events and emotions, all happening here and now. With the end of the program approaching, it is often scary to look out of this virtual world into the real one. I feel like an astronaut, who has been out in the orbit for 8 months and is about to return to earth. What will I see and how will I feel when I land?

FROM Insead Admissions Blog: Life after INSEAD

Well, it exists …and it’s quite great! You keep hearing about “that amazing year at INSEAD” and you can’t help but think that whatever comes right after cannot be as fulfilling, challenging, enriching and fun. Luckily that’s not true. The reality is that INSEAD is never really over. Even if you want to, there is no way you leave it and go back to who you were before. You realize you have changed, you have grown, your horizons (regardless of how worldly, well-travelled and accomplished you thought you were) have expanded thanks to the incredibly intense year you shared with your fellow batch of 500+ classmates, many of whom by now feel like family. So whatever you end up doing after, you will have a different perspective on things and you will feel connected to the INSEAD family anywhere you go. I also believe that taking that one year away from the workforce is one of best gifts you can give yourself – to step back and reflect, to push yourself to explore new things, and to truly challenge your goals. This time for self-reflection allows you to better understand and gives you the most fulfillment, which I believe allows you to make right career choices going forward. Job-wise, the expectations from MBA grads are quite high. It’s very exciting as all of us thrive on challenges and opportunities to make a difference, learn and acquire new skills. INSEAD definitely delivered on my goal for an international job – submitting travel expenses in five currencies after my first month at work shows that. Also, it’s been great to see people getting really exciting jobs in diverse industries all over the world! Last but not least, that “travel bug” that we all get while at INSEAD definitely doesn’t go away! Moving countries, apartments, opening and closing bank accounts, hopping (last minute) on a plane for a weekend getaway – that seems like the norm now!  INSEAD 13D meet-ups are also at an all-time high with weekly updates from all over the world: from South Korea, to Brazil, to South Africa… So as scary as it seems when you are still at INSEAD, going back to the “real world” is a lot of fun, too!

Had my interviews mid-April also, no word of feedback yet, but sort of expect to hear something this coming week or next (no real data point for this other than that the interviews were asked to be completed by "early May," so if everyone is done, then maybe the Admin Committee will start making decisions...?)

Thank you everybody who attended the latest webinar jointly organized by GMATClub and Admissionado Consulting for the applicants got dinged this year.

For the members who could not attend this event, we have posted the webinar recording in the main post of this thread.

Check out this link for free ding analysis offer by Admissionado.

Hi there

I had my two interviews on wednsday. Have a good feeling on this. Very friendly, very senior people I see sometimes in media.

Keeping fingers crossed for all of you and hope to see in you in Singapore in September

Cheers

Jakub

FROM Insead Admissions Blog: P2 Takeaways

I’m sprawled out on my fiancee’s lime green couch in Shanghai. Today, I’ve gorged on diet cokes, green olives, and chips and salsa, but last week, I was cramming option’s pricing models, supply chain theory, and marketing notes into my brain so that now I feel like an explosive beached whale. The P2 finale was exhausting and returning to my Chinese 老家 is a welcome break from the INSEAD manic lifestyle. While I love it, the pressure and intensity of the program are both a mental beat down and physically punishing. P2 is over-I’m sad but thank god too. Here are my takeaways: First, our section and groups really started to mesh. After 4 months together, certain personalities, funny professors, and the entire cohort’s exhaustion, created an environment in the classroom that was both entertaining and disarming. No longer were most people on guard and defensive about past experiences, career uncertainty, cultural differences or intellectual levels, most people seemed to be generally collaborative and supportive of each other’s goals. This camaraderie at a business school was really helpful and has resulted in me enjoying the experience immensely more than I thought I would at first. Second, another solid round of incredibly charismatic and engaging professors made attending lectures the highlights of my weeks. While I personally think you could learn most of the core concepts that a MBA school teaches on your own with some books, the passion and humor that some of our professors inject in the classroom makes the learning process infinitely easier. Moreover, I was surprised how much some of the professors generally invested in us. For a large MBA school in Singapore, which has a sterile reputation, the amount of time and energy professors spent helping us, guiding us, and pushing us was inspiring. Finally, our group did very well in terms of bonding and working together. After the first few weeks at INSEAD in my group, I couldn’t have imagined a more bizarre collection of individuals, yet, somehow, we became really close. Yet, even more surprising to me, was how other groups did not work well together and the impact that this (might have?) had on their grades. Personally, leadership and teamwork, and other “soft skills” sometimes seem like a lot of bullshit to me, especially compared to hard quantitative skills, but in reality, they make a huge difference in terms of execution. To visibly see the contention or organizational problems that other groups faced was fascinating (probably not for them though).  This stuff really matters at INSEAD, 2 out of 6 of the final exams were group tests under timed conditions! Looking forward, I’m excited about the opportunities for P3 and this summer. Already, I can see the MBA has had a impact on my professional development. I can help my fiancée at her PE job and I have a lot more confidence in discussing my own professional experiences. Starting out, I visited 100’s of different company presentations from investment banking to startups. I had (have?) no idea what I wanted to do, but I am a lot closer at least to knowing what I like and don’t like. I think, in the rush, there is a drive at most MBA schools to go after the most prestigious jobs available, regardless of lifestyle, and I fell into that trap a bit. After 4 months, I feel a lot closer to knowing what I want, so I’m pleased with the process so far and looking forward to sinking more time into the industries I want to concentrate on. I’m in Shanghai now, heading back to Singapore tomorrow, will see how P3 goes and let you know.

Has anyone who applied R3 heard back from INSEAD? Either rejection or admission. I have checked on this web site in the forum for waitlist of Sept 2014.
It seems 421 people have already been admitted.

I had my interviews end of March and kind of worried I have not heard back anything. Supposedly, the interviewees have to get back to INSEAD within 48hrs. So I am keen to know whether ANYONE who actually applied R3 has heard back.

Speaking to some French friends, they told me that 1 May (Labor Day) and 8 May (World War 2 Victory Day) are holidays in France and that French people on average take off the Friday to have a long weekend. Reading different posts here it seems some people have heard back from INSEAD though on Friday. Does INSEAD only notify prospective students via France or also via Singapore?


Part of what I posted on the waitlist thread here is as follows. Maybe some of you find this interesting:

I have done some research and come to the following conclusion, assuming 421 is the right number of firmly admitted and accepted students.

Over the last few years (that is Jan and Sept) INSEAD has admitted on average 500 students. The range was something like 480-510 if I am not mistaken according to this web site. If we use the 500 average, and currently 421 accepted students, it leaves us with only 79 to be notified. By the way, on average 40% start in Singapore and 60% in France. This has been (almost) bang on for all the previous years.

Now, INSEAD claims that each round is fair and takes about the same number of students. Assuming that is the case, then about 166 or 167 students are admitted per round on the basis of a total 500. Since 79 are yet to be admitted this means about 42% of R3 are yet to be admitted.
If we were to take 510 as a benchmark of total students, then the maths gets a bit easier. 170 students per round. And 89 yet to be admitted (52% of R3).

This also means that the vast majority has been admitted already and that only 16-17% of the total class are yet to hear back. But it also means that about half of R3 have heard back whilst the other half is still awaiting answers.

[quoteI"BabySmurf"]Has anyone who applied R3 heard back from INSEAD? Either rejection or admission. I have checked on this web site in the forum for waitlist of Sept 2014.
It seems 421 people have already been admitted.

I had my interviews end of March and kind of worried I have not heard back anything. Supposedly, the interviewees have to get back to INSEAD within 48hrs. So I am keen to know whether ANYONE who actually applied R3 has heard back.

Speaking to some French friends, they told me that 1 May (Labor Day) and 8 May (World War 2 Victory Day) are holidays in France and that French people on average take off the Friday to have a long weekend. Reading different posts here it seems some people have heard back from INSEAD though on Friday. Does INSEAD only notify prospective students via France or also via Singapore?


Part of what I posted on the waitlist thread here is as follows. Maybe some of you find this interesting:

I have done some research and come to the following conclusion, assuming 421 is the right number of firmly admitted and accepted students.

Over the last few years (that is Jan and Sept) INSEAD has admitted on average 500 students. The range was something like 480-510 if I am not mistaken according to this web site. If we use the 500 average, and currently 421 accepted students, it leaves us with only 79 to be notified. By the way, on average 40% start in Singapore and 60% in France. This has been (almost) bang on for all
the previous years.

Now, INSEAD claims that each round is fair and takes about the same number of students. Assuming that is the case, then about 166 or 167 students are admitted per round on the basis of a total 500. Since 79 are yet to be admitted this means about 42% of R3 are yet to be admitted.
If we were to take 510 as a benchmark of total students, then the maths gets a bit easier. 170 students per round. And 89 yet to be admitted (52% of R3).

This also means that the vast majority has been admitted already and that only 16-17% of the total class are yet to hear back. But it also means that about half of R3 have heard back whilst the other half is still awaiting answers.[/quote]

Hey, I applied in round three and still have not heard anything yet. I don't know of any round 3 applicants who have received their decisions. 421 reflects the round 1 and 2 admits. Round 3 has less applicants, hence the smaller remaining space. Hopefully we hear something soon.

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