INSEAD September 2011 intake waitlist

Refer to Clear Admit wiki for INSEAD specific interview tips. They have the best collection. Also read through the interview experience of us R1 applicants on the main INSEAD thread. Nothing scary really standard stuff but seems lost people had one good cop and one bad

Sorry to say that it's not always the case! I got my interview notification 2 weeks prior to the official deadline, did my interviews very well.... but got waitlisted! mainly due to the "diversity" thing (simply, someone with my same background and experience did better/or had a better profile).
Everything can be expected!

Good Luck for all

Let me echo those sentiments...looking back, I can count at least three cases (including me) of early interview notifications that turned into either dings or W/L. I wouldn't want to mislead anyone into believing that they've got a better chance because of the timing of their interview. There is so much we don't know about the admissions process, so let's not give false hope. All you can do as an applicant at this stage is nail your interview and cross your fingers.

Echo that as well. I got early interview notification and got waitlisted as well.

Me too. I got pre-selected to the interview, but got waitlisted. I doubt that the pre-selection means anything at all.

how did you know because it was due to "diversity"? was adcom able to give you some feedback?

The way I understand it, INSEAD maintains their waitlist exclusively for the purpose of managing diversity -- I believe all us W/L'ers were told this by our respective admissions folks. So that is to say that everyone on it has a good profile, but there are other admits whom the adcom views to be better; not along strict diversity lines.

In this sense, everyone was put on the W/L due to "diversity"...because the adcom extended an admit to someone who competed against you on one or more levels of diversity.

One typically gets off the W/L and admitted if an admit with a similar profile (for purposes of the W/L e.g. gender, nationality, work experience, educational experience) decides not to matriculate.

This is also why the adcom states that there is no ranking on the W/L. If a 33 year-old female Tajik tuba player who was in the French Foreign Legion decides not to matriculate, the adcom is not going to replace that person with #1 on the waitlist, a 25 year-old male Indian IT engineer with nothing but a stellar GMAT to his name; they're going to scour the waitlist for one or more of the following: older, female Central Asian with orchestral and military experience.

On rare occasions the adcom will provide feedback; but this comes mostly in the form of encouraging reapplications for a handful of dings (e.g. adcom saying they want to see better GMAT, more management experience, etc). They typically do not provide directed feedback to us waitlisters. If any of you on the W/L have received specific feedback from your admissions person, please feel free to correct me in spectacular fashion.

Also to comment on this. Look at the Sept '11 intake thread, I did an informal analysis of Jan '11 intake invite-to-admit #s. NB- the analysis looks at Jan '11 intake, so it may not be entirely analogous with the Sept intake. As others have mentioned, there might also be a self-selection bias, but the numbers are there for your viewing nonetheless.


INSEAD actually tends to be more conservative with sending interview invitations. Their big cull typically is before extending interviews, and as both adcom and interviewers have said in the past, the interview stage is more of a confirmation of your candidacy than a critical analysis of it. I think the analysis mentioned above shows that the adcom is generally pretty "liberal", comparatively speaking, in extending invites from interviewed candidates. Though me being active in this forum stands to reason that this isn't necessarily the case


INSEAD has also said that their waitlist is comparatively small. whether you believe it or not is another thing. keep in mind that a) R1 applicants tend to be somewhat more competitive statistically / profile-wise compared to R2 and R3, so the W/L will seem pretty large at this stage; and b) INSEAD is filling spots for a +/- 500 seat class. Compare this to most of your competing major b-schools with class sizes anywhere between 90 (IMD) and 250 (IESE), and you'll begin to have some context behind the absolute size of the W/L. IIRC, only HBS has a greater class size (+/- 900 per intake, though only one per year).

Firstly, apologies to traveler if my comments have "mis-led" you into any false sense of higher admit chances. It is obvious that my views were biased as I have been w/listed and had a late invite and saw the case with a lot of similar reports but obviously missed many data points.

PKV, good insights as always. Kudos.

As far as feedback from adcom is concerned - not much is given. Being on waitlist means they like our profile and would happily admit us ..BUT and the "but" could be very different in each of our cases.

Diversity is a broad term and my profile is m/31/British/730/ MSc Food Science/ BTech Dairy Technology/ GPA 4.0/ 8 yrs WE in non-traditional industries like food manufacturing and packaging/ work exposure to 10 countries and living experience in Asia and Europe. Still am on the W/l with only 5 British students currently on the MBA connect out of 170+. So I am scratching my head on to which part of diversity I am not fulfilling and the only answer so far I get is - being a male!!! (Comments welcome if you see anything else obvious that I am missing).

The only other factor could be "yield" which is better managed through waitlisting good candidates then extending admit decisions to them and then realising many left to other schools. Yield is an important factor on rankings and hence you see similar schools like Wharton also adopting similar strategy.

So true, i agree with you PKV; we didn't receive a specific feedback, but an email stating that there's no specific ranking on the W/L, it all depends on the "diversity"!

Good point... i'm not sure how true is that, but everything is possible! nice perspective

so when are we expecting the first 'wave of movement'

I would expect the week after Jan 21st. That's the deadline for deposit for the R1 admitted.

I am also keen that first wave to start soon after 21st as I am stalling other schools by not paying my deposit to them yet. Have extension till 4th Feb so fingers crossed!!

how did you go about requested an extension?

Needs must! When there is upto $5k on cards one must try to innovate a method of asking for an extension. Hope not many apply the same at INSEAD though!

Any movement in WL ?