Calling all INSEAD Applicants (Sept 2016 Intake) Class of July 2017!!

Got an invite from my AO - JS. Indian in Spore. I was a re-applicant. Applied in 2013 last but got a ding then. Best of luck to all awaiting a decision.

I have been invited for an interview from AO-HS. I am an Indian with 5.5 years work experience.

Indian male, engineering background, Hanny Stefanie, R2. Rejected.

I applied for R3 Sep 2014 intake and I was placed on the waitlist for 4 months and then deferred to jan 2015 waitlist so that was like 7 months of being on the waitlist through two intakes. I have a very diverse profile and I was on the waitlist though my then gmat was only 610. I later received a ding with reapplication instructions.

I rewrote the gmat; got a 710(91 percentile) and I applied for R2 this time and got a ding

I don't even know what to think FML

Were you specifically asked to improve your gmat and reapply?

No when I spoke to my AO About my GMAT (610 then) asking if that is what is stopping me from getting a confirmed seat; since my quant was 48 and verbal 27 which meant my verbal did not have the insead cut off, she said "if it is gmat that we want u to improve on we would have told you, please be patient for the result" this was while I was on the waitlist. I rewrote the gmat after one year just a few days ago

Very surprising. Generally "encouraged to apply" means at least an interview invite and you have considerably improved your GMAT score which should only improve your candidature. I have a feeling the Indian applicant pool for this round was extremely competitive. Also, I think because the July start batch MBA rounds coincide with MBA admission rounds for schools in the USA, competition is high. I hope the email to you was sent by mistake and you hear from them by evening. Hope is a good thing

Haha Ishan; I was also thinking the result was sent to me by mistake and I asked them for feedback, funny enough my AO tells me re-applicants are not encouraged and worst part my AO last year and now is the same Stefanie Hanny...I would have never applied if I did not get the instructions, this is her reply now when asked for feedback, like what the flying ****

Further to your e-mail below, I would like to thank you for your continued interest in INSEAD and our one-year MBA Programme.

Please let me first explain that our thorough selection process considers many specific elements within your application. Therefore, your file evaluation is relevant only to INSEAD. For each intake we receive a large number of applications for a limited number of places available for each class. As you can imagine the competition is very strong and therefore we have to refuse applications of many exceptional individuals.

I would also like to explain that the decision taken by the Admissions Committee on your application was a final decision for the INSEAD MBA Programme, regardless of campus or intake choice, allowing you to consider other alternatives for your future career plans. We therefore do not encourage reapplications from candidates to whom we were not able to offer a place on the programme. This is because the Admissions Committee has already made a very in-depth evaluation of your file. Please understand that the deliberations of the Admissions Committee are strictly confidential, and that for this reason we cannot share any feedback on your application with you.

Sorry to hear that. I haven't seen many Indians who are based in India get a call. Any other results awaited?

Sorry for the delay in posting. probably i was recovering from my shock
Indian/Male/28.
AO - HS
5.5 yrs of work ex.
Dinged.

I'm a Round 1 applicant and had both my interviews in the last couple of days.

Interview 1:

Before we even got into the meeting room, he casually started asking me:

What got me interested in applying to INSEAD?
Why are you applying in the Sep batch and not Jan?

<We then got into the meeting room>
We continued discussing why INSEAD
Walk me through your resume.
Since I mentioned my passion in running, he asked me what have I learnt from running?
Can you tell me more about your current role at work?
Best part of your job.
As a consultant, do you have an instance in which you have walked away from an opportunity? If so why?
(he asked me since I mentioned business development as part of my role)
How does an MBA come into the picture?
What is the hardest thing for you to accept in your job?
What do you like to do outside of work?
What are the other schools have you applied to? (we also discussed why did I not apply to other European schools)
Any other questions?

I felt the interview went well but the only downside was that in the middle of my interview, my phone rang. (I forgot to silence it) So, I had to take an awkward pause while giving an answer to put my phone into silent mode. He did not seem to mind it but I felt bad about it.

Best part about this interview was that he let me ask questions about his experiences during the interview. So, it really felt more like a conversation than an interview.


Interview 2:

This interview went in a very unconventional way. I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation.

I was waiting in a conference room in the interviewer's office. Once he stepped in, he apologized for making me wait.
He then told me that he had gone through my resume and knew the firm I work with.

Give me a background about yourself.
Can you tell me exactly the role you play in the firm right now?
How does a typical project get executed? (what role do each person play)
He really wanted to understand the structure of my firm. Since it was hard to explain, he asked me to whiteboard it. I drew the structure right from the CEO to the analysts. I used the drawing to elaborate more on where I fit in.
How does sales happen at your firm?
We discussed the common challenges faced by my firm. He gave his perspectives on them.
Now why are you thinking of MBA rather than continuing in your firm?
How does INSEAD come into the picture?
Any questions for me?

In both my INSEAD interviews, there was additional focus on my current job. Usually, in my other interviews, I stop at a high level. But, I had to really talk about the different aspects of my job here. So, my suggestion would be to practice communicating the various aspects of your role at work in a clear way.

Fingers crossed until the results. All the best to others for their applications.

Hi everyone,

Good luck to all the R1 people waiting on admission notices! Just a week or two more!!!

Also, congrats to the R2 people who got interview notifications! For those who were dinged, keep your heads up high, INSEAD admissions is a giant black box and tough nut to crack. I'm sure you'll either crack it when applying for the next class or do very well at another school.

For those who do get admitted in the next few weeks, I've started a Facebook group. Feel free to join once admitted and accepted the offer.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/INSEAD17J/

Thanks,
Joshua

FROM Insead Admissions Blog: Ode to Humanity – From the World with Love

I’m in Singapore for my last few weeks at INSEAD. I’m not over there, not on the ground. I can’t feel the emotion and local vibe. But it must be palpable. In this precise moment, I miss the outdoor patios or ‘terrasse’, French food and bistros, romantic atmosphere of a late night walk in Montmartre or the 19th century feeling of walking past the bookstores along the Seine River on a windy sunny day. I miss Paris. There have been a few attacks in recent months and years. However, it’s the first time they strike straight to my heart. The first time I feel that my community, generation, values, way of life is jeopardized, taken for granted. In these times, remaining grounded is not a simple thing. Liberty, equality,  fraternity. Three simple words. Even though I am halfway around the world, on Asia Campus, it becomes a topic of every moment’s discussion with colleagues. Each attack targets a precise population, a precise community, meant to divide people, create a gap amongst groups for each to isolate and hide back amongst their own. In the midst of this chaos, I think about my friends. All over the world, many lived similar events in Bombay, Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Algeria, Pakistan and countless other countries. Communities that have been living similar events many times a year, and continue doing so as these events have become a part of their lives. Those who know me will confirm my usual optimism. I know life carries on. I refuse to live in nothing else than a world filled with fairy tales and unicorns. I refuse to let these fairy tales go and acknowledge that Santa Claus, when I was a child, was but an old bushy-eyebrowed grandpa. The events of Friday night, November 13th 2015 – these are the types of events that only reinforce my will to carry on walking with a spring in my step. I believe – I know that the world can be changed and that my generation will be a part of this change. On the other hand, how do we reconcile with mounting criticism over the fact that barely any media covered Lebanon and Iraq, events that happened barely 24 hours before Paris? Some critics even state it sends the signal that “not all lives are equal” in the eyes of the West, and that we do not seem to care. Indeed, even for a well-articulated mind, it becomes difficult to argue otherwise. So where do we go from here? A humanization must happen across cultures, religions and geographies. Across ethnicities, we must recognize and embrace our fellow humans that live normal lives, and go through just as much suffering, pain, love and joy as us. And this should start well before any conflict or tragedy erupts. Unmistakeably, when pictures of attacks and grieving people from foreign countries make the headlines, I can’t bare the pain and flip to the next article. These images don’t register in my brain, because my brain doesn’t want them to. 15 000 km across the world, in a country I do not know, in a culture unknown to me where people speak a foreign language, hundreds of lives were lost. It just doesn’t register. Let’s just avoid the pain of internalizing these images. On the other hand, we had Paris on a Friday night, in restaurants, cafés and at a football match. All the 129 names of the deceased will be made public, and many of them will have articles narrating their lives and last days. I could have been there. Friends of mine were not too far away, enjoying a nice Friday night on the town. This event, did register with eerie clarity when I woke up reading about it Saturday morning. It registered and got cemented in my mind. Indeed, if we, as “developed countries”, can’t even show we care about events happening in Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey…why should they do otherwise about us? A humanization needs to happen across cultures, religions, geographies. We need to witness and learn how different people live all over the world. This would increase the “gray zone” of tolerance and reduce the absolute white and black. This must and this will happen as our lives in this global world are more connected than ever. But for “them” to start caring about “our” sufferings, we should start caring about theirs as well. Pretending to do so is not going to cut it anymore. And we better start being aware of their reality not only in turbulent times, but also in times of peace. The planet must become a village where information flows both ways. If, in the “Western World”, there were to be a greater attention, greater education to the way of life of foreign countries, perhaps Western countries would be more sensitized to lives lost there. Perhaps there would be a greater effort to save lives of civilians and avoid casualties. Perhaps then lives lost in the eyes of the West would be “just as equal”. With the available mobile technology, internet, virtual reality, communities across geographies and within countries can be bridged, brought closer together. It has become increasingly easy to connect across the world. I have this vision where technology will be used for this purpose. It won’t be a question of us or them anymore. A vision where there won’t be many parts of the world, just one big planet, one united world where polarizing factions can’t find their place anymore. It won’t be black or white, but just a gray zone of tolerance, amongst yellow, brown, black and white.

FROM Insead Admissions Blog1: Ode to Humanity – From the World with Love

I’m in Singapore for my last few weeks at INSEAD. I’m not over there, not on the ground. I can’t feel the emotion and local vibe. But it must be palpable. In this precise moment, I miss the outdoor patios or ‘terrasse’, French food and bistros, romantic atmosphere of a late night walk in Montmartre or the 19th century feeling of walking past the bookstores along the Seine River on a windy sunny day. I miss Paris. There have been a few attacks in recent months and years. However, it’s the first time they strike straight to my heart. The first time I feel that my community, generation, values, way of life is jeopardized, taken for granted. In these times, remaining grounded is not a simple thing. Liberty, equality,  fraternity. Three simple words. Even though I am halfway around the world, on Asia Campus, it becomes a topic of every moment’s discussion with colleagues. Each attack targets a precise population, a precise community, meant to divide people, create a gap amongst groups for each to isolate and hide back amongst their own. In the midst of this chaos, I think about my friends. All over the world, many lived similar events in Bombay, Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Algeria, Pakistan and countless other countries. Communities that have been living similar events many times a year, and continue doing so as these events have become a part of their lives. Those who know me will confirm my usual optimism. I know life carries on. I refuse to live in nothing else than a world filled with fairy tales and unicorns. I refuse to let these fairy tales go and acknowledge that Santa Claus, when I was a child, was but an old bushy-eyebrowed grandpa. The events of Friday night, November 13th 2015 – these are the types of events that only reinforce my will to carry on walking with a spring in my step. I believe – I know that the world can be changed and that my generation will be a part of this change. On the other hand, how do we reconcile with mounting criticism over the fact that barely any media covered Lebanon and Iraq, events that happened barely 24 hours before Paris? Some critics even state it sends the signal that “not all lives are equal” in the eyes of the West, and that we do not seem to care. Indeed, even for a well-articulated mind, it becomes difficult to argue otherwise. So where do we go from here? A humanization must happen across cultures, religions and geographies. Across ethnicities, we must recognize and embrace our fellow humans that live normal lives, and go through just as much suffering, pain, love and joy as us. And this should start well before any conflict or tragedy erupts. Unmistakeably, when pictures of attacks and grieving people from foreign countries make the headlines, I can’t bare the pain and flip to the next article. These images don’t register in my brain, because my brain doesn’t want them to. 15 000 km across the world, in a country I do not know, in a culture unknown to me where people speak a foreign language, hundreds of lives were lost. It just doesn’t register. Let’s just avoid the pain of internalizing these images. On the other hand, we had Paris on a Friday night, in restaurants, cafés and at a football match. All the 129 names of the deceased will be made public, and many of them will have articles narrating their lives and last days. I could have been there. Friends of mine were not too far away, enjoying a nice Friday night on the town. This event, did register with eerie clarity when I woke up reading about it Saturday morning. It registered and got cemented in my mind. Indeed, if we, as “developed countries”, can’t even show we care about events happening in Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey…why should they do otherwise about us? A humanization needs to happen across cultures, religions, geographies. We need to witness and learn how different people live all over the world. This would increase the “gray zone” of tolerance and reduce the absolute white and black. This must and this will happen as our lives in this global world are more connected than ever. But for “them” to start caring about “our” sufferings, we should start caring about theirs as well. Pretending to do so is not going to cut it anymore. And we better start being aware of their reality not only in turbulent times, but also in times of peace. The planet must become a village where information flows both ways. If, in the “Western World”, there were to be a greater attention, greater education to the way of life of foreign countries, perhaps Western countries would be more sensitized to lives lost there. Perhaps there would be a greater effort to save lives of civilians and avoid casualties. Perhaps then lives lost in the eyes of the West would be “just as equal”. With the available mobile technology, internet, virtual reality, communities across geographies and within countries can be bridged, brought closer together. It has become increasingly easy to connect across the world. I have this vision where technology will be used for this purpose. It won’t be a question of us or them anymore. A vision where there won’t be many parts of the world, just one big planet, one united world where polarizing factions can’t find their place anymore. It won’t be black or white, but just a gray zone of tolerance, amongst yellow, brown, black and white.

The forum is oddly quiet, given that we should start receiving Round 1 results in a few days. According to the forums of previous intakes, we could start seeing results 2-3 days before the deadline. Good luck everyone, the wait is unbearable.

I think that's exactly why it's so quiet. Everyone in R1 must be anxious about results coming out!!

However, I've also found this year's thread to be a lot quieter than the ones before.

It's nerve-wrecking waiting! My keep-myself-busy tactics are not quite working as the announcement deadline gets closer :s