MBAPrepCoach wrote:
Thank you
Admissionado, this is a really comprehensive treatment of the September vs. January batch question and I am sure it will be very helpful for the readers of this thread. Almost all of my INSEAD clients have been for January batch. I have always understood that MBB with September batch is doable without an internship specifically at INSEAD - thoughts? How does the recruitment process go for MBB with September, mainly networking? Also, who would be an ideal candidate for September. Who do you feel is an ideal candidate for September batch? Maybe people who want to work in the Middle East so they can spend a period in Abu Dhabi, or maybe sponsored candidates who want to spend less time out of work?
Admissionado wrote:
GovinSA wrote:
I happen to read from Profile eval forum, that Jan intake has lower acceptance% compared to Sept Intake, can somebody explain on that?,
Appreciate your help
The decision regarding September vs. January intake is an agonizing one for INSEAD applicants. The September intake is a 10-month accelerated program which, critically, does not have a summer break, meaning there is no time for a 3 month internship. For career switchers in particular, the summer internship is critical for getting one's foot in the door to a new industry/company, and it's a great way to lock down a full-time offer or explore a new opportunity in a less risky fashion (if you hate it, it's only for a summer, not a job you'll resign from or feel like you have to endure rather than blemish your resume). Because the September intake has fewer applicants relative to the number of spots set aside this program, it has historically had a higher acceptance rate than the January intake. Average GMAT scores for September have also been slightly lower on average.
Many people who are applying to INSEAD are drawn in by it's global nature (e.g., second language requirement for all students, campuses on 3 different continents, most diverse & internationally-represented student body of peer-group of similarly ranked schools). Both the January and September terms will confer these benefits. Critically, the 6-week academic calendar applies to both the January and September term, which means that January and September students take classes together during the main school year, and both batches can enjoy mixing up Fountainbleu study and Singapore study as well as study-abroad at partner universities like Wharton.
Another core category of INSEAD hopefuls are current management consultants and aspiring MBB consultants. INSEAD is known as a very consulting-focused school. Current *sponsored* (i.e., tuition to be paid by employer) management consultants often choose the Jan. intake because it gives them more time to "have fun" before going back to the consulting grind. The opportunity cost of more time off of work is balanced with the enhanced time for personal relationship building and the opportunity to build skills in a totally different area through a summer internship outside of consulting. Breaking into consulting without a consulting background (something that many people come to INSEAD to do) is slightly harder, but not at all impossible, with the Sept. intake. The reason is that many consulting firms choose to fill their full-time ranks from converted summer interns. The same goes for the large multinational banks. If your sole ambition is to get an MBB or JPMorgan / Goldman / Morgan Stanley offer, and you think you have what it takes to gain January-intake admission, perhaps a January-term application is the right bet.
Thanks for the kind words! Yes, that's definitely true - a lot of the people who choose to study at the Abu Dhabi campus are Sept. intakes (I'm not sure that one has to be from Sept. intake to study in Abu Dhabi, but there is a de facto concentration of Sept. students there). So if you want to maximize your time in Abu Dhabi with people who are from the Middle East or want to be there post-graduation, then it would be a great fit. One observation is that the Abu Dhabi campus seems to be particularly popular with INSEAD's Russian student population and those interested in Oil & Gas or other natural resources or professional services in that sector (e.g., an O&G I-banker from New York or Houston would be well served doing a few years worth of deals in the Middle East, just as somebody who wants to return to Dallas one day to work in Management Consulting there would likely find it a good use of time). If natural resources is your focus, the world is your oyster in Abu Dhabi.
It is definitely possible to be a Sept. intake and get a full-time offer in M/B/B without a summer internship (just as it is possible to go to a 2-year program in the U.S., work in a non-consulting internship between your two years of b-school and then successfully recruit for full-time consulting in August - October of your second year). The difference is that it is much harder. There are far more chickens pecking at fewer worms. If you are recruiting for M/B/B full-time, you are going to be competing with all the people who did summers at Deloitte, Accenture, KPMG, etc. who want to upgrade, as well as all the people who wanted consulting summers and didn't get them, AND all the people who only recently decided that they wanted M/B/B after not liking their non-consulting internship. Meanwhile, the M/B/B generally don't have that many full-time spots to fill because they have filled most of them with their summer intern class. Not every summer intern gets an offer, which is why there are full-time spots still available for second-years, and consulting firms have typically always had a few (not many) full-time spots available for second years. So while it's definitely doable, and many people are successful recruiting for full-time M/B/B without an internship, it's just harder and less common. Another approach for Sept. intakes is to do an internship after graduation. This is a risky strategy (because the internship might not convert to full-time and if it doesn't, it might be harder to recruit post-graduation without the depth and breadth of recruiting resources for current INSEAD students). But it is a commonly-utilized way of getting one's foot in the door.
In general, Sept. batch candidates are those who are more sure of what they want to do professionally and/or are staying in the same field or going back to the same company and those who want to minimize the opportunity cost of foregoing salary by accelerating the MBA as much as possible. I don't have hard data on this, but oftentimes Sept. batch candidates are also slightly older / more tenured at work (which also correlates with knowing what they want to do and where they will be going post-MBA). The summer internship is a big draw for people who are using the MBA to "soul search" a little bit (e.g., "Can I really handle 4-day travel every week?" "Can I really survive IB hours?" "Is CPG marketing for me?"). People who already know what they want don't need to soul search over a summer internship. Also, many INSEAD students from both intakes are sponsored (meaning an employer is paying tuition with the agreement that the student come back to said employer and work for a certain number of years). For these students in particular, sometimes the employer wants them to do Sept. intake so that they can come back to the company and start being a return on the company's investment faster (There's also potentially some protectionism at play here -- maybe the student's sponsoring company doesn't want their sponsored future talent to get wooed away by another employer after a successful summer internship somewhere else...). I'm not sure there is an "ideal" September intake applicant, but hopefully these characteristics give candidates some food for thought re Sept. or Jan. intake options.
Updated on: 04 Apr 2021, 21:57
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