Hello! So I'm applying for the September 2016 intake and would love to engage with fellow applicants here. Best,

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

1 ... 19 20 21 22 23 ... 30

Flintwood

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21 Dec 2015, 01:45

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It seems like I will not accept INSEAD offer - so one more place would become available in January. I am from Eastern Europe (Russian speaking country).
Good luck to all who was wait-listed - I've been there, don't lose hope.

roccoporco

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21 Dec 2015, 02:38

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Flintwood

Pity! What's the reason? Financing issues or you are considering another business school?

xyeek

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21 Dec 2015, 03:20

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Flintwood

I'm considering doing the same myself actually....just doing a bit more research before I actually make a final decision.

ubii88

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21 Dec 2015, 14:48

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xyeek

Flintwood

I'm considering doing the same myself actually....just doing a bit more research before I actually make a final decision.

May I ask why you are considering giving up on INSEAD?

xyeek

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21 Dec 2015, 18:41

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ubii88

May I ask why you are considering giving up on INSEAD?

Mainly because I'm not sure if 10 months would be long enough given that I'm planning to switch location, job function and industry. I'm still trying to assess my likely risk vs opportunities for getting my desired post-MBA job.

converge

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26 Dec 2015, 00:03

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Anyone else got $$?

Not here to brag, but I got an Alumni Diversity Scholarship. Received a "personal" email from the Dean, who congratulated me and underlined that it is a unique achievement.

Wondering whether this is similar to investment banking "you are top of your class" rhetoric.

cybluebird123

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26 Dec 2015, 04:11

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converge

Hi converge,

Congratulations on the scholarship!

I am short-listed for a company-sponsored scholarship and INSEAD told me the final decision will come out around end of January, after they have considered applicants from both R1 and R2.

Cheers,

bluebird

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28 Dec 2015, 21:00

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FROM Insead Admissions Blog: Call for all boarding ..

Please pay attention to the instructions for your well-being for the travel leg P1-P2.

Pack well

If you do not have business background or even if you do, it is worthwhile to go over basic courses in Introduction to Financial Accounting, Introduction to Corporate Finance and Micro Economics. If you also did not have a Math background, it would go a long way to learn derivatives and solving equations.

INSEAD’s own business foundations program is a good option, but if you have financial constraints (business foundations costs are additional to the tuition) or you need to learn at a slower pace (business foundations is an intense week), coursera.org offers several good courses online (spanning 2-3 months) from other good universities for free. Whatever it is you choose, plan to start preparing early, especially if you are employed in the days prior to INSEAD. The courses demand quite a bit of time if you want to do them right.

If you have been there, done that, these courses will still help you clear those exemption exams (which I would recommend you do) if you want to breathe easy and use the time for other things.

There is also the famous INSEAD language requirement. And it is another thing you may want to get out of the way beforehand (either by choosing the 3 languages strategically or by learning enough to clear the language exam before classes begin).

Also, save and bring a copy of the best version of your essays (yes they don’t ever get done

). These will be useful later for certain companies that ask for essays in their applications or to draft cover letters for companies during recruitment.

These tips are by no means to daunt readers but to help realize that these are barely the tip of the iceberg called P1 and P2. Although it may seem like a lot, all this preparation can be done if started 6 months in advance of INSEAD. Unless you want to deal with this and a lot more, in a speeding 2 months’ time .. Besides, we all know that at INSEAD, extra time on hand = more travel and more partying. So why not?

If you manage to exempt some courses, it is worth it to still sit in some classes on and off – the caliber of teaching is so high that you would be missing something if you didn’t.

Exit doors and oxygen masks

Once you sign up for INSEAD, there better not be exit on your mind. However there may be times when you feel extremely suffocated. For those times, a way out is to travel on weekends, split the group assignments based on members’ strengths, not meet for all assignments – but to divide work early on (you would be missing out on some key learning, that’s why it is an exit door and not something you want to take if you can help it), and very importantly live close to campus (this determines how early you wake up and make it to an 8.30am class). Of course there is always wine when nothing else works

).

Fasten your seat belts

The ride is going to rock the most solid of us. It will be one intense period and you will know it when your ears pop from everything they hear and the heart starts beating fast. You leave behind the terrain you knew and take off, the world zooms by. You may feel homesick, nauseated, definitely like everything is out-of-your-control, but slowly… as you settle… there is elation.

But hey, don’t get too comfortable. Hang on to those seat belts, for there is more turbulence coming!

This Blog post was imported into the forum automatically. We hope you found it helpful. Please use the Kudos button if you did, or please PM/DM me if you found it disruptive and I will take care of it. -BB

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28 Dec 2015, 21:01

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FROM Insead Admissions Blog1: Call for all boarding ..

megatron13

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02 Jan 2016, 08:16

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Are the scholarship decisions already out? I haven't yet received even my mba connect login info.

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04 Jan 2016, 19:00

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FROM Insead Admissions Blog: Business Foundations – should you do it?

In short, yes.

Long answer, definitely.

There are three foundations that the doing BFP lays for you: academic, social, and omgwhatisgoingon.

Academic

Many of those who did BFP came from a completely non-business background. Journalists and lawyers for example. For them, as I understand it, BFP was a life-saver; an intense week to find out what you don’t know. But I’d also recommend it to people with finance/business experience. I came from a moderately quantitative and financial background, having spent the previous two years working as an Impact Analyst and Financial Associate at two financial non-profits (microfinance and impact investing). I did a lot of accounting, built models, and basically lived (and, sadly, dreamed) in excel. That being said, school is a different animal, and it’s not easy to get those gears turning again.

Remember the first time you opened the GMAT textbook? Perhaps you felt some vague familiarity, like seeing an old friend from high school. Maybe you didn’t recognize anything at all (an old friend from middle school?). Or maybe you knew all the terms but liked knowing what was going to be on the test (an ex-best friend from uni?). BFP helps you with any of those stages.

Quick –

What is the exponent of a logarithm?

What’s the relationship between dividend payable, dividend expense, and retained earnings?

How do you find a bond’s yield if you know the NPV?

Wait – what’s an ‘NPV’??

Do that in class for five hours, now do problem sets for five more hours.

Head hurt? Mine did. But now I remember how to listen in class, how to study, how to learn. You don’t realize you’ve forgotten how until you remember.

Whether you are familiar with the material or not, BFP is a great warm up for actually studying for your MBA.

Social

Why did I apply to INSEAD? A major reason was for the people – I wanted to meet folks from all around the world who have done all kinds of things. BFP is a microcosm of what the year will be like – a mining engineer from South Africa, a real estate developer from Lebanon, a national defense consultant from Sydney. Yeah, that’s why I’m here! I get to work with you, grab a coffee (or two) with you, and grab a beer (or three) with you?? Sign me up. It was a ridiculously fun week the reaffirmed my decision to attend INSEAD (especially after having paid that deposit… gulp).

Not only that, it will help me when I start properly in January. It is exhausting to meet hundreds of people while battling jetlag and trying to figure out what is going on. BFP gave me a head start – 40 friends who I can relax with. 40 friends who I can ask for advice. 40 people who won’t ask me ‘Where are you from?’ and ‘What do you do?’. I know that it’s going to help because attending the Welcome Weekend helped during Business Foundations, and meeting future INSEAD-ers in New York helped during the Welcome Weekend. The first few weeks are going to be fast, it’s great to have some friends to start.

omgwhatisgoingon

Where’s my house?

Where’s the bank?

Come to think of it, where is campus?

Wait, lunch is subsidized, but I can’t pay in cash… come again?

What’s the wifi!??!

Yeah, this is real. There are sooooo many things that Google and Slack and Facebook and Yammer (?) won’t tell you. BFP let me get the lay of the land and make INSEAD start to feel like home.

These three foundations (academic, social, omg) won’t make or break INSEAD by any means. But it’s a fun week that is an academic kick in the butt, gives you a bunch of friends, and let’s you start to figure out what’s what.

Plus, everyone says this is the best year of your life. Why not make it a year and a week?

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04 Jan 2016, 19:01

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FROM Insead Admissions Blog1: Business Foundations – should you do it?

akshaytewari

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04 Jan 2016, 23:04

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Hi everyone!

Has anyone received an interview call from the R3 applicant pool yet?

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06 Jan 2016, 18:00

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FROM Insead Admissions Blog: Welcome to a crazy crazy year, 16Ds!

Well it’s been intense. After a month away from the bubble, I’m slowly dipping my toes back in. The good news is we all survived P2! The bad news is that we’ve only got 6 months to go and reality is hurtling ever closer.

We’ve bid teary farewells to one class and now it’s time to say hello to the Class of 2016D – so hello 16Ds! It’s your turn inside the bubble… welcome to INSEAD!

Here’s what I’ve learnt from P1-P2…

Keep reminding yourself of why you’re here

Attending INSEAD is like walking into the world’s largest candy store – you have so many choices and so many different options of how you can spend your time here, and what you can do next, it’s understandable if you just get paralyzed by all the choices.

The best advice I got coming in was – don’t get caught up in your neighbor’s dreams. Everyone here is passionate and excited and you can’t help but get carried away, especially if you’re more unsure about what you want to do next or what you want to do at school – but remember why you’re here. I’ll add to this – don’t get caught up in deadlines and assignments and drama. It’s so easy to just keep doing what’s urgent – but don’t forget to also allocate your time, energy, stress and focus on what’s important to you.

Remembering your end goals of being here also helps in making decisions – I had to decide whether to chase after an opportunity, and going back and reading my b-school essays helped me pull the trigger. Talking to your friends, family, mentors and advisers also helps – last month, my career adviser gave me a nice kick in the pants when I couldn’t decide on whether to pursue a project by reminding me of what’s truly important to me.

Your key words for P1 and P2 should be “enough” and “balance”

The hardest lesson I’ve learnt this year is that wow, I’m a perfectionist, and wow, that’s such a waste of time. You will have an avalanche of demands on your time – so learn to be a good student, a good friend, a good job seeker, a good partner, a good parent most of the times.

Figure out what “enough” means to you and do just that much and not one iota more. For example, I quickly figured out in P1 – reading the textbook – it’s never going to happen. Not reading the cases – I hate going to class. As one of the six social reps organizing events for the Singy parties, I learnt I can’t please everyone, I can’t do everything and that we can only do so much with a zero budget! So embrace “enough”.

The second key word here is “balance”. Somewhere in mid-P1, people started getting tired and these four magic words came up – “there’s always another party”. Now guess what… that’s true. At INSEAD, there is always another party. So I experimented with this due to varying circumstances – I had a week where all I did was study, a week where all I did was be a mom, and a week where all I did was work on my CV. But you know what? I was absolutely miserable. The weeks where I did a little bit of everything – one company presentation, one party, a few hours of reading – were my best weeks at INSEAD. Time is on warp speed here here – after about 3 actual months together, I’ve already said goodbye to classmates and dear friends (*cough* bundlers *cough*) who I may never see again. If you keep putting off those parties and dinners and lunches, you’re going to blink and hit graduation. Similarly, because of compressed deadlines, you are going to have very little gaps between classes and finals to try and catch up – so it helps to be on top of school from week one. Go to the tutorials!

You can do this any way you like

You can get totally consumed by b-school. You can treat it like a day job where you show up at 8:30 AM and leave by 9 PM with weekends off. You can go to all the weekend trips. You can go to none. You can join every single club, or zero. You can go to all the parties. You can stay at home and watch TV. You can spend the entire year in the library or never go in. Just remember to do it your way and remember what’s important to you!

Swim, little fish, and forget about the pond

You are a little fish in a very big pond. Embrace it. Stop looking around at the size of the other fishes and their colors and how shiny their fins are, and how many other fish friends they have. Know that school is going to be different for every single person. There’s going to be a marketing genius who’s going to yawn through marketing class. There’s going to be an options trader who will dominate finance in P2. There’s going to be an accountant who will ask complex questions you don’t even want to know the answer to. There’s going to be a perfect candidate with a perfect CV. Embrace the option to fail and be “good enough”. Explore the parts of the pond you’ve never been to before even if they are deep and scary. Remember where you’re swimming to. Enjoy the swim. Little fish have fun too!

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06 Jan 2016, 18:01

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FROM Insead Admissions Blog1: Welcome to a crazy crazy year, 16Ds!

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07 Jan 2016, 18:00

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FROM Insead Admissions Blog: To Chateau or not to Chateau?

Running doesn’t get much better than this! I have been in Fonty at my new home, Chateau Fleury, for three days and it’s sunny and pretty warm for January so I decided to go run around the grounds. INSEAD officially kicks off tomorrow but I have already met so many lovely people from all around the world during the last few days, and I believe INSEAD is the perfect spot to start my new journey!

When I got the acceptance call- after a few (failed) somersaults- the first thing that crossed my mind was that I had to live in a Chateau no matter what. When and where else could I possibly take advantage of INSEAD’s Fonty location? For a split second I did wonder if it wasn’t wiser to get another 20 minutes sleep and stroll into campus instead after hearing plenty of lack-of-sleep stories doing the rounds. Practicality didn’t win as what is 20 minutes when you have a taxidermied alligator in a fireplace, the promise of legendary parties and beautiful starry nights to accompany them. Besides, after living on and off in London for 12 years, I could finally put my driving license to good use…my parking skills however are currently non-existent!

For anyone wondering about accommodation, I’d highly recommend chateau living:

Yes, you need a car but it makes weekend travel that much easier
Yes, when you take the exit to get to Fleury, especially if you’re a city person like me, after seeing fields and horses and pretty much nothing else around, your heart will skip a beat but three days in and I barely freak out now.
Yes, you might get jealous from time to time of the others who live a stroll away (hasn’t happened to me yet) but they don’t have an alligator hanging about.
Yes, the first few days you will spend your life and money at the ginormous Carrefour in the nearby village but at least you have the car…..or maybe that’s the problem?
Yes, it makes for great socials.
When else really?

So for me, it’s definitely ‘to Chateau’…Oh and you will get warnings about not straying from the path as the owners do go hunting in the grounds! Safety and all…

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07 Jan 2016, 18:01

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FROM Insead Admissions Blog1: To Chateau or not to Chateau?

For anyone wondering about accommodation, I’d highly recommend chateau living:

Yes, you need a car but it makes weekend travel that much easier
Yes, when you take the exit to get to Fleury, especially if you’re a city person like me, after seeing fields and horses and pretty much nothing else around, your heart will skip a beat but three days in and I barely freak out now.
Yes, you might get jealous from time to time of the others who live a stroll away (hasn’t happened to me yet) but they don’t have an alligator hanging about.
Yes, the first few days you will spend your life and money at the ginormous Carrefour in the nearby village but at least you have the car…..or maybe that’s the problem?
Yes, it makes for great socials.
When else really?

So for me, it’s definitely ‘to Chateau’…Oh and you will get warnings about not straying from the path as the owners do go hunting in the grounds! Safety and all…

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11 Jan 2016, 20:00

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FROM Insead Admissions Blog: Everybody is a minority

“At INSEAD everybody is a minority” – Ilian Mihov, INSEAD’s Dean on his speech to the 16D class on Singapore’s Welcome Ceremony.

Everyone knows that INSEAD is the Business School for the World. It is actually written everywhere, and we proudly say it out loud as if it was some kind of religion. This year we have students from 75 different nationalities that have chosen to study at INSEAD and are both a cause and a consequence of such a motto. I suspect diversity is the reason we chose INSEAD over the other top business schools. This is what sets us apart and what we have in common with each other, this passion for the world, for other cultures and for difference. But the fact that we’re all minorities, here, as in the world, is quite an interesting angle to analyse the diversity issue. The non cultural dominance is actually a quite exquisite and deeper way of looking into the effects of diversity and analysing the benefits of it. We all feel more humble and more alert and more open to others when we are a minority, is like a survival skill, we need to behave in such a way because being a minority puts us out of our comfort zone.

And what if we as people have always lived like that? And what if we never go back to where our comfort majority is? What if majorities don’t exist anymore anywhere, as we live more and more on an integrated world? It might seem a bit farfetched to claim this but I do agree that it is one of the strongest world peace tools. Looking in reverse, if there were never cultural majorities and cultural impositions, much of our conflicts have never even had a purpose to start with.

This brings us to the first INSEAD purpose, that probably not everyone knows about, that was as simple, or in fact as bold and aspiring, as promoting peace between European countries. To show that, by taking people out of majorities or comfort zones, they had much to learn and to grow from embracing diversity and open their minds to other ways of thinking, behaving and living. And here we are now, we are a bigger world lovers’ crowd than before but we have an ever bigger challenge, as we are taking this to a world level. World peace is a bold proposition but we wouldn’t want anything smaller than that right?

I am certain that being a minority here will be one of the most enriching experiences of my life. I guess we will all learn what embracing diversity can do for our lives in a few months, as we get a big lesson on humility, tolerance and acceptance. As for the impact on the world my hopes is that this could take a few years.