Calling all INSEAD MBA applicants - 2019 & 2020
[#permalink]
02 May 2019, 07:53
Hi All,
I am an admission consultant helping global applicants for applying to Fulltime, EMBA and Part time MBA programs all over the world. I aspire to help all applicants applying to INSEAD for 2019 and 2020 admissions cycles.
You can ask me any question related to INSEAD admission in this thread. We also offer Free editing service for one essay. Please check our site for more details.
I am sharing the essay tips for 3 Motivational essay of INSEAD. These tips have been published in our site as well along with other details.
Insead MBA Motivational Essay One: Give a candid description of yourself (who are you as a person), stressing the personal characteristics you feel to be your strengths and weaknesses and the main factors which have influenced your personal development, giving examples when necessary (approximately 500 words)
This iconic essay question of INSEAD tests your maturity and self awareness. Most of us have some basic idea about our strengths. But generally we are not very aware (or even may not admit) our weaknesses. This is the time to talk to your supervisors, peers, friends or even life partner to know what you seriously lack. If your organization has an elaborate appraisal system (most global companies do), then it’s great. You may be well aware of your weaknesses.
INSEAD hasn’t specially asked about examples. But providing examples while describing your strengths and weaknesses can make it a memorable essay. However, with just 500 words, you may find it difficult to accommodate strengths and weaknesses along with factors that have influenced your personal development. Talk to us if you need assistance with editing this essay!
How can you differentiate yourself from other applicants here?
Acknowledging weakness can be a great strength and can actually be appealing to INSEAD. Most of the applicants fail to do justice with the weakness part. Many actually try to positions strengths as weakness. For instance many applicants write, “I can’t say no, hence my boss dumps work on me even on weekends….sounds familiar?” Admissions officers might think that you are a hard working and ambitious person, which are actually strengths. They will also understand that you are not comfortable with sharing a real weakness or worse, you might not be aware of your own weaknesses.
The INSEAD MBA course is a leadership program. And every leader must know his or her own weakness. Otherwise he may create havoc. Think of George W. Bush and his decision to invade Iraq or Hitler’s decision to invade Russia. Neither President Bush knew about the complex socio-political setup of Iraq nor did Hitler have any idea about the harsh Russian winter. So you need to know about your “actual” weaknesses and write 1~2 in this application essay. Be authentic, but be careful.
Regarding the factors that influenced your development:
You may discuss key factors that influenced your upbringing. Think of some of the defining moments that turned your thinking upside down? When did you walk out of your comfort zone and what did you learn about yourself? How did you feel and what did it teach you about life and leadership? Narrate your story in details.
Insead MBA Motivational Essay Two: Describe the achievement of which you are most proud and explain why. In addition, describe a situation where you failed. How did these experiences impact your relationships with others? Comment on what you learned (approximately 400 words).
Brevity is the first think that comes to my mind when I read this question. In just 400 words, you have to cover a lot of grounds here:
Explain your best achievement
Explain why this ranks highest among all your achievements
Explain a key failure (may not be your worst failure)
Explain the ways in which these experiences impacted your relationship with others
What did you learn?
You can choose the achievement either from work or from outside of work. Pick one that demonstrates your leadership qualities at its level best. Preferably pick an experience that happened within the last three years.
Fortunately, you don’t have to pick a failure that you are most ashamed of. The topic can be from your career or from your personal life. Be clear and confident while describing your failure.
Caveat: Don’t try to pass on a strength as a weakness.
Please don’t write that “I work 18 hours a day and hence I don’t have any work-life balance”. INSEAD might think that you are a hard working guy and that is actually a BIG strength. They might also feel that you failed to understand a simple question and that MAY negatively impact your admission chance.
As you have to accommodate too many items within 400 words, you may combine the “lesson learnt” and “how it impacted your relationship with others” into one point. You may allocate up to 100 words for this section as it can truly differentiate you from hundreds of other applicants. Dig deeper into your soul to narrate what did you learn and understand the DELTA in your behavior with others before and after that experience. In case you need any assistance in editing this essay, please contact us!
Insead MBA Motivational Essay Three: Describe all types of extra-professional activities in which you have been or are still involved for a significant amount of time (clubs, sports, music, arts, politics, etc). How are you enriched by these activities? (approximately 300 words)
The secret of writing a great essay on extracurricular activities is to focus on the phrase “a significant amount of time”. Any activity that doesn’t fit the bill should not be in talked about in this essay. You can talk about any activity …politics, stamp collection, reading Dan Brown novels, watching Hollywood Classics….practically anything under the Sun.
What kind of activities should you talk about?
Do you need to talk about activities that sound interesting such as playing basketball rather than saying something “dry” such as reading books on ancient history? What if you have no serious engagement outside your work due to job pressure? What should you do in such cases? Well, think deeply what you actually do once you are not in office or thinking about your work. Do you think deeply about why different people think and behave in different ways? Do you reflect on why some people are so aggressive while others are cool and calm? Well, in that case you might be interested about human psychology. And you are not alone in that. Millions of people in the world and numerous global leaders have studied human psychology since the dawn of civilization. Understanding the psychological make up of others is absolutely needed for you to become an effective leader. Write in detail about your passion to understand human psychology and how it helps you to to become a better leader. You will truly differentiate yourself from hundreds of other INSEAD MBA applicants.
Similarly, if you read Dan Brown novels or loves to watch Hollywood classics, please explain how these activities help you to understand life and human emotions and how those things in return help you to become a better person (and a better leader as well).
You can check our site for more tips on INSEAD Jobs essay as well. Please ask me question related to INSEAD application and essays.