INSEAD Waitlist - September 2012 intake

I got the "IN" email from INSEAD on February 1st like other admitted candidates on this thread. I think balky7's analysis makes perfect sense and I belong to the rarer kind, so I think there was a good chance nobody had a profile like mine for Round 2.

My profile: M / 27 / Vietnamese. 4 years of experience 3 of which is consulting / business development. High-schooled in India, college in US, campus exchange in France. Speaks English, Vietnamese, French, and Japanese with more or less competency. Just went back to Vietnam from 2.5 years in Osaka, Japan. My GMAT was 680 (1 take).

My weakest points were probably: 1) not working for a big-name company, 2) not demonstrating enough leadership and management skills, 3) My INSEAD objectives aren't very clear (I can sense this from the interviews)

Good luck to the rest of the waitlist-ers.

Belyok, thank you. That is really sweet and nice of you to say -- I would also love to study with other strong, smart students such as yourself! I am definitely having a super tough time with my final decision.

so the next important dates for waitlisted are, probably:

- 24 february (R2 decisions)
- 2 march (tuition deposit for admits from waitlist)

problem is we are also gonna have more waitlisted people by that time... not looking bright in my view!

Hi Acax,

I don't think that march 2nd would be a very critical date for us, because I don't think it will serve as a trigger for the admission committee to review waitlisted candidates again.

We are definitely in a worse situation than a month ago:
* The class is less vacant
* The waitlist will be larger as of 24th of February

However, I don't think we should be too pessimistic right now. As Brhams (I think it was him) described it earlier this thread, it is just a matter of luck - if someone with a similar profile would decline his/her offer.

Insead state that they review the waitlist pool on a monthly basis. Based on threads from previous intakes, I believe the next big milestone would be around the end of March, when the deadline of first payment of R2 applicants is over. I assume (and this is definitely only an assumption) that they will have no incentive to do a mass movement in the waitlist around the 24th of February - they would probably want to wait and see the yield of R2 applicants, and then reassess their class toward end of march, especially considering the large amount of students who paid the first payment so far.

I believe we will see another "large" movement (5-10 people) toward end of march. If not admitted then, chances will reduce significantly (I guess up to the point of arbitrary movement here and there).

I dunno, this is just my opinion...I am still optimistic.

Thanks a lot balky7. That's really helpful.

I have an account in the mbaconnect, but I am not listed in the search.
Although it is still possible that I did not allow (tick somewhere, change settings or something like tat) that functionality and that 198 number coincidentally corresponds with the pre-waitlist movement at the beginnig of the month, I do not think that it includes recently admitted candiddates from the waitlist. Probably the total number will change again soon.

thanks

in case u wouldn't know, in the insead employment statistics pdfs u can see the number of people admitted to the program in the last year(s) by nation... you can get a sense of the number of remaining seats for your nationality then...

Thanks balky7, this is really helpful !

Somewhat surprised to see how many Americans there are. The bilingual requirement usually deters a lot of Americans (I'm American myself).

Hi Enkie,

So... Did you decide which school to attend?

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh! #(%)(@#*%()#@*%()*!

enkie, maybe most of them have double nationality...

Brahms is right, MBA Connect is strangely not updated...I wrote my full profile 8 days ago and I still don´t appear.
Well, the next significant update will probably be in 2 weeks, some days after the 2nd round deadline.

About the Americans, 11 of them have double nationality! Maybe if you have two nationalities their consider only your less-widespread one?

Hi Guys,

Well, what do you think, will we receive any news this week along with R2 applicants?

I dunno, my mind tells me that probably not (that they would rather wait a month to the R2 admits deadline), but I am a bit more excited/anxious this week..

By the way, did any of the waitlisted contacted the adcom lately?

Personally speaking, I sure hope to hear from them this week as i have a 2k$ tuition i'll otherwise have to pay for my other option... that would also match with their strategy of MONTHLY review of the waitlist... anyway to answer ur question, i just filed a financial help application some weeks ago. did u contact them?

Hi acax,

I haven’t contact them yet, other than the initial communication after being placed on the waitlist. I am asking since in my nature I find it hard to sit quiet and wait, and I do want to contact them. However, the impression I got is that INSEAD is considered as a "distanced" school that does not want to be contacted by waitlisted applicants again, unless something concrete has changed.

I will probably just wait for now - I don't think that any communication at this stage would make a change this week.
Man..., waiting on the waitlist is hard (:

My understanding was also that if you are annoying*, you will hurt your chances. That said, you are annoying only if you:
-come to campus especially to beg the adcoms , requesting an interview as if they were the ones able to make the decision alone.
-call every two weeks to ask for updates. bonus points if you call during late afternoon and force them to stay later than they had planned…
-send every week uninformative updates, stuffing their mailboxes.

On the contrary, I don’t think that sending an update in the next weeks, which is now more than two months after the wait-list announcement, can be seen as annoying, if of course you have something to add. I know I would have : the applications essays were so short that I left aside some interesting stuff, and I bet it is your case too!

Let’s see: Friday the 24th, people in R2 will have their final decision. The accepted will have to pay at the end of March. The 2nd of March, the people taken out of the waitlist will accept or refuse their offer by paying €€€€. So during March there will be plenty of uncertainty: R2 accepted might refuse, R1 waitlisted and accepted might have refused too. So at the end of March/beginning of April, some R1 waitlisted and R2 waitlisted are bound to be called. Long story short, if you have some interesting stuff to show, it can be worthwhile to send before the beginning of April.

Then, R3 submit their application the 21th of March, and get their interview invites one month later. Since the R3 batch may lack some interesting characteristics, R1 waitlisted and R2 waitlisted should contribute also end of April/beginning of May.


(*our annoying level in France can be strange, personally I can’t help feeling bothered when a person calls me at 12h31, as I am a about to go down for lunch. Food time=holy, people! )