Ask INSEAD Admissions

Hi Camille,

Quick question regarding Sept'14 Round 1 Deadline

Seems to be extended to October 7th 2013! Does that mean deadline for recommendations is now October 14?

I am an Indian lawyer working in a good reputed company as an in-house counsel for last 5 years. Before that I was a practicing lawyer for 5 years. In total having experience of 10 years in the field of law. My qualifications LL.B (in top 5 of the class of 720) and Company Secretary (passed in first attempt and top 50 all over India in many thousand applicant).My gmat though is modest 670 (Q50 V31 AWA 5.0 IR 7)

My age is 34. I have two small doubts:
(i) Whether a person on a higher age group or with many years of experience, is a good fit for an MBA programme, where the cohort's average age is around 28.

(ii) How to finance an expensive MBA. I am not averse to take loan. But it appears you can take only one education loan and in India what max I am getting as education loan is Rs. 20 lacs which is nowhere near the fee of a good MBA. INSEAD MBA is around 60,000 euros in tuition and another 30,000 euros in living expense and other. That is around 60 lacs rupees. Can you guide how to finance that. From where can I get tuition and living expense loan. My present salary is Rs. 15 lacs per annum

Hi Camille,

Just wanted to check with you - there is no separate re-applicant essay in the new application, is that right?

Dear INSEAD admissions,

I am a R3 applicant for January 2014 intake, I have been put on wait-list, this is specially frustrating as INSEAD is the only school I want to get to and the only school I applied to.
I have a set of questions,

-Is the yield for the Jan intake higher than Sep intake? as the theory suggest January no other schools are admitting?
-The wait-list is used to manage diversity but I come from a rare nationality ( so I am told, Syrian ) so how come I am on the wait list?
-How would I know the weaknesses of my application that stopped me from gaining a straight admit? I may have material that would help me and help the admission office to get me in.
-Are their weaknesses to my recommendations? ( as this is the only part of the application the I do not know the content of) if so would submitting a third recommendation help ?
-Currently my current employer do not know about my MBA plans, my plan was to tell my employer once admitted to explore funding options. would telling them now and getting a letter of support from them help the application?

Please advice
Thank you

Hi Camille,

I have a question regarding recommendations. After 2 years working in Management Consulting, I have set up my own company and therefore do not have a manager or supervisor. Would it be acceptable to use a former manager who I worked with closely during my time in consulting?

Many thanks for your help!

Hi Camille,

I know that INSEAD requires 2 recommendations in english. One of my manager is a chinese native and while he does know english asked me if it was okay to write the recommendation in chinese, then goto the translation company to translate to english? He feels that if he wrote it in english, he would not be able to give the best recommendation he can. He plans on using one of the available lawyers for translation that was on the UK Embassy website:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... of-lawyers

My other recommendation is by an English native from the US so that should be fine. As someone who started my career in the US, moving to China to further my career has given me many more opportunities and believe would add diversity to INSEAD. Unfortunately, I don't work for anyone who is fluent or even studied English in a university and I hope this would be acceptable as it would also be my direct manager.

Thanks!

Hi,

I gave the GMAT today and scored a 730 (Q 48, V 42, IR 7). Though I am ok with the overall score, my percentile in quant is only 76. I am looking to apply for INSEAD January 2015 intake. I read that top schools prefer 80 percentile in both quant and verbal, though I have always heard INSEAD say they want the scores to be in the last quartile. Should I take the gmat again?

Thanks!

Hello!

Thanks for your message and apologies for the long silence as Camille went on sabbatical leave and I am replacing her on this blog.

It has been months already but I hope this issue had been resolved. Anything else, please let me know.

Thanks,
Leizel

Hello!

Thanks for your message and apologies for the long silence as Camille went on sabbatical leave and I am replacing her on this blog.

It has been months already but I hope you were able to submit your application during Round 1, or have you?

Anything else, please let me know.

Thanks,
Leizel

Hi Joey!

Thanks for your message and apologies for the long silence as Camille went on sabbatical leave and I am replacing her on this blog.

It has been months already but I hope this issue had been resolved. Anything else, please let me know.

Thanks,
Leizel

Hello!

Thanks for your message and apologies for the long silence as Camille went on sabbatical leave and I am replacing her on this blog.

Actually, our MBA students usually have on average 6 years of work experience and the average age now is 29. There should not be any issues since you're still in your early 30s.

With regards to financing, our students usually use a combination of financing means, such as loans, personal savings and scholarships to finance their MBA. INSEAD only offers partial scholarships and the average award is 12,600 €. You may like to know that MBA candidates can only apply to our scholarships once they have been admitted to the programme or have been shortlisted for an interview. We have more than 50 different scholarships that are offered to all eligible and admitted MBA students, all with differing eligibility criteria. Here is the link to our list of scholarships available for your reference https://mba.insead.edu/schlmgmt/. Other organisations and banks known by INSEAD to offer loans for the INSEAD MBA programme are also listed by country under Funding By Country page https://mba.insead.edu/financing/funding_by_country.cfm.

Hope this helps!

Thanks,
Leizel

Hello,

Thanks for your message and apologies for the long silence as Camille went on sabbatical leave and I am replacing her on this blog.

The online application have motivation essays where re-applicants will still have to submit new ones.

Anything else, please let me know.

Thanks,
Leizel

Hello,

Thanks for your message and apologies for the long silence as Camille went on sabbatical leave and I am replacing her on this blog.

The two recommendation forms should provide us with information about your demonstrated leadership and management potential. It may be from someone who has had a chance to evaluate you in a professional setting for example, a client, a former supervisor/manager or a colleague from your community service or extracurricular activities.

Anything else, please let me know.

Thanks,
Leizel

Hello,

Thanks for your message and apologies for the long silence as Camille went on sabbatical leave and I am replacing her on this blog.

It has been months already but I hope this issue had been resolved. Or is it? FYI - Yes, you may have the recommendation translated in English by a professional translator. However, please take note to submit both the original letter written in non-English, and the translated copy.

Anything else, please let me know.

Thanks,
Leizel

Hello,

Thanks for your message and apologies for the long silence as Camille went on sabbatical leave and I am replacing her on this blog.

The GMAT score is required as part of your application, but there is no minimum required score. However, we strongly encourage candidates to target the 70th – 75th percentile or above for both the verbal and quantitative parts of the test. 80% of students at INSEAD have a GMAT between 650 and 750. With your score, you definitely should not re-take GMAT.

Anything else, please let me know.

Thanks,
Leizel

Hi Leizel,

Is it possible to find out admit decision before the decision date?

Hello,

It may or may not be before the decision date. Normally, an applicant will be informed if he/she have been selected for interview within approximately six weeks of receiving the acknowledgement of his/her completed application. After that, it will take approximately another six weeks to inform him/her of the final decision and if the application is successful. For a full overview of our interview and decision deadlines please visit Dates and Deadlines at https://mba.insead.edu/admissions/dates_deadlines.cfm.

Hope this helps!

Thanks,
Leizel