Calling all INSEAD MBA Applicants: (January 2018 Intake) Class of 2018

I did not see any place to input GPA in online appliction

So, I mentioned GPA in my resume.

Hi Tyler!

Lets make it active!! Why dont you post your profile, Yumbee started with this initiative and it died after I replied with mine.

All the best!!

I know! 18J is SO active, we need to at LEAST get on their level. Come on! Let's get the convo started! tylerdurden91 - where you from? Where you want to go? What are you doing to keep yourself sane while waiting for decisions?!

great minds!

I'll share a bit about me too -- I have deferred from 18J.

I'm from Texas but living in London. I work in a travel tech company but am looking to shift to consulting afterwards. My second language is italian (I'm in the middle of testing for it) and then looking to pick up spanish. The thing I am most looking forward to at INSEAD is being surrounded by a plethora of interesting people from all over the world and learning more about myself. It seems INSEAD employs the process of breaking you down so you can build yourself back up in a stronger and more defined way. I can't wait!!

dont_give_up

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Two professional recommendation letters are required, providing information about your leadership and management potential. As such, at least one recommendation should come from your workplace; your current supervisor or manager is usually a good choice. The other recommendation should be from someone who has had a chance to evaluate you in a professional setting, for example, a client, a former supervisor or a colleague from your community service or extracurricular activities. Academic recommendations are acceptable but they are less likely to address our main interest, which is to assess your ability to work with and manage others as well as your potential for senior management. You will also be able to upload an optional third letter of recommendation as part of the supporting documents.

RECOMMENDER QUESTIONS

Relationship to Candidate

Please, specify your relationship to candidate: Professional/Educational/Personal

How long have you known the candidate? Define your relationship with the candidate and the circumstances whereby you met. [text box – unlimited]

How do you rate the candidate on the following criteria?

Outstanding (top 2%) Very Good (top 10%) Above Average (top 25%) Average (top 50%) Below Average (bottom 50%) Unobserved

Competence in his/her field

Professionalism

Focus on the task at hand

Readiness to use opportunities for achievement

Creativity and resourcefulness

Intellectual curiosity

Energy and drive

Personal integrity

Ability to work in a team

Organizational ability

Oral communication skills

Written communication skills

How do you rate the candidate’s potential for becoming a responsible and successful manager in international business compared with other students or employees whom you have known in a similar capacity?

Excellent (top 2%)Very good (top 10%)Above average (top 25%)Average (top 50%)Below average (bottom 50%)

Please give your answers to each of the following questions.
1. Comment on the candidate’s career progress to date and his/her career focus. [text box – unlimited]
2. What do you consider to be the candidate’s major strengths? Comment on the factors that distinguish the candidate from other individuals at his/her level. [text box – unlimited]
3. What do you consider to be the candidate’s major weaknesses? [text box – unlimited]
4. Comment on the candidate’s potential for senior management. Do you see him/her as a future leader? [text box – unlimited]
5. Describe the candidate as a person. Comment on his/her ability to establish and maintain relationships, sensitivity to others, self-confidence, attitude, etc. Specifically comment on the candidate’s behaviour or skills in a group setting/team environment. [text box – unlimited]

Start to think about motivation essay 1 now – this requires a tremendous amount of self-reflection and insight. PERSONAL, PERSONAL, PERSONAL. Make no mention of work in this essay. Provide anecdotes that support your strengths and weaknesses but don’t use work.

Hey guys,

I'm from India originally, but did 7 years of schooling in Oman. Currently work in business operations at an education social enterprise in Kenya, before which I worked at the International Finance Corporation (IFC) for 4.5 years in Mumbai and DC. I think INSEAD fits well with my international focus. Fingers crossed for interview calls!

Cheers

Great initiative guys! Let's have some brainstorming and fruitful discussion on INSEAD's much talked about preference for applicant's international experience.

Is it absolutely necessary to have an international experience for applying to INSEAD? What if my international experience is not of managerial level? (e.g. I am just doing software programming or analysing stocks/mutual funds outside of my home country, without much decision making power) Is it the international experience or international exposure that INSEAD looks in to applicants?

I raised these questions because many INSEAD students who participated in our live chats in the past have made this clear that INSEAD actually looks in to applicant's international exposure, so an applicant who is working in his/her home country also has good chance as long as he/she works in multicultural environment and interacts with people from different countries as part of the work.

What is general consensus on this?

Nareen,

From all of my experience and research, INSEAD is more looking for cultural exposure and sensitivity than the mere fact that you have lived/travelled outside of your home country.

I think the key is the FIT here. You are put in multinational teams during school. So, they want to make sure you can handle being in that situation and honestly, if you never experienced 'cultural shock' before, be it through working in multicultural teams or travel or living abroad, you will be in trouble.

Working in multicultural teams is great but let's say I have to make a call between a candidate with experience working in a multicultural team within the comfort of his/her home country and another who worked or went to school abroad, I'd choose the later, especially as they chose to step outside their comfort zone living abroad.
So, it comes down to your competition I think.

So, it is not absolutely necessary to have physical international exposure, but it is a huuuuuuuge advantage! and managerial experience is just an added bonus imho.

Hiya lpetroski - I'll take a stab at your question and join the discussion. A little background on me: I'm an American working in the EU for the past four years and applied in R1 this intake.

I think previous answers hit the nail on the head but I'd just add my own experience to help your understanding a bit. When I visited Fontainebleau last year for an Open Day, the team really emphasized having an international mindset. While international experience is proof / a symptom of an international mindset, I got the feeling that it was really the mindset that mattered -- if you can prove this any other way than experience abroad, wonderful!

Other than the international mindset, the admission's team does a good job of outlining the specific qualities that they look for (mentioned on their website and earlier in this thread).

If you or anyone else has any questions about nay of the above or about me personally, fire away!

Nick

Hi guys, you have hit the nail on its head. I second what you have said. Though international experience is definitely a huge plus, being culturally aware is more important. I can confirm that there are people in my class at Fonty who had never worked outside their country before but had an awesome work-ex otherwise. However, for a vast majority, being international is second nature. There are people who are citizens of 3-4 countries!! That was a big surprise for me.

Hi all,

R1 applicant here from South Africa. 740 GMAT (49Q, 42V, 8IR), 71 months WE, Social-Impact Investing / PE / VC background, last 1.5 years in a start-up Fund as 2IC. 5-6 years total charitable work as Chair and Vice-chair. Holding thumbs!

Looking for some guidance: I've applied and been shortlisted for an external bursary from a South African body for up to 55K Euros. Had my interviews today and the panel wants an indication from INSEAD that my app is on track or is a "likely admit", before they'll consider putting me through to final list of 10 (4 bursaries are awarded). I need this by end of next week or I will likely be cut from the process... :-O

I've asked admissions whether there is anything we can provide to the panel in the interim, given that interview decisions will only be made by 21 April (latest). I think getting an interview invite from INSEAD should give the panel enough comfort to put me through to the top 10, but I'm concerned about timelines and losing out on this opportunity. It sounds like expedited admissions comms are possible depending on whether a sitting is arranged, but definitely not guaranteed. Which is fair.

Based on your experience:
1) How long before the committed date (i.e. 21 April) do interview invites typically start flowing? I've read somewhere that it's typically no more than a week early - is this true?
2) Is there any reasonable way of getting an interview decision fast-tracked?
3) Is there any other solution that could address my dilemma that I'm not thinking of?

I deeply respect the processes to be followed and do not want to come across as an arrogant applicant, but 55K Euro is enormous in the funding pursuit at this stage, very hard to come by around here and may be worth pushing the envelope a little bit...

MBAPrepCoach, Narenn, any insights here would be much appreciated.

Thank you

I think your best bet is to contact the school and explain your situation.

3) Here's a thought - did you apply to any other schools? I applied to IE and got an interview invite in 5 days. Maybe you can do this to get through to next round.
Just trying to think out of the box! haha

All the best either ways!

FROM Insead Admissions Blog1: The Five Steps to Networking Success

As a graduate of the INSEAD Class of December 2016, I can truly say that your time at INSEAD is transformational. Reflecting back on my year at INSEAD and looking forward, I would agree with many graduates who say that... Continue Reading →

This is exactly what I wanted to point out. Having international mindset and being able to interact with people from different parts of the world / from diverse cultures is what matters to INSEAD; Mere international experience may not be sufficient. Thank you all for your insights on this point.

I am not an admission expert so I think MBAPrepCoach could be the right person to advice on whether to contact school on this issue, but to answer your question regarding timing of interview invitations, for Sept 2017 intake, R1 interview invite deadline was 21st Oct and applicants started reporting invites on forum from 10th Oct. If INSEAD follows the tradition in this intake then invites are likely to trickle in next 8-10 days.

Hi so I read somewhere on these forums that 30 students deferred their admission from September 2017 Intake to January 2018 intake!A little surprised that INSEAD allowed that many deferrals.What is your opinion on this guys?Since this in some way affects January 2018 applicants.