INSEAD Quietly Revamps MBA Apps

FACULTY AND ALUMNI WILL CONTINUE TO DECIDE WHO GETS IN AND WHO GETS REJECTED

Still, INSEAD is almost always among a handful of the best schools in Europe. Poets&Quants ranks the school second outside the U.S., behind only the London Business School. INSEAD’s latest incoming class of MBAs have average GMAT scores of 701, six years of work experience, and hail from 90 countries. The lowest GMAT in the class was 610, while the high score was a 780

Other significant differences in the way the school evaluates applicants are expected to remain the same. When candidates pass an initial admissions review, they must be interviewed twice by two separate alums. A pool of some 3,000 alumni interviewers are used to conduct these sessions all over the world. Then, an applicant’s fate is decided not by admissions staff but rather a committee primarily composed of faculty and alumni. The eight to ten professors and an equal number of alums who sit on the admissions committee is a closely guarded secret.

The two groups tend to balance each other out. “The professors are very concerned about having the brightest people in the classroom,” said Edwards. “They want the most brilliant students they can get. Alumni care much less about that. They want people who will be successful when they graduate and will be great to have in their network.

 THE NEW ‘STREAMLINED’ QUESTIONS REMAIN COMPARATIVELY LABORIOUS

The new essay questions (with optional essays in italics):

• 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. (600 words max.)

• 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. (400 words max.)

• Tell us about an experience where you were significantly impacted by cultural diversity, in a positive or negative way. (300 words max.)

• 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? (300 words max.)

• OPTIONAL: Is there anything else that was not covered in your application that you would like to share with the Admissions Committee? (300 words max.) 

Edwards says that INSEAD “really wants to understand very well the candidate’s experience and what they’ve learned and what they’ve gained. International experience and perspective is still very much at the heart of the assessment. They haven’t moved away from that.”

She was amused at the language INSEAD adopted in asking candidates to pretend they were at a social event in describing their careers. “They want people to explain it in a non-technical way because sometimes candidates are not very good at explaining what they do to a lay person,” Edwards noted. “That is clear direction to avoid that and explain it so that someone who is not familiar with your field can understand it.”

Regarding the question on an achievement and a failure impacted relationships with others, Edwards believes that INSEAD is “trying to get more information about the candidate’s soft skills. What they are looking for here is not just the events, but very explicitly to gain a sense for how the candidate has interacted with other people and what experiences they have had in a team environment.”

The extracurricular activities question, adds Edwards, was prompted because of a change last year in the online application form that made it more difficult for candidates to have enough space to write about passions and interests beyond work. “They don’t want applicants who are just one-dimensional people who are only interested in their careers,” says Edwards. “Extracurriculars are a good signal on whether candidates will get involved in the INSEAD community outside the classroom.

“The U.S. schools tend to be very focused on community involvement and engagement and see that as an important part of the profile of a candidate. INSEAD isn’t so focused on that. They have a broader view of how people should spend their free time. In the U.S., it is seen as the right thing to do to volunteer and get involved in your community. In Europe that has not been as much a part of the culture, partly because they pay high taxes and expect the government to do that.”