IMD Cuts Required Essays In Half

‘A LOT OF PEOPLE WILL BE LOOKING UP LAUDATIO’

The new three questions are as follows:

1. Describe yourself in two hundred words or less.

2. Give an example of a time when you were confronted with an unrecoverable event. How did it affect you and what were your greatest learnings?

(300 words)

3. On your 75^th birthday someone close to you presents your laudatio. (It can be a friend, colleague, family member etc.) Please describe in detail what they would say about you and your life.

(300 words)

Abraham joked that “there are going to be a lot of people looking up “laudatio” in the dictionary. Apparently it’s a word commonly used in German with a Latin root. The three current questions are ‘get to know you’ questions and much more open-ended than the old set of questions. There is far less direction, giving far more latitude for the applicants” to answer them.

IMD also is famed for its ‘assessment day’—when candidates visit the school’s campus in Lausanne or Singapore for a personal interview, a required five-minute impromptu presentation, a case study discussion led by a faculty member, lunch with MBA students, and a chance to observe a class. “It’s not clear if they are maintaining that or dropping it,” noted Abraham. “It’s still on the site.”

NEW APPLICATION AT IMD FOLLOWS BY A WEEK LESS DRAMATIC CHANGES AT INSEAD

IMD’s changes come only a week after INSEAD, one of its major rivals in Europe, changed its application in the midst of the admissions season. INSEAD’s alternations weren’t nearly as significant. The school reduced the word counts for its essays by 400 words to 2,300, eliminated one required essay and consolidated several others. The result is a slightly more streamlined application.

IMD’s Class of 2013 had an average age of 31, with an average seven years of work experience. The 90 students represented 45 nationalities, with 92% of the class reporting that they lived or worked outside their home countries for at least six months. The tuition for the one-year program is $66,400, not including $28,000 in project fees, books and study materials. The average GMAT for IMD is 670.