How to Get into INSEAD

1. INSEAD Program Overview
2. INSEAD Curriculum
3. INSEAD Statistics
4. Application Requirements for INSEAD
5. Extracurriculars at INSEAD
6. Tips for Your INSEAD 2022-2023 Application Essays
7. INSEAD FAQ

INSEAD Program Overview

An international powerhouse, INSEAD has built its reputation by attracting students from all around the world—a typical incoming class features more than 75 nationalities!—and by opening campuses in three vastly different areas: picturesque Fontainebleau, France, the school’s original campus, about an hour’s drive from Paris; Singapore, near the financial district; and the city center in Abu Dhabi. In addition, INSEAD opened its San Francisco Hub for Business Innovation in 2020 to provide a place for local startups to collaborate with the school’s leaders and alumni.

INSEAD requires entering students to be fluent in English and to have at least a B1 level knowledge of a language beyond English. Students also must reach the A2 level in a third language before the end of their studies. INSEAD is consistently ranked one of the top business schools in the world—Financial Times named INSEAD the top program in Europe and third overall in the publication’s 2022 Global MBA Ranking.

Though a shorter program of ten months compared to the traditional two-year MBA that most US-based business schools offer, INSEAD provides a comprehensive learning experience during its five periods of study. Courses are intense; INSEAD’s curriculum is regarded as 80% of a typical two-year MBA crammed into one year. The core curriculum is divided into three periods, consisting of 14 courses in total. The last two periods are dedicated to electives and the capstone course, in which students work in teams to solve realistic business challenges and present their findings to INSEAD alumni.

With more than 64,000 alumni in 180 countries, INSEAD offers students opportunities to work with businesses on intense independent projects, solving real-world business problems and presenting their findings to senior management. More than 40 student clubs are available on campus, ranging in focus from sports and social to business. Many student-run INSEAD conferences are hosted alternately on the Europe, Asia, and Middle East campuses, including the Global Business Leaders Conference and the Asian Private Equity and Venture Capital Conference. Students at INSEAD’s three campuses also stay connected by maintaining the school’s traditions. The annual DASH event, for example, started in 2001 when students in Singapore set up an informal race from housing to campus to make it to class on time. Today, DASH has turned into an annual costumed event and takes place on all campuses annually.

INSEAD Curriculum

INSEAD students start their studies in either August or January. The January intake provides an opportunity for an internship mid-way through the program. The core curriculum for both intakes is broken down into five periods, in addition to a pre-MBA introductory period. Period 1 (P1) features six core courses, including “Prices and Markets” and “Financial Accounting,” as does P2, which includes such courses as “Managing Customer Value” and “Leadership Communication Foundations.” P3 features two core courses, “Business and Society” and “Macroeconomics in the Global Economy.”

P4 and P5 consist of solely electives, in addition to the capstone course that takes place at the end of P5. Language studies are an integral part of the INSEAD experience—students must be fluent in English and speak a second language at a B1 (“practical”) level at the time of matriculation, and they are expected to reach at least an A2 level of proficiency in a third language before graduation.

Elective courses cover a range of topics, from Entrepreneurship and Family Enterprise to Finance, Marketing, and Technology and Operations Management. For some electives, students are placed in real businesses solving real cases and present their findings and analysis to senior management. Other electives have country-specific modules related to doing business in China or the Middle East, for example. In these courses, students travel to the country and visit local businesses with the goal of understanding the area’s culture.

The INSEAD capstone course takes place at the end of Period 5 and allows students to work in teams to solve realistic management challenges and present their findings to school alumni. Members of the alumni pool also play various roles, such as government officials or possible investors, throughout the challenge. Students are expected to put what they have learned to action and present the fictional company with solutions, for which they will receive feedback and a final grade.

INSEAD Statistics

Typical Class Profile

• Class Size: Approximately 1,000 (includes two intakes)
• Average Age Range: 23–36
• Average Work Experience Range: 3–8 years
• Women: 38%
• Nationalities: 75+

Career Placement (Class of 2021)

• Management Consulting: 52%
• Financial Services: 14%
• Technology, Media, and Telecommunications: 19%
• Corporate Services: 16%

Geographical Placement (Class of 2021)

• Western/Northern Europe: 42%
• Asia-Pacific: 26%
• North America: 9%
• Africa/Middle East: 8%
• Southern Europe: 8%
• South America: 5%
• Eastern Europe: 1%

Application Requirements for INSEAD

Bachelor’s degree and transcripts

INSEAD requires all applicants to have completed a four-year bachelor’s degree (or its equivalent if the applicant graduated outside of the United States) and to provide official academic transcripts with their application.

Resume

All INSEAD applicants must submit a resume with their application. The school notes on its website that although applicants typically have an average of five years of work experience, “more important than the length of [applicants’] experience, is the quality of [their] accomplishments. Younger applicants who demonstrate exceptional maturity and outstanding leadership through their professional and personal experiences are encouraged to apply.”

Recommendations

INSEAD requires two recommendation letters. In business school applications, obtaining a recommendation from a direct supervisor or a manager is usually the best option. If you do not have a current direct supervisor or manager, consider past supervisors, colleagues, or clients, based on your work situation. Family members and friends are typically not suitable recommenders. INSEAD asks that applicants provide one recommendation from their current employer, preferably a supervisor or a manager. “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,” the website states.

Test scores

INSEAD accepts the GMAT and the GRE to fulfill the test score requirement, and all applicants must provide a score. On its website, with regard to the GMAT, the school advises applicants to “aim for a score as close as possible or above 640.” Since the INSEAD program is conducted entirely in English, applicants whose native language is not English are also required to provide a TOEFL, IELTS, or PTE score.

Anything else?

An interview, a video interview, and three essays are also required of INSEAD applicants. In-person interviews are conducted on an invitation-only basis by INSEAD alumni. These are some of the questions that are commonly asked during INSEAD interviews:

• Walk me through your resume/tell me about yourself.
• What are three strengths/weaknesses, and how have you addressed the weaknesses?
• Tell me about your career achievements.
• Give examples of diversity in your experience and how you value diversity.
• What do you want to do after an MBA?

Extracurriculars at INSEAD

The numerous clubs available on campus at INSEAD often host company-sponsored events in addition to social gatherings. Career clubs are not exclusive; all students are invited to attend visits by high-visibility speakers from such companies as LVMH, Marvel, the World Health Organization, and Google. Clubs also compile industry-specific resume books that are shared with human resources contacts from a range of companies and arrange career treks to nearby cities.

Consulting is probably the only industry for which students do not need to make a conscious effort to be recruited, as more than enough consulting firms come to campus to actively recruit candidates. INSEAD is typically regarded as a notable recruitment channel for such consulting giants as McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group, and Bain & Company.

On its website, the school describes the atmosphere on campus as “a cultural melting pot of experiences that triggers students to re-shape their perceived reality beyond the classroom; from sports activities to unforgettable travel experiences, or from cheerful parties to intimate heartfelt dinners.” On weekends, many students organize trips across Europe or Asia, which are a great way to get to know people from INSEAD’s other campuses.

The INSEAD Women in Business Club hosts various events throughout the academic year, the largest of which is the annual INSEAD Women in Business Conference. The 2022 event was hosted in person in June with the theme “Beyond the Title.” The conference, which featured case studies, panel discussions, and presentations, welcomed speakers representing such companies as Bain & Company and Priority Management. In 2021, the club joined INSEAD to launch the Limitless 2.0 gender initiative, which brings together female leaders and school alumni.

Tips for Your INSEAD 2022–2023 Application Essays

We hope you’re ready to write! With three motivational essays (plus a fourth optional one) and four short answer questions (plus a fifth optional one), INSEAD definitely demands that you do a lot of it. Plus, you’ll need to record four short videos for the video component of the school’s application. INSEAD certainly asks a lot of its candidates in this regard. So, give yourself plenty of time to think about the stories you want to tell and the messages you want to convey, and then make a plan so that you can be sure to convey them all.

Job Descriptions

• Job Description 1: Briefly summarise your current (or most recent) job, including the nature of work, major responsibilities, and where relevant, employees under your supervision, size of budget, clients/products and results achieved. (200 words maximum)
• Job Description 2: What would be your next step in terms of position if you were to remain in the same company? (200 words maximum)
• Job Description 3: Please give a full description of your career since graduating from university. Describe your career path with the rationale behind your choices. (300 words maximum)
• Job Description 4: Discuss your short and long term career aspirations with an MBA from INSEAD. (100 words maximum)
• Optional Job Essay: If you are currently not working or if you plan to leave your current employer more than 2 months before the programme starts, please explain your activities and occupations between leaving your job and the start of the programme.

Motivation Essays

• Motivation Essay 1: 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 (maximum 500 words).
• Motivation Essay 2: 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 (maximum 400 words).
• Motivation Essay 3: 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, etc.). How are you enriched by these activities? (maximum 300 words)
• Optional Motivation Essay: Is there anything else that was not covered in your application that you would like to share with the Admissions Committee? (maximum 300 words)

Video Essay

INSEAD also requires that you complete a four-question video interview within 48 hours of submitting your application. You can record your response to each question as many times as you want, and you can do the questions in separate sessions rather than one right after the other, if you prefer. These videos are not meant to be a test, so don’t stress. They’re just to give the admissions committee a more complete view of who you are as an individual—your style, your personality, your individuality, and maybe, to an extent, your language skills, given the school’s international focus. Your goal here is just to be yourself and to respond and act as naturally and authentically as possible.

Click here to read our advice on INSEAD’s essay questions.

INSEAD FAQ

What is INSEAD best known for?

INSEAD is known as an international powerhouse, as is evident in the school’s motto, “The Business School for the World,” and the locations of its campuses worldwide: Europe, Asia, Middle East, and the United States. Diversity and entrepreneurship are at the heart of the INSEAD culture.

How much does tuition cost?

Estimated tuition for the INSEAD full-time MBA program is €97,000 for the August 2023 intake and €98,500 for the January 2024 intake. This includes program charges for three semesters and such fees as library access, language tuition, health insurance, and gym access.

Are you considering applying to INSEAD? Whether you are looking for comprehensive MBA admissions consulting, hourly help, or perhaps interview prep, we at Stratus Admissions Counseling can help you! Sign up for a free consultation today!