insead mba essay tips

insead mba essay tips

Effective Strategies for Writing INSEAD MBA Application Essays

1. Introduction to INSEAD MBA Program and Essay Requirements

5) Please choose one of the following two essay titles: a) Have you ever experienced culture shock? What did it mean to you? And did you expect to be in another situation of shock again with an INSEAD MBA activity? or b) Taking the past few years into account, how do you see your career developing with the INSEAD MBA program? (250 words).

4) Discuss your career goals and the greatest strength and weakness you expect from the MBA (300 words).

3) Describe a situation taken from school, business, civil or military life, where you did not meet your personal objectives and discuss briefly the effect (250 words).

2) Describe what you believe to be your two most substantial accomplishments to date, explaining why you view them as such. INSEAD says this can be based on either multifunctional or global exposure (400 words).

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 that have influenced your personal development, giving examples when necessary (approximately 500 words).

The INSEAD MBA program has 5 essay questions that need to be answered by the applicants during their application process.

The INSEAD MBA program is unique. It is part of a network of 4 international business schools and offers the flexibility of either starting the program in France or Singapore. It is called the Business School for the World, and an INSEAD MBA builds a global perspective that can work in any country with any nationality. INSEAD wants students to build their free and most compelling network with other students, professors, and alumni while also having a strong sense of the way their lives and careers will be improved by joining this network of people. The application has 5 essay questions and a curriculum details section. The school clearly wants all of the information the applicant presents to be absolutely relevant to the situation and for only the most essential points to be shared.

2. Understanding the INSEAD MBA Essay Prompts

Here are some common threads in INSEAD essay questions to help you best understand and respond to the INSEAD MBA application essay prompts provided by the university. INSEAD essays also sprinkle other questions throughout (like “how do plan to spend your time as a student”) to get a bigger picture of you, your goals and what makes you tick. Remember that the goal is to buttress their knowledge of you and present a more comprehensive picture to them. Answering these wriggle-room questions communicates further your leadership skills, strategic understanding and the value you will add to the incoming class.

When tasked with writing the INSEAD MBA essays, it can be the most challenging part of the application. Collecting, protecting and presenting your thoughts and visions will help INSEAD assess you in a more nuanced and accurate way than through algorithms in your CV, your scores or preparatory course results. INSEAD admissions are looking for those who will add value to the cohort, and by showing you are an interesting applicant that brings value, you make them more likely to endorse you.

3. Crafting a Compelling Personal Story and Career Goals Statement

Why do you wish to pursue an MBA program at INSEAD and how do you see it helping you achieve your long-term career goals? While types of confessions in essays will vary widely, it is important to be able to substantiate any claims by original, real-world examples. No pop psychology is needed. It’s best to show only the best part of yourself in this first-contact Kenan-Flagler exercise. As with any of these essays, the topic sentences should reflect the purpose of that part of the essay and should be clear to the reader. The first essay is tied to real stories from the writer’s college days in a hospital setting.

Crafting a compelling personal story and career goals statement: The admission committee is interested in your academic ability as well as your experience and potential. Other essays address your ability to work well with others successfully, your goals, and your fit with INSEAD, so even here, be cautious of topics that others are likely to use and look for ways to set yourself apart.

Your job with these INSEAD application essays is to tell the company something about yourself that it doesn’t already know and to convince them that you belong. It’s about setting yourself apart from the others and showing the company how you see yourself fitting into the program and the INSEAD community.

4. Showcasing Cultural Awareness and International Experience

Your flair for seeing innovative ways, your experience on international projects, your physical facility in multiple languages, your extensive overseas travel, or your intimate knowledge of foreign populations. Such behaviors, which reveal cultural awareness, are worth including in the essay to tell INSEAD who you are and the kind of work experiences you have. Answer INSEAD’s Cultural Awareness Essay with your own cultural experiences. For example, you worked across different countries and departments and had the opportunity to learn about different cultures and interact with people of different backgrounds. Remember, an international consulting venture only showed the importance of cultural understanding in the global marketplace in which you’ll do business your whole career. Use personal examples in your INSEAD essay to demonstrate how you have exhibited sensitivity to cultural diversity and challenged cultural stereotypes in everyday encounters. Understanding the importance of personal expression of experience in the workplace, embrace the social responsibility inherent in the INSEAD culture. Focus on meeting people from diverse cultural backgrounds, making alliances, and participating in the INSEAD community.

5. Structuring and Editing Your INSEAD MBA Essays for Maximum Impact

Your story should be personal and reveal who you are. You should use a step-by-step format to detail how you arrived at your decision to pursue an MBA. The admission committee wants to see passion, impact, potential, and well-reconceived post-graduation plans. Demonstrate that the MBA is a great fit for you. They need to gauge if there is a high probability of a stated logical progression. To gain the reader’s confidence in the competence of the applicant’s decision-making, you must carefully link personal plans with a comprehensive understanding of both yourself and your target career post-MBA. They want to ensure potential students have a deep understanding of the program, which is shown by a well-considered school selection rationale. Such a genuine or perceived fit predicts success as an INSEAD MBA and through multiple options, including various post-MBA career paths.

The INSEAD MBA application requires prospective students to complete six steps: biographical data, educational history, employment history, and other qualifications, professional experience, languages, and essays. The final step contains three essay questions from which candidates must answer two. This stage offers an excellent opportunity to stand out in your own unique voice. Simple, clear, jargon-free storytelling is more impactful than lists of attributes and strengths, and since the experiences and accomplishments that candidates choose to share with the school are just as important as the essay structure and content, this is a crucial step in an MBA candidate’s application process. By structuring and editing your essays effectively, you will show that your whole application seamlessly fits together and reinforces the message you want to convey.