[服務]INSEAD申請問與答

[Yimmiwan]

各位對申請INSEAD有興趣的同學，距離Sept 2008 intake第一輪申請截止日期已經不到兩個月了。小弟要到2008一月才開學，願意在這段期間幫忙回答一些第一輪和第二輪申請者的問題。



INSEAD或許跟很多美國學校比起來並沒有那麼受到台灣申請者的注意，但我相信畢業後的出路並不輸給美國的名校(當然地點就不是在美國)。在美國各校的競爭會更加激烈的情形下，INSEAD將可是個直得考慮的選擇。INSEAD過去兩年對錄取台灣學生還蠻友善，率取台灣學生中只有台灣護照的學生比例也超過一半。



另外，INSEAD今年將繼續跟隨The MBA Tour 於 9/16到台北舉辦說明會。請興趣的同學請先註冊報名。

http://www.thembatour.com

[GOBLIN]

Dear Yimmiwan,
It’s very nice of you. I’d like to response your generosity by follow questions.
1. Could you please share any less well-known strength of Insead, besides its famous internationality and two-campus flexibility? I think it might be good to know when applying the school.
2. How’s Insead Alumni network in Asia?
3. Could you describe their overall teaching method? Any special courses or program that might beat other B-schools?

Thanks!

[Yimmiwan]

GOBLIN,

I will answer your question to the best of my knowledge. Feel free to further your questions based on my responses.

1. Could you please share any less well-known strength of Insead, besides its famous internationality and two-campus flexibility? I think it might be good to know when applying the school.

Well, there are always the endless parties. But seriously, I can't say enough about how great the students I have encoutered throughout my application process and after admitted. While student diversity is part of the internationality, the cooperative nature and teamwork among students start even before I start school. As there are more than 50 countries' alumni associations across the world, I know I can always find a familiar person in a strange land. Student is definitely one of the real INSEAD strengths that hasn't been mentioned enough.

2. How’s Insead Alumni network in Asia?

I would honestly say that I don't really know, as I haven't been to the Asia campus and have not be in any professional capacity in Asia. However, I will say giving the presence of INSEAD Singapore campus, INSEAD has built a good reputation in Asia and more its graduates are likely to stay in Asia, allowing great network opportunity. Not surprisingly, a great portion of Asia campus graduates stayed in Singapore, but China and India also have large presence of INSEAD alumni. So if your future focus is in Asia (not exclusively in China), you probably don't need to worry about networking opportunity from INSEAD.

3. Could you describe their overall teaching method? Any special courses or program that might beat other B-schools?

I don't know the answer yet as I haven't attended a class. But just like any top school (exclude HBS & Darden), the classes are taught by a combination of lecture, project, group work and case. As for special courses, I haven't looked into the list of classes yet. I know there are some geographical region focused classes that cover various topics. Entrepreneurship is also a major focus now in specialization.

[pockyqueen]

hello Yimmiwan,

I'm not sure if this is what people usually call you or if you have a different English name that you prefer. I happened to see your little sharing here and I'd love to hear some sharing from you!

I just finished my undergrad degree last spring and I have about one year of working experience. My gmat score is 710 and I was just wondering whether this score combined with my little working experience would be a weakness for my application to INSEAD 2008 intake. Could you please give me some advice on the application process and what I should be aware of when writing my essay?

Could you talk a little bit about your experience?

*Why did you choose INSEAD over other famous US universities such as Harverd or whichever? (since you got admitted to INSEAD, i assumed that you had a very strong background and outstanding experience:p)
*What do you think is the more important to INSEAD when they pick the candidate? GMAT score, working experience, or how well you standout among thousands of applications?
*I heard that INSEAD has a strong academic resource in terms of entrepreneurship because its students are mostly entrepreneurs. But what about other academic subjects like marketing?

I'd appreciate it if you could help me with these questions. I plan to apply for 2008 fall semester and I'm now starting to work on my applications. Your response could be very useful! Thanks!

[MarkHsu]

2. How’s Insead Alumni network in Asia?

INSEAD's alumni is strongest in London & Singapore.

--I'd say that it's definitely growing in other places in Asia. Hong Kong is sizable. I have heard that in China, there are 300 alum working there now.

--Taiwanese alumni is growing rapidly, approaching 50 now I believe. But the thing is most Taiwanese alum work overseas.

--Alumni club in Japan is very strong and active.

3. Could you describe their overall teaching method? Any special courses or program that might beat other B-schools?

INSEAD is the same as other top schools--a mix of lecture and case.

Extra commentary: My guess is that you're a prospective student. My general advice is that there is not much difference in teaching method at most business schools, with the exception of HBS & Darden which do all case. But honestly, case is just a lot of BS. It's what we called a discussion or seminar course as undergrads.

There are classes where case is effective to learning, but having a case format is sometimes inefficient for certain subject matters or the teacher is just horrible.

My general feeling is that business schools in general over-emphasize their "teaching and curriculum."



[/quote]

[MarkHsu]

[quote="pockyqueen"]

I just finished my undergrad degree last spring and I have about one year of working experience. My gmat score is 710 and I was just wondering whether this score combined with my little working experience would be a weakness for my application to INSEAD 2008 intake. Could you please give me some advise on the application process and what I should be aware of when writing my essay?

Sorry to butt in here, but I can't seem to resist throwing my 2 cents. (I think it's a sign of age.)

Without passing judgment or assessing your admissability, I'd say there's a dffierence being admissable and employable.

Having said this, people of all ages enter business school. I think if you put together a compelling application, then schools will certainly take a look at you. And in some cases, you can even be admitted without meeting the avg work experience.

But, I'd urge you to think a bit longer term. What happens once you graduate? Withour work expereince can you really leverage your MBA and advance to better opportunities?

The answer is usually no. In general, Taiwanese students tend to enter MBA with less work experience and less understanding of their career choices. As a result, Taiwanese graduates of top MBA programs in general perform worse than other international students in their post-MBA job search.

Anyway, just something to think about. The MBA is always going to be there. You can apply this yr, next yr, in 2-3 yrs, etc.

But if you don't find a job immediately after you graduate, the value of an MBA decreases exponentially.

[Yimmiwan]

Thank you Mark for the additional insight and thoughts.

[Yimmiwan]

hello Yimmiwan,

I'm not sure if this is what people usually call you or if you have a different English name that you prefer. I happened to see your little sharing here and I'd love to hear some sharing from you!

you can call Yimmi/Yimmy too if you want. The creation of this nickname is a story of its own. As for real name you can find in my msn.

I just finished my undergrad degree last spring and I have about one year of working experience. My gmat score is 710 and I was just wondering whether this score combined with my little working experience would be a weakness for my application to INSEAD 2008 intake. Could you please give me some advice on the application process and what I should be aware of when writing my essay?

I concur with Mark's opinion on this situation. Giving that INSEAD is a one year program (10 months really for Sept intake), I would say INSEAD students will have to rely even more heavily on their previous working experience to leverage the benefit of INSEAD/business school when searching for jobs, comparing to U.S. schools' students, who will have the benefit of doing full-time summer internships, which you won't get from INSEAD Sept intake.

I won't tell you whether you should apply or not. If you do, stress whatever significant professional achivement(s) you completed in the past one year. For some essay questions, you can even go as far back as to high school (as I did) to talk about your experience. Definitely shoot for R1 if you can complete the application. However, I will simply note that past admitted statistics are against you in both work experience & age. Please see most recent class profile below.
http://www.insead.edu/mba/life/classes.htm

Could you talk a little bit about your experience?

*Why did you choose INSEAD over other famous US universities such as Harverd or whichever? (since you got admitted to INSEAD, i assumed that you had a very strong background and outstanding experience:p)

I chose to go to business school in Europe for both professional and personal reasons. My goal was aiming for LBS & INSEAD first, and if not getting in, then tried for US schools. At this point, all business expriences I have accumulated so far, both academically and professionally, have been under the US "system" and "influence", and I do want to go out to experience different work culture and "style" to further my career, no matter where I end up in the long term. I will spare my personal reasons.

*What do you think is the more important to INSEAD when they pick the candidate? GMAT score, working experience, or how well you standout among thousands of applications?

Like any other business school, INSEAD look at everything you present. Academically you are fine (GPA, GMAT), but your work experience would likely be the weak part. If you have strong extracurriculum, it may offset your work experience. If you have professional certification or award, it will help too. I personally have relatively weak GPA but good GMAT, decent but not outstanding work experience yet happening to be in a hot company of a hot sector now, and good cross-culture experiences between US & Taiwan but not as extensive as many others. How well did I standout among all other applicants? The answer is I don't know but I guess my application was good enough in Adcom's eyes so I was admitted.

*I heard that INSEAD has a strong academic resource in terms of entrepreneurship because its students are mostly entrepreneurs. But what about other academic subjects like marketing?

How strong the academic resource in entrepreneurship? I don't know as I haven't started the program. But entrepreneurship is certainly a goal in many students' minds. My honest opinion is that you can't learn entrepreneurship, you either have the "guts" to do it or you don't. Accounting, finance, marketing, sales, or even strategy are all just subjects that one can learn by reading books or attend professional class. The best a school can do is providing an environment to encourage and support ideas and opportunities for entrepreneur, which I believe INSEAD do provide such an environment.

If you have specific personal question that won't help general applicants, you can send me a message instead.

[MarkHsu]

Just to add in what I know about INSEAD's entrepreneurship curriculum/culture:

--Academically, there is Prof Phil Anderson who is considered an academic/opinion leader in his field--entrepreneurship. His classes are some of the most popular in INSEAD. I actually had the chance to audit a couple of his classes. (FYI, I didn't attend INSEAD or any other b school unless you count 2 weeks @ Columbia, but my wife is an alum).

What I found unique about his classes is that he writes 1) his own case studies so no generic stuff from Harvard and 2) his case studies are relevant to the region. For example, his class is about entrepreneurship in Asia-Pacific, but instead of talking about Acer/Stan Shih, his case studies are original and change from year to year. (The point that I am trying to make is that for example a common case study used by business school, including NTU undergrad, about strategy is Southwest Airlines. It's used b/c it's written by Harvard. But I question the wisdom of using this as a case when for example 40% of your class is comprised of international students or in NTU's case, 100% are non-Americans, for the simple reason that if you have not flown Southwest Airlines it is very difficult to comment on the case intelligently. This is what I consider a US-centric view of business. One of the strengths of INSEAD is that in everything it does it trys to take a more global perspective on things, which levels the playing field for all students)

--Though INSEAD and many other schools are known to be entrepreneurial, the reality is few schools actually produce entrepreneurs. You can learn about entrepreneurship, but you can't learn gut or courage, which is what you need to start a business. The percentage of people who start a business right out of an MBA program is definitely less than 3%.

--Some recent INSEAD alum who have made it big through entrepreneurship: Kevin Ryan, founder of Doubleclick which was recenlty sold to Google for $3+ billion and the founder of 51job.com, the leading job site in China.

[pockyqueen]

hi mark,

I have to say that it's very nice of you to share such useful information here! I find it very helpful, inspiring, and..scary?! haaa

I do agree with what you said, What happens once you graduate? Withour work expereince can you really leverage your MBA and advance to better opportunities? The answer is usually no. In general, Taiwanese students tend to enter MBA with less work experience and less understanding of their career choices. As a result, Taiwanese graduates of top MBA programs in general perform worse than other international students in their post-MBA job search.

However, I also strongly feel that MBA will lead me to a career transition because I do know what I want to do but I just dont seem to have the chance right now. (well..right now i can't really picture myself starting a company right after the MBA program)

What do you think about spring intake? There's an 8-week summer break in between the terms and this will probably give me a chance to do some internship. (btw, Yimmi is this why you apply for Jan intake instead of Sep intake?) Do you think an internship opportunity would be a good way to further advance my skills and prepare myself for post-MBA employment? (I didn't participate in any internship program during my undergrad years and I did feel that the decision kinda have a negative impact on me. but it's all in the past...)

[Yimmiwan]

Yes. The opportunity to do an internship is one of the main reasons I choose the Jan. intake. As whether doing an internship will help you find post-graduate job, it depends. If you want to go into finance, especially investment banking, an internship is almost always a must if you don't have prior IB or strong finance expreience. (Personally, I don't even think my accounting expreience really counts for IB, though it was in investment industry.) For other industries and companies, it will still come down to how well you interview and how much you can convince employers that you have the skills and abilities to do the job, and your past experience may serve as an indicator. Doing an internship will certainly give you the experience that you can use to apply for post-graduate employment, but how meaningful the internship (just 8 weeks, not the standard 12 weeks) to employers will likely vary.

[Yimmiwan]

INSEAD將在星期五9月14號晚上在美商JP摩根大通銀行台北分行的辦公室舉辦說明會
時間與地點如下:
6:30 PM - 9:30 PM
台北市信義區信義路五段108號8樓
有興趣參加者請由下面連接報名
http://www.insead.edu/mba/quicklinks/Of ... events.cfm
人數限制並沒有說明
自己猜想應該可以到50個人吧

如果對INSEAD有深厚的興趣
個人非常建議參與這項說明會
會比在MBA Tour or World MBA Tour有機會更了解學校
個人只有參加過在紐約的說明會
但如果形式相同的話
除了學校代表
至少會有一位校友到場分享經驗與回答問題
另外因為在說明會的學校代表不會參與Admission Committee的決策
所以問問題時不用介意問很皮毛或是覺得很笨的問題
當然有些問題學校代表也沒辦法給你一個正確答案
譬如說"我GMAT考6xx可以收請嗎?"

例外如果有同學剛好在哪個週末無法參加說明會和MBA Tour的博覽會而錯過跟INSEAD互動的機會
INSEAD也會在11月8號在World MBA Tour設攤位
希望大家多多利用這些機會

[Yimmiwan]

補充一下
看樣子當天說明會會有一位教授做一個case discussion
詳細資料請看附件

[joylindudu]

請問有沒有當天要討論case 的資料？希望可以先看一下當天要討論的內容，謝謝

[Yimmiwan]

很抱歉，我並沒有Case的資料
不過就我個人感覺
提供這個Case討論的目的不是在觀察參與者
而是給(台灣)學生們了解課堂上Case討論的型式
畢竟Case討論在台灣一般教育上並不常見
另一方面也是一個給參與者測試自己用英文聽說答覆的基準
如果整個過程不會感覺有什麼困難的話
就比較不用之後申請面對面試或是以後上課會碰到的語言困擾
所以不用太在意Case的內容
也不用認為如果都沒有參與討論就無法申請上學校
參與說明會的學校代表都不是參與審理申請書的人
他們不會對你的申請有所影響
希望這樣的回覆對你有所幫助