Lesson #1: apply early

If you are considering INSEAD, do yourself a favor and apply round 1.

Reason number one is housing. This is really relevant if you are like me, going to Fonty and want to share a house / chateau with a group of 5+ students. After spending a lot of time searching recently, my grand idea of living in a chateau has evaporated and I am now depressingly seaching through the remaining large houses on www.bonapart.org hoping that the pictures of run-down rooms or furniture have somehow improved since the day before. In the end, the most important thing for me is to end up with a great group of roomates. To me, great means a group where no one is from the same country and everyone is easy-going, fun, and eagre to learn from the others. One of the most rewarding elements of my career to date has been the growth I have experienced by working with people of so many nationalities in 5 countries across the America's, Europe, & Asia. The diversity of the INSEAD class is one of the main reasons I chose to go to there and I want to use my living environment as a tool to help me gain the most from this.

The second reason to apply in round 1 is that being accepted early means you have more time to enjoy one of the best periods of the MBA. Let's call it P0; that's the time between knowing you are going to INSEAD and the day you actually start P1. P0 is great because your romantic ideas of how great the MBA is and how much you will get out of it haven't been tarnished by reality. In addition, things that may have stressed you out before can now simply be taken is stride as you know it will only be x more months before none of it is relevant anymore.

Plus, just because it is P0 doesn't mean you cannot start the socializing part of the program. In fact, I have been able to meet with about 10 future classmates in the last few weeks. I think that with a short program and rather large class size like INSEAD's, networking with classmates before the program starts is really valuable. While going to a school confined to a few villages in France certainly facilitates bonding with classmates, I expect that in one year from now I will look back and be amazed that the program has gone by so quickly and I haven't been able to get to know nearly as many as I had hoped.

The final reason to apply early is that it seems that R3 & R4 have very few seats to compete for. The statistics I have seen showed that 385 seats had been offered through R2. Even after adjusting for yield, I would say that the later rounds are going to be relatively more competitive. Good luck to those of you still waiting for an admissions decision and even better luck with housing if you are admitted!

Slacking off

OK, I must admit that I haven't been working that hard lately, at my job that is. Far from it actually. I just don't have the motivation; my company will not be sponsoring my MBA, I have no intention on returning to this company, & there are so many other things that I find more important at this moment. Most of these distractions have to do with gearing up for INSEAD. Studying 2nd language, meeting future classmates, planning to attend the welcome week, preparing to meet INSEAD language requirements, arranging housing for the next year, enjoying the beautiful weather, etc. etc.

Don't get me wrong, I do enough job related work so that there aren't fires to put out later, but I am bothered by a sense of guilt that I am not doing more. After all, I am still being paid until the end of May. I wonder how many other future INSEADers are feeling the same way right now. Well I better get back to finding distractions.

The toughest part of the INSEAD MBA

I have been told that the most difficult part of obtaining an top-tier MBA is just getting admitted. At this point I would agree, I have had admission related stress stemming back at least 10 months. It typically starts with the GMAT followed by essays and letters of recommendation. With some luck, you can then progress to stressing out about a few interviews.

I actually have a few additional stress factors that (thankfully) not all will be have to share. First was the wait list. While a brilliant tool for admissions to "manage diversity", the wait list is hell for any candidate. If you've only applied to INSEAD, it is even worse. I think I now know how a co-dependent person in an abusive relationship might feel. After professing your undying love for this person/school, they basically tell you that you aren't as pretty as all of the others but they'll keep you around for a while. You then second guess everything you have done... was it something I said or did? Don't bother asking them; you will only be brushed off without any real explanations. Nevertheless, you tell them how much you still love them and want to be with them. In fact, you tell them that you are willing to wait for however long it takes for them to realize you are right together... You tell yourself that you should have known better, but you have no other options at this point. If only I would have diversified my risks and applied to more schools... but we were just so right for each other.

Well now that I am off the wait list, I can almost have a sense of humor about it. In addition, I can now get on to basking in the "I'm going to INSEAD" glory. Ahh, but then I do have one more hurdle to clear, that is the entry language requirement of INSEAD. I have the feeling there are not too many others in this boat with me and that is one of the great things about INSEAD; most of my future classmates were probably speaking 2+ languages by the time they were done with elementary school. Not me unfortunately, so it is going to be a stressful few more weeks as I put together a strategy for passing some sort of language test.

The good news is once I pass this test (and pay 48,000EUR of course) I think it will be almost impossble not to walk away with on of the world's best MBA degrees in just over 12 months!