INSEAD visit

Driving through the forest of Fontainebleau and into the small countryside town center, I tried to imagine myself living there for 10 months, going to the market first thing in the morning to buy fresh cheese and fruits, then sipping a coffee in the Café around the corner as I watch old women carrying bags full of wine, sausages and huge tomatoes. Only later on in my INSEAD in-house event, I realized that any connection between INSEADers and the "outside world" is happening when they go out drinking late at night, after having spent the entire day learning, discussing and having fun in one of the most amazing campuses I've ever seen.

I arrived early to meet with some current students and take lunch with them. The food was great and one could choose between Italian, Grill, Veggie, Asian, French, and much more. The prices for students are a joke, for an entire meal you'd pay no more than 4-5 EUR drinks included. The chat with the current MBAs was fun and I started to feel great about this place.

At exactly 15:00 the event started, in a very nice amphi where 60 of us were sitting. First to talk was Antonio Fatas, the MBA program dean, who basically showed us the standard INSEAD presentation with stats available in the website. He then was BOMBARDED with tons of questions, that had nothing to do with what he talked about. At first it made sense but then it kinda got annoying and I though people should wait a bit and let the guy talk before attacking him with endless amount of very detailed questions.

After his short session, we had a sample class. The subject was Finance and more precisely: Introduction to options, Antonio (we're buddies now :-) ) called the professor, Pascal Maenhout and I saw arriving a guy that looked no more than 25 years old. I don't know the dude's real age but he sure isn't your typical finance professor. Regarding the class itself, I think INSEAD were very brave to choose a subject that can be very dull, and in which people's knowledge in the class can vary from none to expertise. They took a challenge and Pascal showed us that even a finance class, if taught the INSEAD way, can be actually fun and interesting. I don't know if I'll be admitted to INSEAD, but at least I know what exactly is a short put position and what happens when it's out of the money. Kudos to professor Pascal, who gets very highly scored by INSEADers every year.

Next was a coffee break thatI really can't compare to HEC's coffee break a few days ago. INSEAD guys (and I think Andrew Bueno was the brain behind the day) prepared an extremely stylish coffee break with small cakes, fruits, cocktail snacks etc. I was impressed (later on in the cocktail I was even more impressed).

After the break we had a short session with Romauld Gallet from Career services. His presentation was kinda standard as well, but he stressed out two important points in my opinion:

• INSEAD's career services count 22 full-time employees. (whereas HEC had until recently only one person, and now has 6 and 1 part-time). Even if you take into account the great size of the program (>800 students per year) it still is a lot of time put into helping you find the perfect job after graduation.
• Nowadays INSEAD tries to enlarge the Industry recruitment offers, as it detects a global shift toward that direction. The major domain remains of course consulting, with 35% of the promotion going into consulting positions worldwide.

Next was maybe the single most important lecture in the entire day, with Leila Murat from admissions. She said that when an application is reviewed, four criteria are measured:

1. Leadership potential: you have to emphasize the dimensions in your current position, to show steps you have taken in your career and to explain why you took these steps.
2. International motivation: living or traveling abroad is not enough, you have to prove that you're open-minded, and are basically a global creature willing to live or work anywhere in the world.
3. Academic capacity: your academic history (GPA, reputation of the institution) as well as the GMAT scores are taken into consideration. Regarding GMAT: she said she didn't even look at the general GMAT score, but only at the split percentiles (Quant and Verbal apart), and both must be above the 70th percentile in order to be considered for admission.
4. Ability to contribute: through your personality, personal achievements, things you've learned from mistakes and failures. All of these are assessed mainly in your interviews as well as in the different essays.

Some other minor points that were interesting in Leila Murat's session:

• AWA score in the GMAT exam: almost meaningless for admissions at INSEAD.
• You must speak at least two languages upon entry and at least three when graduating. You can take language classes during the MBA year but it is highly recommended to complete the language assignments before entering INSEAD.
• Recommendations should show leadership potential as well as talk about your personality.

After admissions we were sent to the restaurant where a cocktail was waiting for us. As I mentioned earlier, this was even more impressive than the coffee break. I took an orange juice as I needed to drive back home, but beer, red wine, white wine, sodas, etc. was also available, as well as little cocktail snacks, we were joined by current MBA students with whom we could mingle. The cocktail was very nice and I got some very important personal insights from current MBAs, but the time was already past 20:00 and I was getting very tired. I took the car and drove out of the forest and into the highway, singing to myself "born to be wild" and wishing I could drive back into the magical forest of INSEAD, as a future INSEADer.


Visit highlights:

• Free coffee at the bar, will turn you into caffeine addicted in no time.
• Overwhelming experience, the campus itself is amazing with sports facilities, new and highly equipped buildings, and of course the gorgeous Fontainebleau forest and its Château.
• A cell phone rings during the sample Finance class, and the teacher says "that's Champagne", explaining later that it's an INSEADers tradition to buy a bottle of Champagne for each time their cell phone rang in the middle of a class. The bottles are later consumed in special evenings.