All MBA Application Related Tips

INSEAD Video interviews following the MBA application submission is the most fumbled section of the application, primarily from the limited opportunity an applicant has at covering the nuanced points in just one minute. The effort becomes at highlighting the most impactful point in 20-30 seconds and adding a point or two to support the answer.

Time to Prepare for INSEAD Video Interview: 1-2 Days; The applicant must submit the interview within 48 hours.

Here are some Sample Interview Questions and tips to ace the INSEAD Video essay.

In this MBA resume tip, I will share two approaches to position your resume into a traditional profile or a profile with leadership and entrepreneurial experience.

I want to start with an insight that not all schools want an entrepreneurial or a profile with diverse leadership experiences. Although if you have had such experiences, it is important to highlight them. Many top 10 schools want to see how you have progressed in a company or a function.

My uncle shared a story about a watchman who was overseeing a property, and there was a huge plumbing issue. In an hour, the apartments started flooding. In another hour, the hallways began flooding. Finally, when the Watchman reached out to the maintenance engineer, he asked, “Why didn’t you report the flooding earlier?” And the response was, “My job is to watch who enters and leaves the property and not to report on the maintenance inside the property.”

A goals and motivation essay framework can help you capture all the right contexts. For the Kellogg MBA, the admissions team has included 5 contexts: 

1) Intentionality

Intentionality in a narrative is a style that clearly shows ‘purpose’ in your action. 

“The man - shirtless, grease all over his body with a facemask jumped on to the window, barely holding onto the bars. He scanned the room from right to left. I sat at the left corner, two feet away from the Window. We looked at each other with shock and surprise waiting to see who will start the conversation.

5 seconds passed.

Who are you?

“I heard a burglar was in the neighborhood. We were just checking.”

Atul Jose (Admissions Consultant, F1GMAT): I will start with the motivation behind writing F1GMAT's Essay Guides. When I started consulting and offering editing services – officially – way back in 2012, there was no one offering any sample essays – free or otherwise. Even blogging like how we are seeing now was not prevalent in the MBA admissions market. The first version of Winning MBA Essay Guide or any school-specific Essay Guides had no samples in it. But after reading the 100th book about writing, I noticed that apart from a couple of books, no one showed the work.

Our curiosity is driven by internal motivations - desire for new information, openness to novel stimuli, finding the last piece of the puzzle, and a strong urge to escape boredom.

For Harvard MBA application essay on curiosity and growth, thrill seeking and curiosity to escape boredom has limited relevance.