INSEAD 2024-25 MBA Essays and Deadlines

INSEAD is one of the leading business schools globally. With campuses in Europe, Asia, Middle east and a hub at San Francisco, it is “the business school for the world”. In alignment to their tag line, they do look for students interested in global exposure or aspirations. Essays tests your experiences holistically to gauge your fit for the program. In this article, we provide you with essay prompts and some must to have information in response to those prompts.  

Prompt: Candid description of yourself, strengths and weaknesses, factors which have influenced your personal development.  

You can start by building around or bringing in aspects of family, your hobbies, decision you have taken or bring out aspects of your personalities- your values, your beliefs. These aspects should highlight your thought process. Anecdotes or quotes (which you value) goes long way. Real life examples of the aspects which you are trying to bring back can help in validating your claims and convince the committee that you are painting a true picture of yours. You can include examples from your professional domain as well. End with how these values can help you while in the school and once you are out of the school as well as how it is going to add value to the overall batch. Bring out your weakness and its impact on defining your overall personality, bringing in efforts on how you are addressing your weakness will be helpful. Include clear adjectives while defining your personality.  

Prompt: Please give a detailed description of your job, including nature of work, major responsibilities, and, where relevant, employees under your supervision, size of budget, number of clients/products and results achieved. 

How your working style fit with the company (essentially testing if you are self-aware of your values and if you can align yourself with company’s value, this will come if you truly share some values). Numbers please! Quantify your impact, give numbers. Try to set a baseline and show how your involvement led to results. Names of the companies, responsibilities, were you involved in leadership roles or positions? How many colleagues did you lead? Any challenges faced and how did you solve it. You can include details on your strategies, highlighting your key skills. If you have started something, mention that here.  

Prompt: Describe a situation taken from school, business, civil or military life, where you did not meet your personal objectives, and discuss briefly the effect. 

Description of challenges you faced during the said example will go here. How did you identify the challenge, your process of your self-evaluation, essentially show them that you are self-aware.  Strategies for rectification will be a great addition. Include anecdotes or real-life examples.  

Prompt: Discuss your career goals. What skills do you expect to gain from studying at INSEAD and how will they contribute to your professional career? 

Don’t bluff, it needs to be in a logical series of arguments. Show if you took an unconventional route for experiences which aligns with your career trajectory or if you have gone extra mile to achieve something which aligns well with your value or aspirations. You can take inspiration from your current job or volunteer experience or something new which interests you (in this case share anecdotes reflecting why it is important to you and why it interests you), mention all those experiences here. Apart from the course curriculum or pedagogy style at INSEAD, you can also choose components like its clubs, location, network instructors, on-going research work etc. and highlight its importance in your career trajectory.  

Prompt: Describe what you believe to be your two most substantial accomplishments to date, explaining why you view them as such. 

How did you do it? It’s impact? Can you quantify the impact? Describe the sense of achievement or accomplishments it gave to you? Do acknowledge or highlight if someone supported in your endeavour. You can use names of the universities. You can bring out your personal stories or achievements as well. Any anecdotes on how you turned around a situation in your or your organisation’s favour. Give numbers as much as possible.    

Important deadlines 

January 2025 intake  

January 2025 Intake (Class of December 2025) Deadline For Complete application Interview Decision notification Final decision notification 

Round 1 12-Mar-24 12-Apr-24 17-May-24 

Round 2 23-Apr-24 24-May-24 05-Jul-24 

Round 3 18-Jun-24 19-Jul-24 23-Aug-24 

Round 4 06-Aug-24 06-Sep-24 11-Oct-24  

August 2025 intake 

August 2025 Intake (Class of July 2026) Deadline For Complete application Interview Decision notification Final decision notification 

Round 1 10-Sep-24 11-Oct-24 15-Nov-24 

Round 2 05-Nov-24 06-Dec-24 10-Jan-25 

Round 3 14-Jan-25 14-Feb-25 21-Mar-25 

Round 4 04-Mar-25 04-Apr-25 02-May-25  

January 2026 intake 

January 2026 Intake (Class of December 2026) Deadline For Complete application Interview Decision notification Final decision notification 

Round 1 11-Mar-25 11-Apr-25 16-May-25 

Round 2 22-Apr-25 23-May-25 04-Jul-25 

Round 3 17-Jun-25 18-Jul-25 22-Aug-25 

Round 4 05-Aug-25 05-Sep-25 10-Oct-25