How (not) to handle the waitlisted status!

After running my 2 interviews for the INSEAD MBA starting in Sept 09, I finally received the answer on the 19th of December 08 from the INSEAD Adcom: you're waitlisted!! Damned, what an horrible situation!!!

First it is a very mixed feeling because some kind of hope still exists but at the end of the day it is so small that you just want to forget it and move it. Easier said than done!

My Christmas holidays have been horrible because I was stuck in some kind of limbo and unable to think forward :(

INSEAD is such a great school and being that close is very difficult to bear. At the time, even though I didn't have any response from HEC, UCLA and Berkeley, I knew I was 100% sure getting one of those.

Second, you just wonder what made them make this decision, apparently too many french people with a better profile than me (they are very strict with their <10% french :(), bad interview? You just don't know...

So what can you do? After browsing some business week and MBA forums, several options appeared:

• you wait until the end, pay the deposits to your other admits and if accepted, you just go
• you wait until the end, reject your other admits and cross your fingers!
• you try to speed up the decision process before having to pay any deposit to other schools

Well, well, well...

Not easy to decide but actually HEC made me decide because you have to pay a 6000€ deposit to secure your seat while it was something around 1000$ for Berkeley.

If I had been rich, I would have chosen the first option but as it is still not the case I had to choose between second ans third one. (well it is not really about being rich or not but 6000€ sounds so big!!)

The second one was a bit like suicidal mission so I sticked to the third option.

Before having to pay the deposits, I contacted INSEAD to know whether there was some way to speed up the process. Actually, their answer was quite clear: No!
They only suggested to inform them about any "major" update of your file in the meantime.

Well, what can you do if you don't have any update to add? Answer: Just don't do any!

That's not what I did...I registered to attend an INSEAD in house event, and after that prepared a big mail stating all the major updates I had made since the application. But in retrospect, I am not sure there were worth mentioning.
During the in-house event I met the adcoms and they told me GMAT, essays... are OK and to emphasize what I could bring to the class...
Plus I mentioned the deposits I had to pay in order to kind of push them to tell me what to expect from INSEAD.

Answer was quite fast, 2 days after my update mail: "We are sorry....blabla" Snifff!

Here we are, so I won't go to INSEAD, too bad!! but hey, now I know that and can move forward! So this is great news! :D

In conclusion, I don't know if I can advise you anything on how to handle the waitlisted status but here are some suggestions about stuff I did that broke the deal:

• don't be too pushy saying you have other deposits to pay (especially for lesser-rank schools I think)
• don't be needy like "Pleeeease let me in, INSEAD is such a great school, blabla". It does not work with the girls so why would it work with INSEAD? :D (Keep in mind: "you are the prize"; Neil Strauss inside :D)
  
• If you have nothing to say, just don't say anything. Don't waste the Adcom time!

So here are the main ideas, sound obvious and during the process I kept telling myself, don't do anything stupid, but you run under such stress that your reactions might change (some will say that your true self is revealed under stressed, so now it's official, I'm stupid! :D) because you just want to stop the pain.

So my best advice if you are waitlisted: drink some green tea, go and work out, take holidays, cut the internet and don't go on all these crazy MBA forums :D, party, read novels, meet new people and don't do any thing stupid!

That's it!

INSEAD R1 Second Interview (November 2008)

My second interview for INSEAD took place at the end of 2008 in a hotel bar in a very nice location of Paris with an alumni. Here is how it went:

I arrived on time but my interviewer was nowhere to be seen and I had to wait for him for about 1 hour! You can imagine my stress level rising during this 1 hour of hell. But I have to say that I sort of knew in advance that it would have been half-assed.

Indeed the day before, I had called my interviewer to remind him the date and location of the interview and to check whether he was still OK to come. But I unfortunately could not reach him, only his secretary so I left a message to her. Then I sent him an email to reconfirm and ask for his mobile phone number. No answer. Arghhh. So I would have to meet him at an unconfirmed place, unconfirmed time, no mean to reach him, not even knowing how he looked like.

And as I said, what should have happened finally happened. I waited for 1 hour in the lobby, staring at everyone, trying to find out whether he was my interviewer, asking them whether they were called Mr X, going to the receptionist and the concierge asking them whether Mr X has called for me. Nothing... To be honest I even thought to leave because I was not sure my interviewer would come and if so, I have problem with people being late to an appointment for more than 1 hour.

Fortunately or not, he finally arrived in his whole glory and apologize for his late arrival.
Before going through the details of the interview, here are some basic steps to check for interviewees beforehand:

• As soon as you know who your interviewer is, contact him/her, arrange the date and location, ask for his/her mobile phone number or anything else where you can contact him/her anytime

• Check the location, travel arrangements and time to make sure not to be late

• Call him/her the day before to reconfirm the date/location of the interview

• Ask for a way to recognize him/her: picture, where he/she will be seated,…

• Be on time

So the interview finally started. The general tone was professional and a bit more tense than my first interview in the sense that the alumni seemed disdainful in some way. It was maybe a way to test my stress (stress interview?). My overall impression was that my answers were consistent and coherent with my project and file but I also had the feeling my interviewer did not really care about my answers. I did not manage to make this interview become an exchange as I think my first interview had been.

Here are the different topics we went through:

• Can you briefly describe your career to date and tell me why do you apply to an MBA?

• So, now there is an economic crisis and you apply for a MBA: is it for you a way to hide from the crisis?

• Can you explain the credit crunch crisis?

• What do you think of the actions taken by Sarkozy and the french government to solve this crisis?

• I see in your file that you are interested in Entrepreneurship post-MBA. With the current crisis, do you think it is a good choice to start a business right after MBA?

• Can you describe 2 achievements at work?

• What was your latest challenge at work?

• Could you tell me about a mistake you made and how you coped with it?

• I see that you have managed people in the context of projects. How do you handle people and do you make things done?

• What are you hobbies?

• Do you organize parties in Paris?

• What other schools did you apply to?

• Why would you choose INSEAD over the others?

• Questions?

After several questions on the INSEAD program, student life, his career, the interview ended and we said goodbye.

Then I wrote a thank you note but never got an answer back (I had one from my first interviewer).

As I said, this interview had been more stressful due to the late arrival of my interviewer and his general tone.

I guess I did not succeeded that well finally because I then got waitlisted :(.

I'll describe later the waitlisted status management (if that even exists!)

Cheers,

The Parisian MBA

INSEAD R1 First Interview

The first INSEAD interview took place with an alumnus at the end of 2008 in the alumnus office. He was working as strategy consultant for Technology-oriented consulting company. Half of the interview was in English, the other half in French.

The general atmosphere of the interview was friendly. My interviewer asked some difficult questions but did it in a nice way so you do not feel uncomfortable when answering them.

It took place very early in the morning as he only had out-of-office availabilities. If you face this, really make sure you have a good night sleep beforehand!

We went through the traditional MBA Interview questions:

• Introduce yourself
• Describe your career to date
• Why MBA?
• Why now?
• Why INSEAD?

He then asked about a challenging project I had recently. He wanted me to explain why it was challenging and what actions I took to solve this challenge.

Thereafter he asked several questions related to the economic news and telecom industry:

• How do you understand the current economic crisis?
• Will it have an impact on your company?
• What are the main challenges your company is facing?
• What is the business model of your industry?

As I mentionned my entrepreneurship projects post-MBA, he asked whether I already tried to setup somethin g and why I needed to do an MBA to do that. As I already tried to setup a business with one of my friends, I described what we did in terms of prototyping and market studies. He was very interested and wanted to know what kind of product we had been working on. The discussion continued naturally for few minutes.

Then I got the opportunity to ask questions about the INSEAD program and student life.

Overall I got a very good feeling about this interview.

The Parisian MBA