How to Write INSEAD MBA Admissions Essays the Right Way

INSEAD’s 12-month MBA program attracts students from over 75+ nationalities, making it a truly international business school. However, admissions are highly competitive; one compelling reason for this is the 2024 class’s median base salary of $118,000, with the median sign-on bonus at $30,000. To build a strong application pitch, apart from grades, professional experience, letters of recommendation, and other application components, you must submit five admissions essays for your INSEAD MBA application. They include: 

• Two Job Description Essays
• Two Motivational Essays
• One Optional Essay

What four Pillars of INSEAD should your application essay reflect?

Admissions officers use the five MBA admissions essays to assess your fit for the institution. Therefore, while narrating your unique experiences, each essay must reflect INSEAD’s vision, which includes the following: 

1) Academic rigor:

The admissions committee evaluates your academic capabilities based on your degree, grades, and GMAT score. These elements are crucial since they predict your success in the school’s rigorous program. International students should aim for an average GMAT score of around 706. Your MBA admissions essays must build on your academic strengths, highlighting how academic achievements, relevant coursework, research or thesis work indicate your intellectual curiosity in various facets of life. Use quantitative data and concrete examples to support your statements, and draw connections between your academic strengths and your ability to process information from life situations and build perspective and conviction.

2) Ability to contribute

INSEAD believes in bringing together people who can meaningfully contribute to the world. Therefore, your admissions essays should demonstrate how you have contributed to your community or organisation. Write about your involvement in social or community-driven projects and how you have impacted others. 

3) International motivation

Given INSEAD’s diverse student body with individuals from various backgrounds, the admissions team assesses candidates based on their open-mindedness and cultural sensitivity. Experiences such as studying and working abroad or working for a multinational company are important to highlight. The institution emphasizes fostering a “global mindset” rather than solely focusing on global exposure. Our seasoned  MBA consultants recommend using your admissions essays to emphasize your team spirit, cultural sensitivity, and open-mindedness to demonstrate a global mindset. For example, you could write about a project or a product used in multiple countries or a time you led a team to solve a complex challenge that had global implications. You may also write about your work at a non-profit organization where you provided relief to people in need or a time you taught English to children in a foreign country.

4) Leadership potential

INSEAD assesses your leadership potential by analyzing your job description and the positions you’ve held. It considers factors such as your progression within the organization, promotions received, and your level of responsibility in managing teams or mentoring junior members. Your extracurricular activities serve as valuable indicators of your leadership potential. Use your application essays to showcase your leadership style and impact. For example, mention training a junior member or organizing team-building activities and workshops after a promotion.  

What are ‘job description essays’ for INSEAD MBA applications?

Application essays present the story behind your resume. Job description essays differ from traditional essay questions as they highlight your work experience and expertise. As leading MBA admissions consultants with years of experience supporting successful INSEAD applicants, we recommend you make optimal use of the narrative space with clear statements that avoid generic, clichéd phraseology. Every aspect of your professional story across the two essay prompts must speak to your goals and clarify your reasons for pursuing an MBA. In the designated questions, discuss the factors that influence your decisions and the accomplishments you have achieved in each role.

Here are the prompts for INSEAD’s job description essays and tips to write them: 

Job description essay 1

Provide a summary of your career since graduating from university, explaining the rationale behind your key decisions and career progression. Include a description of your current (or most recent) role, covering the scope of your work, major responsibilities, employees under your supervision, budget size, clients/products, and any notable results achieved. (500 words, maximum)

This essay lets you distinguish yourself by delving into your initial career choices, professional aspirations, and personal characteristics. It encourages you to expand on the lessons you’ve learned throughout your journey and how your interests have evolved. If you have consistently pursued your passion, you should furnish compelling examples that bolster your decision.

The prompt also provides an opportunity to showcase your current or most recent job position. It is essential to provide relevant information about your role and elaborate on your daily tasks. If you are not in a supervisory or senior management role, emphasize the specifics of your primary responsibilities, your leadership abilities in cross-departmental endeavours, and the achievements or outcomes you accomplished while spearheading those initiatives.

Tips for writing this admissions essay: 

• Craft a unique professional narrative: To make your admissions essay stand out, highlight specific reasons for certain professional decisions and explain how they have contributed to your overall growth and development. Showcase your motivations, goals, and aspirations for the future, giving the reader a clear understanding of your trajectory.
• Emphasize acquired skill sets: Cover the skills you have developed and how they have helped you professionally.
• Describe the evolution of your professional journey: Share your professional journey from your university days to the present. Cover valuable learnings and experiences that have shaped you, while highlighting skills you have developed and elaborating on how they have helped you professionally. 
• Demonstrate determination and passion: Instead of just stating your interest in the field, focus on illustrating your determination and passion. Instead of saying, “I am passionate about data science,” provide concrete examples of your experiences in the field. It is critical that the reader can infer your passion from the initiatives you highlight and the accomplishments you lay out.
• Don’t regurgitate your resume: Only share details that showcase your skills, experience, and professional aptitude.
• Be strategic about describing your company: Provide your company’s/firm’s/start-up’s background in a maximum of two lines, only if it isn’t well-known. 
• Avoid jargon and industry-specific acronyms: Keep the language simple so that an admissions officer from outside your industry can understand the impact you seek to convey. For example, using terms such as ‘implementing BKM (Best Known Methods)’ can confuse the reader. 

Job description Essay 2

Describe your short and long-term career aspirations, including your target geography, industry, and function. How do you plan to bridge the gap between your current position and these goals, and how will INSEAD help you achieve them? (300 words, maximum)

Like admissions essays for other schools, this essay expects you to describe your immediate ambition and your broader professional vision. The prompt has also been modified from its earlier version to allow you to wax eloquent on school resources and how they will aid your short and long-term goals. It is essential to demonstrate your understanding of the school’s value in much deeper terms than merely mentioning the well-designed curriculum, experienced professors, extensive network, and the companionship of intelligent, ambitious peers.

Tips for writing this essay:

• Be precise when outlining your goals: Avoid general or abstract statements. Clearly articulate what you aim to achieve in the next 3-5 years post-MBA and what your 10-year vision is. 
• Establish a cohesive narrative: Use logical reasons for selecting your goals. Connect the dots between your past experiences and current aspirations, and share your vision about how they align with your desired future goals.
• Demonstrate your research on the INSEAD MBA program: Ask yourself what doors the program will open for you toward achieving your intended ambition- consider elaborating on conceptual gaps the curriculum will address, the industry connect that the school with offer you in the area of your interest, the benefit of the international cohort as you plan the next stage of your career and the benefits of the school’s invested alumni network. Weave these insights into your story without making it sound like you’re listing resources. 

What are ‘motivation essays’ for INSEAD MBA applications?

INSEAD uses motivation essays to gain insight into your ability to understand how you respond to different environments, form perspectives, collaborate effectively, and manage conflicts. These application essays evaluate aspects of your character, including self-awareness, cultural sensitivity, authenticity, and leadership potential. We recommend reflecting on strengths and weaknesses demonstrated through your life experiences. Motivation Essays should not be a catalogue of diverse activities, but should elaborate on how crucial life experiences have shaped your character. Reviewing MBA essay examples can help you understand how to communicate your motivations and aspirations effectively.

Here are the prompts for INSEAD’s  motivation essays and tips to write them: 

Motivation essay 1

Give a candid description of yourself as a person and a leader, emphasizing the strengths and weaknesses you recognize in yourself. Explain how you are actively working on your development, sharing key experiences that have shaped you, providing specific examples where relevant. (500 words maximum)

This application essay prompt evaluates your self-awareness, maturity, and capacity for reflection. It requires you to focus on distinct strengths and weaknesses, supported by captivating stories encompassing personal and professional spheres of your life. The objective is to demonstrate how these qualities are crucial for your current or future career success. The application essay should furnish relevant information that enables the admissions team to comprehend your personal and professional environments, core values, and experiences that have shaped you. While addressing your weaknesses, highlight steps you have taken to overcome them and connect them with your strengths, thereby establishing an intentional effort to build positive and enduring behaviours. Maintain a formal tone throughout, avoiding excessive self-deprecation or boastful language.

Tips for writing this essay:

• Illustrate your achievements: Don’t just tell the admissions committee what you’ve done; show them. For example, when discussing your leadership, mention when you led a team that made an impact. 
• Be authentic: The admissions committee wants to get to know the real you, so don’t be afraid to share personal experiences that highlight your vulnerabilities.
• Use the STAR method: STAR stands for Situation, Task, Action, and Result. This method provides a clear structure to examples illustrating complex themes of positive and negative personal qualities. 
• Space Allocation: Ensure that your narrative around your weakness does not seem like a postscript, with your description of personal strength/s dominating the essay.
• Get feedback: Ask trusted friends, family, or mentors to read your essay and give you feedback. They can help you strengthen your story with insights into how they have seen you build on positive traits and take steps to work on areas of improvement.

Motivation essay 2

Describe a highly stressful situation you faced and how you managed it. What did this experience teach you about yourself and your interactions with others? (400 words maximum)

This essay is an excellent opportunity to present a significant accomplishment where you have triumphed over difficult circumstances, relationships or obstacles to create an impact. While the first part of the prompt lets you emphasize the scale and value of your achievements, the second part requires you to reflect upon areas of personal growth and the impact of your insight in developing more empathetic relationships with others.  

Tips for writing this application essay:

• Brainstorm your accomplishments: Think about both professional and personal achievements. They can include starting your own business, winning an award, giving a speech that had an impact, or helping someone in need.  
• Choose one achievement that fills you with pride: Ensure you choose something you are passionate about and see if you can connect with one of the four pillars of INSEAD.
• Demonstrate resilience: Select a failure or weakness that showcases your strength and determination. For example, if you’re writing about failing on a project, emphasize what you learned from the experience and how you evolved from that point forward. How did you implement those learnings to succeed in a subsequent project, and how did you then extrapolate those learnings to other areas of your life? 

Motivation essay 3

Describe all types of extra-professional activities in which you have been or are still involved for a significant amount of time (clubs, sports, music, arts, politics, etc). How are you enriched by these activities? (maximum 300 words)

Top MBA schools prioritize diversity in their incoming class, seeking a wide range of strengths and experiences that can enrich the overall program. Inquiring about your free time activities allows admissions committees to gain insight into your personality beyond your professional life. Therefore, it is essential to discuss your hobbies and interests, explain their significance, and showcase how they can contribute to the INSEAD community and the student body.

Tips for writing this essay:

• Brainstorm your accomplishments: Think about both professional and personal achievements to identify the distance you have had to travel to realize them. List out the challenges you have tackled to land on an example that allows you to describe a high-pressure situation with enough context around why it is important to you in terms of outcomes and demonstrating specific personal qualities.  
• Demonstrate resilience: Select a life situation that showcases your strength and determination. For example, if you’re writing about failing on a project, spell out what was at stake for you then, enduring lessons from the experience and how you evolved from that point forward. How did you implement those learnings subsequently, and how did you extrapolate those insights to other areas of your life? 

What is the ‘optional essay’ for INSEAD MBA applications?

The optional essay enables applicants to address any aspect of their profile or experiences that have not been adequately covered in the rest of their application. Its purpose is to give applicants the flexibility to supplement their application with relevant information that enhances their candidacy. It allows candidates to showcase additional dimensions of their personality, achievements, or challenges they have faced, which could contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of their profile. It is important to note that this admissions essay is not mandatory. If your application covers everything, then as your MBA admissions consultants, we recommend skipping this essay to avoid redundancy.  

Here is the prompt for INSEAD’s optional essay: 

Is there anything else that was not covered in your application that you would like to share with the Admissions Committee? (300 words, maximum)

This prompt specifically allows applicants to explain any blips in their academic or professional background. You may use this prompt to clarify a low GPA, delayed course completion or even a gap in your academic or professional experience. It is important to approach such delicate topics with honesty, humility, and a focus on personal growth. Instead of making excuses or blaming external factors, emphasize how you rectified the problem and what you learned from the experience. The aim is to demonstrate resilience, self-awareness, and a proactive approach to overcoming challenges.

The information this essay shares should provide adequate context to other parts of the application and give the admissions committee a more comprehensive understanding of the applicant’s profile.

Tips for writing this application essay:

• Avoid flowery language: MBA essays value clarity and conciseness over ornate or verbose writing. Keep your language straightforward, avoiding unnecessary jargon or overly complex sentence structures.
• Don’t add other schools’ essays: Avoid recycling essays or parts of essays from other schools to answer this question, just because your other school essays are well-written.
• Write this essay only if you have something to explain: Attempt this essay only if you have something to explain in the process of your application, like your reason for choosing a recommender, gaps in academic scores, etc.

While it can be overwhelming to write all the essays, aim to be authentic and original. At The Red Pen, we help you strike the right balance between personal and professional details. You can also check out suggestions by INSEAD to write this essay. If you are exploring other essays for other institutions, read our blogs on Writing the Harvard Business School (HBS) Essay and How to Write the Stanford GSB Essays. For further guidance on your MBA application essays, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. Our essay specialists look forward to helping you.