Dipping a Foot Into Finance & Accounting

For those of us who don't come from finance or accounting backgrounds, the general consensus from alumni and current students is that some pre-MBA prep would be highly beneficial. I can appreciate that, being an over-achiever. After all, I know I would really hate to be the "last" in class when it comes to the finance and accounting core courses.

MOOCs are perfect for this, being free, taught by renowed educational institutions, and entirely flexible. So I've embarked on Introduction to Corporate Finance and Introduction to Financial Accounting on Coursera, taught by Wharton professors. Definitely highly recommended as I now know about the time value of money, annuities, NPV and some of the financial jargon that you would definitely come across in core courses.

In fact, INSEAD recommends doing such courses on Coursera pre-MBA and looking at the content of their 1 week pre-MBA Business Foundations course (€1,800 extra), they cover pretty much the same material for the Finance and Accounting sections. I've also heard that London Business School offers pre-MBA prep quant courses sometime in March, much like INSEAD's Business Foundations course, except that it's online and self-study. So I've figured I might as well get a head start and later when LBS does offer their course, it'll serve as a refresher.

On a side note, Coursera, I'm finding, is a little bit like falling down the rabbit hole. For avid learners it's a gold mine of pretty well-delivered business knowledge and I keep finding more courses I'd like to take. Alas there are only 24 hours in a day and I do still have to work for a living :) That said, I'm going to attempt to try and absorb as much knowledge as I can by July when I move over to London!

It's Decided

After oscillating between INSEAD and London Business School, I've finally decided to accept my offer to LBS.

It was by no means an easy decision given that they're both elite schools, and my post-MBA goals involve the field that INSEAD is strong in (consulting) in the location that LBS is strong in (London). It came down to evaluating which would give me the highest chances of attaining my post-MBA goal: switching to consulting in London. After all, the whole purpose of a MBA is to help you achieve your future career goals.

For those in the tough position of having been accepted to both LBS and INSEAD like me (now and in future), I found that hearing why people made the school decisions they did helps. So here's why I ended up deciding on LBS:

1. I'm planning on switching job function, location and industry, which is said to be doable in 10 months for consulting, but is definitely a stretch. Hence, it seemed less risky to give myself more time for job hunting with LBS's longer program and there's the added benefit of being able to better absorb the information that I'm sure to be overloaded with.
2. Networking is very important in business, and is certainly far more effective when you're actually living in the same city and can meet face-to-face. Plus, based on my experience, there's nothing like local immersion to actually understand the local culture and markets, which would allow me to gel more quickly with my future colleagues in London. Hence, I felt I had to be in London itself.
3. Looking at INSEAD's placements in consulting, in particular Bain, their students are distributed over various offices around the world, whereas for LBS most went to the London office. This information was gathered from the Bain careers site which showed how many interns Bain took from each school and which office the intern went to. Sample sizes are small but it did give a bit of an idea how each school differed.
4. mfprado1073 did a rough calculation for me here which showed that my chances of getting into consulting in London were higher with LBS than INSEAD.
5. I like the internship "try before you buy" concept. I've been researching quite a bit about consulting and while I think I know what to expect, I might wind up really not liking the lifestyle. No better way to find out than actually doing it, which I'd be able to do at LBS.
6. I like the people from INSEAD whom I've met and the INSEAD network is certainly outstanding, but that just means finding a way to tap into that network by making sure I keep in contact with all these INSEAD alumni :)

I'd like to credit the people I've met through the GMAT Club forums as their views definitely helped make my decision.

Anyway what this means going forward is that this blog is going to revolve around life as an MBA student at LBS :) Class of 2018 here I come!

The Ultimate First World Problem - INSEAD vs LBS

Yes I know. I'm in the lucky position of having the option of attending the top two MBA programs in Europe. That does however present the dilemma of where to go, and there isn't much time to decide as the acceptance forms need to be back with London Business School by early January.

So I thought I'd list here what I like and don't about each program, which along with sourcing input from other sources, might help me decide.

INSEAD
I like that....

• It is definitely by far much cheaper for both tuition, opportunity and living costs. Tuition for 2016 has been set at €71,000. Living costs are an estimated €22,000.
• It is well known for being a strong consulting school alongside Harvard. Given that I wish to move into consulting post-MBA, the INSEAD brand would be very useful. Some say for consulting in Europe, it must be either Harvard or INSEAD.
• The firm I'd like to work in post-MBA, Bain, recruits the most number of MBAs from INSEAD.
• INSEAD attracts many consultants who I would be able to network with and learn from.
• INSEAD has a strong network in Asia given it has a campus in Singapore. This would be useful because Asia is the next economic centre.
• INSEAD has produced more Fortune 500 CEOs than LBS, being second after Harvard. I would rate INSEAD's alumni network as being slightly stronger compared to that of LBS.
• I got along very well with all the INSEAD alumni I've met so far. They feel like my "kind" of people.
• The electives for INSEAD are really interesting. There are so many I'm keen on taking. By contrast, the LBS electives don't sounds as exciting in the course descriptions so I'm not sure which to go for.
• INSEAD seems to be stronger in entrepreneurship compared to LBS, which is important to me as I have long term entrepreneurial goals.
• With family in Singapore, not only would I be able to see them more often while I'm on the Singapore campus, but also I would be able to save plenty on accommodation costs by moving back in with my parents.

I don't like that....

• The program is only 10 months long which gives you very very little time to absorb all the new knowledge as well as job hunt.
• At INSEAD I won't have a chance to do an internship so indeed to be very sure I want to become a consultant.
• I'll need to re-learn French to get it up to the level required by INSEAD for a third language prior to the start of the program, as I won't have time during the program.
• The Europe campus for INSEAD is located in France, which means I'll need to do extra travel to London where I want to work for interviews. This also means extra travelling costs. Plus, even if it's not located in Paris, France isn't exactly the safest of places to be right now.
• Given the program length, the cost of attending INSEAD per year actually works out to be more expensive compared to LBS.

London Business School 

I like that....

• I get to do at least one and possibly two paid internships. According to the current student who called me, if you want to do an internship, you should be able to find one.
• Using the money earned from the paid internship, I would be able to cover most if not all of my living costs for the second year, as the average internship pay is about £1054 per week.
• It is located in London, right where I want to work post-MBA. This makes networking and arranging job interviews easier. Plus there will be London based businesses that come to LBS to recruit but don't travel to INSEAD to recruit.
• Extra opportunity available for networking with London businesses and potential recruiters through the London Business Experience core course.
• LBS offers specialisations unlike INSEAD so I could major in strategy or entrepreneurship depending on what electives I take.
• It is a 15, 18 or 21 month program depending on what you want to do. This gives me more time to absorb all the new knowledge and the workload won't be as intense.
• I can potentially do an exchange to one of the Asian business schools like CEIBS which will provide a direct Chinese network. As many are well aware, the Chinese are all about relationships first.
• The tuition for LBS covers all expenses for a week long trip to another country for the compulsory Global Business Experience. This means that even if you can't afford to go on job treks, you can still get the global business exposure.
• LBS actually has a specific Turnaround and Restructuring Management consulting club which is slightly different to consulting, and something I'm really interested in.
• LBS only requires two languages, which I've got so not extra studying needed and instead I've got more time to spend studying Finance.
• LBS is probably more well-known in NZ and Australia compared to INSEAD although the alumni chapter in INSEAD seems larger.
• LBS has a reasonable commitment fee of £2000 and provides sufficient time to make the reservation payment, unlike INSEAD's commitment fee.

I don't like that....

• The cost of attending LBS is much higher than INSEAD. ROI for LBS is lower than INSEAD.
• Living in London is frightfully expensive, accomodation costs are more than my current mortgage! There's that tricky matter of needing to demonstrate financial means to obtain a student visa. This does mean you can't just go with half the cash and plan to earn the rest for living on after.
• LBS is not as strong in Asia as INSEAD which means if I did want a job in Asia it would probably be tougher.
• LBS isn't as well known for consulting so I'm not sure if that affects chances of landing that job at Bain that I'm aiming for.

In any case, I thought it would be a great idea to find out directly from Bain in London if they had a particular preference. Maybe the people hiring generally find MBA grads of one school or the other better. No harm asking in the name of research right? So I've emailed them and hopefully I'll get a reply this side of Christmas!

An Unexpected Call from INSEAD

Round 2 results for INSEAD were due to come out by the end of this week. Updates on acceptances started appearing on the GMAT Club forums from Tuesday. Surprisingly though, 2 fellow Round 1 waitlisters also reported getting accepted from the list. This made me wonder whether I should actually just go ahead and accept the LBS offer since I hadn't heard from INSEAD.

Last night while I was in the shower the phone rang. My Significant Other brought the phone in saying it was an international call. So I jumped out of the shower and called back. Yes, it was INSEAD and yes I was accepted for starting on the Singapore campus! Unbelievable!

Thinking about it though, it is somewhat unusual to have such quick movement from the waitlist, given that in previous intakes waitlisters have suffered months of uncertainty. I'm wondering if perhaps the attacks in Paris might have yielded INSEAD fewer applications than usual in Round 2? Or maybe I got lucky and there aren't actually many marketers remaining amongst the applicants.

I'm stoked regardless. I'll admit the part of me that also cares what other people think is doing cartwheels because now it feels like It wasn't a fluke that I'm being recognised. Not that an acceptance from LBS is anything to sneeze at. Just that as an overachiever, 2 acceptances is always better than just 1! Though it does present the difficult dilemma of which school to attend. That is however a problem for another day. :)

And the INSEAD Results Are...

INSEAD Round 1 announcements started coming out a day before the deadline. During this time I kept willing my phone to ring. Unfortunately, that never happened. Instead, I received an email in the evening informing me that I had been waitlisted. Bummer! Ok I was really really gutted.

Yes, being waitlisted means that I wasn't rejected so there's still hope. But it also means that you're left in limbo. According to the email from INSEAD, the offer could come anytime between "now and right before the program starts in August 2016". That's an 8 month window! For someone like me who is a hardcore "planner", this is pure torture. Plus, those who have researched INSEAD would know that INSEAD generally discourages reapplying if you are rejected unless your situation changes dramatically, which is rather unlikely in my case.

After receiving the announcement email, I had a minor panic that if LBS waitlisted or rejected me, I would end up in the horrible position of having nowhere to go. Luckily, because I'd applied in Round 1 it meant that I still had the chance to do another round of applications for Round 2 in January to other schools. I dreaded this though because applications take so much time and energy and not just on my part, but on the part of my recommenders as well. On hindsight, it probably would have been more prudent to have prepared my Round 2 applications when I was doing Round 1 while I was in the "application zone".

I accepted my place on the waitlist and proceeded to then spend a few hours calculating the likelihood of getting accepted from the waitlist based on the previous year's intake (ok yes it was a pointless exercise, but I really couldn't help myself). I also looked up advice for being waitlisted, of which there's plenty online. The most useful ones I've found are from Accepted.com and Poets and Quants.

One thing I've been actively checking myself on is to resist the impulse to dash off an update letter immediately. As mentioned in Poets and Quants, it's best to wait till a bit closer to the Round 2 announcement deadline, which isn't actually all that far away. Fingers crossed I'll get an acceptance notification really soon!

INSEAD Interview #2

After the relaxing atmosphere of my first INSEAD interview, I was not too nervous about the second, since it would make the third MBA interview I was doing. This interview however was unexpectedly far more intense than even the LBS one.

In fact, my interviewer, a partner at an investment banking firm, covered so much we had to do it in two parts because we ran out of time the first round. So I wound up having a one hour face-to-face and then a follow up 45 min phone interview with him and never got to ask my prepared questions!

He was very very thorough and covered practically everything that you expect from an MBA/job interview and then some. Aside from the usual walk through CV, why MBA, why INSEAD, he also questioned almost all the steps I took in my CV. Many of the questions he asked was around thought processes and what I was feeling when I made various decisions which was a bit different. A few curve balls he threw me were questions about what I was feeling towards getting an MBA, any reservations I had, and what my greatest fears in doing the MBA would be.

Interestingly he asked specifically for me to describe an entrepreneurial situation and clarified that it could be within the workplace. Thankfully I actually have a hobby side business, but I think I would have struggled if I didn't have an "obvious" experience. He also asked for specific examples of when I made a good judgement and when I made a bad judgement, which was a bit different from strengths and weaknesses (he asked about those too). I basically used up every single story I had pre-prepared in this interview and had to come up with some on the spot.

The good thing about the intensity and all-rounded questioning was that it did give him a good sense of who I was. In spite of the intense and detailed questioning, I never felt like he was asking the challenging questions to "catch me out", but rather because he genuinely wanted to get to know me.
So I'm positive he'd have given me a good recommendation because at the end he summed up all my strengths and said that he thought I'd fit very well at INSEAD. Plus he mentioned that he hoped I would pick INSEAD over LBS if I got accepted to both.

My advice to INSEAD applicants is to be "real" and show your interviewers who you are as a person. Understanding your thoughts and feelings helps them connect with you and become one of your "supporters". Also, even if you don't end up going to INSEAD, if they like you and connect with you then that's another person you can add to your network.

INSEAD Interview #1

Following the email invitation to interview from INSEAD, I was sent the contact details of the two INSEAD alumni and instructed to arrange interviews with them.

My first interview was an alumni working as a Relationship Manager at a bank. Surprisingly, I was invited to his home for the interview as he lived not too far from me. Most of the reports I read about INSEAD interviews was that it was conversational. This was true of my first interview. It was really casual - so much so my interviewer told me he was just about to vacuum when I arrived! 

Contrary to what I expected, there weren't a whole lot of questions asked. He started of telling a bit about himself as his background was entirely different to mine and then got me to talk through my CV, why I wanted to do an MBA and why INSEAD - questions that were entirely expected. Then he asked about my goals and about team work and what my leadership style was. There was also some discussion about whether I'd dealt with conflict and what sort of cultural diversity was in my workplace. 

All the questions were easy to answer and we got along well. He also asked me at the end if there was anything he hadn't asked about that I really wanted to talk about which gave me the chance to throw in a few things about my charity work. The last part of the interview was him answering my questions for him and giving me advice on how to get the most out of the programme.

Unfortunately as he had graduated quite some time ago, there was not a whole lot of specifics he could provide that were still very relevant. Quite a few of the questions I had pre-prepared thus had to be thrown out. However, I felt I still got quite a bit of useful advice and insight into the MBA program at INSEAD in general.  Out of all the business schools, I would say I've had the most positive interactions with INSEADers and my interview with him definitely reinforced this perception.

Read how my second INSEAD interview went on here.