Alumni MBA interviews: INSEAD and London Business School
INSEAD and London Business School hand the interview to their alumni, usually in the country or region where you live. INSEAD asks for two interviews, with two different alumni, after a recorded video stage. LBS interviews through an alum or a senior member of the admissions team, in the region where you live.
Because the interviewers are alumni rather than one trained team, the style varies more than at most US schools, from a relaxed conversation to a demanding one.
The schools
| School | Who interviews | What they have read | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| LBS | Alum or senior admissions staff | Not known | About an hour |
| INSEAD | Two different alumni | Not known | Not known |
Unmarked entries are from the school’s own site. * Reported by applicants; the school does not say so itself. “Not known”: neither says. Each school’s page has the detail and the links.
How to prepare
- Prepare for depth: a story that works in two minutes has to survive an interviewer who wants to spend much longer on it.
- Know why this school in concrete terms, because an alum will test your answer against their own time there.
- Have questions for them. An alum is judging fit in both directions.
- Treat the video stage as part of the interview, not a formality before it.
Guides for these interviews: How to Walk Through Your Résumé in an MBA Interview · How to Answer “Why This School?” in an MBA Interview.
What Dean rehearses
Dean runs twenty minutes, with one interviewer and one consultant's questions. It rehearses the core of these interviews (your story, why an MBA, why now), not their length or how much they vary.
Start a mock interviewSee a sample report
Other kinds of MBA interview: Interviews where they have read your application · Blind interviews with students and alumni · Behavioral interviews · Interviews with other applicants. Every school.