INSEAD Recommendation Questions
The recommendation questions for the MBA program at INSEAD are available below. Two recommendation letters are required, and should ideally come from the workplace in order to say something about your leadership and management potential. Current supervisors or managers are preferred, but alternatively, it can be from someone who has had an opportunity to evaluate you in a professional setting, such as a client, a former supervisor, or a colleague from your community service or extracurricular activities.
INSEAD allows a third recommendation if you feel it will add value to your profile. There is no imposed format for this additional reference, and you can choose to upload it in your supporting documents section of the application or email it.
2025-2026 INSEAD MBA Recommendation Questions
Relationship to Candidate
After some personal identifying information, the form proceeds to inquire about the recommender’s relationship to the applicant.
Please, specify your relationship to candidate:
- Professional
- Educational
- Personal
How long have you known the candidate? Define your relationship with the candidate and the circumstances whereby you met.
Candidate Rating
How do you rate the candidate on the following criteria? (Using the following scale: Outstanding (top 2%), Very Good (top 10%), Above Average (top 25%), Average (top 50%), Below Average (bottom 50%), Unobserved
- Competence in his/her field
- Professionalism
- Focus on the task at hand
- Readiness to use opportunities for achievement
- Creativity and resourcefulness
- Intellectual curiosity
- Energy and drive
- Personal integrity
- Ability to work in a team
- Organizational ability
- Oral communication skills
- Written communication skills
- Excellent (top 2%)
- Very good (top 10%)
- Above average (top 25%)
- Average (top 50%)
- Below average (bottom 50%)
Recommender Questions
Please give your answers to each of the following questions.
- Comment on the candidate’s career progress to date and his/her career focus.
MBA Applywire
I have about 4 years of experience at a financial derivatives advisory firm, where I'm a Vice President advising real estate and equipment-finance clients on hedging strategies. My firm is very small. which means, I am asked to take leadership roles. For example, I lead our largest client relationship, and I get to present to clients' executives and investors. Before this, I had one year in a mid size public sector consulting firm and before that, I had a year of service in the AmeriCorps, working in homelessness services.
I have a 3.58 GPA from a good but not top tier public university. At graduation I have 150 credits, which meant I was able to graduate with two bachelors degrees. They were a B.S. in Math and Economics, and a B.A. in History.
Outside of work, I volunteer roughly 120 hours a year with a hunger-relief nonprofit a and serve as a junior board member. I also organized my company's first ever annual day of service, which we've continued for 3 years. My personal interests include collecting vinyl records, and learning ancient History.
Post-MBA, I want to build on my background in real estate capital markets to move into banking on the lending side, with a particular focus on real estate. I like the real estate world, but I want to work at a bank as I think a larger institution would provide more opportunities for growth in the larger world of finance.
I am struggling to decide which schools to apply to. I keep adding programs to my list, and I already think my list is too high. My brother wants me to apply to Stanford because he's moving to the Bay Area, but I don't think I'd be competitive. My dream school is Wharton, but I think it's a long shot.
Also, in case it's relevant, I am a 28 year old White male from Pennsylvania, and a member of the LGBTQ community.
My low cgpa was as a result of working part time during my undergrad to cover my expenses and mostly for experience. Parent's business run into financial challenges made things difficult because i had to pay my fees. had CGPA of 3.0+ in 3rd and 4th year in my undergrad(60 credit hours). currently work in commercial bank in CX with 4yrs Work Exp. It will be 6yrs when I apply for the MBA ,I will be promoted to a different unit soon. pro bono consulting for young entrepreneurs. Led youth groups at church and organize capacity building events.
Plan on writing the GRE with 330 as target.
Hoping for a significant scholarship
1. I want advise on how to build my profile to make me an ideal candidate for R1 acceptance and $$$
I have worked for over 10 years in sales and business development and I am currently completing a PostGraduate Diploma in Banking and Finance and I need an a good MBA to enable me pivot into financial services.
Currently working in consulting with a major FMCG/alcobev client, mainly across analytics, supply, and business problem-solving work. Over time, I’ve realized I enjoy understanding why problems exist within organizations and how teams, systems, and decisions can work better together, which is what’s pushing me towards strategy consulting and an MBA.
A lot of my interest in business also comes from seeing how everyday products and operations work behind the scenes. Outside work, I co-founded and ran a digital literacy initiative (1yr 2mo) during COVID where we helped elderly individuals and women from underserved communities learn basic digital tools to stay connected and manage daily activities during lockdown.
I’m currently preparing for the GMAT and exploring schools such as LBS, Fuqua, Ross, Tuck, and a few reach schools depending on how the score progresses.
MBA LiveWire
Rejected after being kept on waitlist for 6 months. Annoying but am anyway committed to Dartmouth
a bit of a bummer but that's okay. got into several other great schools :)