INSEAD vs LBS: how to choose between them

24 October 2026

I was admitted to both INSEAD and London Business School, and I chose INSEAD. I get asked about this pair a lot, usually by someone who's got both on their list and can't decide which one to write the better essay for.

Both are excellent schools. Neither is better. They're different shapes of MBA, and the right one depends on how long you want to be out of work, where you want to live afterwards and what job you're going for.

Here's how they compare, with the figures taken from the schools' own pages, and why I went the way I did.

The short version

Length. INSEAD is about ten months. LBS is 15, 18 or 21 months, your choice.
Start. INSEAD starts in January or August, in Fontainebleau or Singapore. LBS starts in August, in London.
Rounds. INSEAD runs four per intake. LBS runs three.
Tuition. INSEAD €109,860. LBS £123,950.
Class. INSEAD 900 to 950 across two intakes. LBS 497 in its 2026 class.
Careers. INSEAD sends half its class into consulting. LBS spreads wider across consulting, finance and tech.
After. The UK lets you stay and work for anyone. France gives you a year to find a job.

One year or nearly two

This is the biggest difference, and it decides most of the others.

INSEAD packs what's normally two years into a ten-month programme. It's rigorous, and it's fast. You're out of work for less time and you lose less salary, which matters a lot when you're paying for it yourself.

LBS lets you finish after 15, 18 or 21 months. That's a summer internship, more electives and more time to work out what you want. If you're changing careers completely, that time is worth a lot.

In a one-year programme, recruiting starts immediately. Especially at INSEAD's January intake, which has a summer internship period, you're recruiting from more or less the first week. Internships first, then full-time. It's hectic. Know that going in, so it doesn't feel like an ambush.

Intakes and rounds

INSEAD has two intakes a year, January and August, with four rounds each. LBS has one, in August, with three rounds.

For August 2027, from each school's own page:

INSEAD (admissions). 15 September 2026, 3 November 2026, 19 January 2027 and 9 March 2027.
LBS (apply). 3 September 2026, 6 January 2027 and 22 March 2027, each at 17:00 UK time.

INSEAD is also much faster to decide. You hear about an interview about a month after the deadline and get the answer about a month after that. LBS takes about three months from deadline to decision.

How that played out for me. I was aiming for INSEAD's January intake, so INSEAD and most of my schools went in round one, in mid-March. LBS and Oxford don't have a January start, so they went in a later round. If you're applying to both, plan for the two applications to land at different times.

What it costs

INSEAD's tuition is €109,860 for the intakes starting in August 2026 and January 2027, from its financing page. INSEAD budgets around €30,000 for living costs in Fontainebleau on top of that.

LBS's tuition is £123,950 for the 2026 intake, from its fees page. It's the same whichever exit point you choose, but London rent runs for 15 to 21 months, so the total comes out well above INSEAD's.

The arithmetic, with my numbers. INSEAD tuition was 98,000 euros when I went. I'd budget another 20,000 to 25,000 for living for the year, and honestly more if you can, because you need to pay rent, eat, and go on the trips, and the trips are half the point.

Then the deposits, which come long before any scholarship decision.

INSEAD asks for a non-refundable first instalment of €12,000, about four weeks after your offer.
LBS asks for a £3,500 commitment fee within about a month of your offer, and a £6,500 reservation fee at the end of May, whatever round you came in through. Both come off the tuition.

Scholarships

LBS considers you for most of its merit money automatically, with the application. If you're Indian, it also runs the Ajay Arora Scholarship, £50,000 for one Indian student a year.

INSEAD works the other way. The scholarship form opens once your round closes, and you can apply for up to four. Two are for Indian students: the Kalipatnapu Scholarship and the Indian Alumni Scholarship. The scholarship essays land during the interview period, which is exactly when you least want more writing to do. Know that sequence before you're in it.

The class

INSEAD has 900 to 950 students across its two intakes, from 90 nationalities, with an average age of 29, according to its MBA page. LBS welcomed 497 MBA students in 2026, from 61 nationalities.

Class size changes the year more than people expect. Small means everyone knows your name and the careers team knows your story. Big means more clubs, more recruiters on campus, more alumni for the rest of your life, and more people competing for the same interview slot.

And they feel different. INSEAD is one long international rotation, with campuses in France and Singapore and hardly anybody sharing your passport. LBS is rooted in one of the biggest business cities in the world.

Where the jobs go

Both send more people into consulting than anything else. INSEAD leans harder that way. In its 2025 employment report, half the class went into consulting, the highest figure of the nineteen schools I researched. The top employers were McKinsey, BCG and Bain.

LBS spreads wider. In its 2025 employment report, 40% went into consulting, 25% into finance and 24% into technology.

Then look at where those jobs are, because that's what decides whether the MBA gets you the life you want or just the job title. INSEAD's class goes about a third to northern and western Europe, just under a quarter to Asia Pacific, and 18% to Africa and the Middle East. LBS keeps 43% in the UK and sends the rest across six other regions.

Reading an employment report properly. Ignore the average salary. Find the table of employers by number of hires and the split by region. If your target firm hired two people last year and your target region took four percent of the class, then the school is a reach for your goal even if your profile is a fit for the school.

Staying to work afterwards

This one gets missed, and it can decide the whole thing.

UK, for LBS. The Graduate visa lets you work for anyone, with no sponsor needed. It's two years if you apply by 31 December 2026, and drops to eighteen months for applications after that, which catches a 2027 start.
France, for INSEAD. Twelve months on a post-study permit, once, with no renewal. It's a permit to look for work, and you convert it once you've got the job.

If you want to stay in London, LBS gives you more room. If you're heading to Asia or the Middle East, the INSEAD network goes with you.

The interviews

INSEAD gives you two separate interviews with alumni, usually in the country you live in, plus a video assessment due within 48 hours of the round deadline: four questions, forty-five seconds to think and up to a minute to answer, one take each.

LBS runs one interview, from a mixed pool of alumni, staff and second-year students, and won't tell you which you'll get. Its video assessment has two questions, and one is fixed and known: what you'll get from LBS that you wouldn't get anywhere else. Have that answer ready.

LBS also asks, in an essay, who you've talked to about the plan and what they said. So have those conversations early.

Why I chose INSEAD

At the time I had it fixed in my head that I needed to get into consulting, and INSEAD sends by far the most people into consulting. I'd always wanted a one-year programme. And honestly, of all the alumni I spoke to from all the schools, the INSEAD ones were by far the most helpful and friendly, and that made me feel like I belonged there. That last reason mattered more than I expected.

I'd been dreaming about INSEAD for years. When it came down to it, I asked myself which choice I'd regret least in ten years. Regret is a better guide than rankings.

The questions that decide it

Can you afford to be out of work for ten months, or for nearly two years?
Do you want a summer internship to switch careers properly?
Which city or region do you want to work in afterwards?
Is consulting the goal, or do you want finance and tech on the table too?
Which school's alumni felt like your people?

That last one is the one people skip. Ask every alumnus you speak to the same thing: "What kind of person is unhappy there?" The answers are remarkably consistent within a school and remarkably different between them. If the description sounds like you, that's your answer.

Do this now

Message three alumni from each school who did the job you want, in the city you want it in. Ask them that question, and what they'd do differently if they were applying again.

Then build a calendar for both applications, because if you're going for INSEAD in January, your LBS application lands in a different round.