Hi,

I am a telecom professional (currently based in Germany for the last 8 years) with ~16 years of experience mainly in sales and business development. I planned to go for EMBA now. I applied to few schools and received offers from all of them. Finally, I shortlisted 2 of them - ESMT and Warwick. As it comes closer, it is getting difficult for me now to make a final decision.
From the career goals perspective, I am not expecting a complete shift in career (e.g. telecom to investment banking or so). What I want is to have a combination of quality education, good career progression, globally known school (rankings maybe) and a diverse profile in MBA class.
I tried to write down few pros and cons of each:
ESMT:
Pros: Easy to manage (direct train to berlin from my place), 1.5 years duration, good ranking.
Cons: German tag (not sure about its value when I plan to move in Asia in future), Cohort (mostly Germans I believe), generally Germany is not known for MBAs, slightly higher fee etc.
Warwick:
Pros: Good brand, much more international, high quality education in UK, Rankings, very good campus etc.
Cons: Travelling from Germany to UK in every 5-6 weeks, VISA hassles (I need visa being Indian), 2 years duration against 1.5 years in ESMT. any impact of Brexit (I have no clue about it).
Independent of both schools, in general, I am lil scared about the quality of cohort during this Coronavirus pandemic. I heard that MBA schools are finding it difficult to get students in these tough times. Can it impact the quality of cohort? Also, is there a danger of shifting all classes online? My main motivation is to grow my professional work by F2F interaction.
Your help will be highly appreciated. I have only 2 days to decide as the deadline of offers are approaching.

Regards

[Edited by elaliga on May 30, 2020]

I am intrigued about why you didn't pick an EMBA that has a cohort in both Western Europe and Asia, like Aalto, Chicago, Ciebs, HEC, Kellogg, LBS, LSE, Mannheim-Essec, etc. 
I don't think you will get a worse education at ESMT. It has a more senior cohort, and the course is more of an integrated general management degree and focussed on soft skills and leadership. Through GNAM, you can take a week, or a longer exchange, at a top school in China, Korea or India. 
Warwick's EMBA is similar in design to the distance learning MBA, with a compact core and a wider range of electives. That makes it very good for the relatively junior cohort, who often need to build new specialisms or make big changes. I am not sure that the educational approach will be more German at ESMT: the two schools hire from the same pool of top talent but, unlike Warwick, teaching skills will matter greatly. 
As you can tell from the way I frame this, I think both are good programmes but ESMT may have more to offer than you appreciate. 

Hi Duncan,
Thanks a ton for the very quick reply. So, as I understand from your message, ESMT can be a better choice. Warwick is also a good option but may not offer something special as compared to ESMT. My main thinking was doing an MBA from an English speaking country. But maybe I am wrong. 
What about cohort quality in Coronavirus times? Do you think I can get equally good cohort this year as compared to last year?
Regards,

[Edited by elaliga on May 30, 2020]

I would like to hear more about what you feel the benefit is of an MBA from an English speaking country, in a setting where the students and faculty are similarly international. 
I think cohort quality is effected by: base level quality, availability of alternatives, virus levels in the country, share of the cohort travelling from outside the country. I think all those variables favour ESMT, especially since Warwick has distance learning MBA that people can move into seamlessly. 

Thanks a lot Duncan!
Regards

Why not one of the programmes with a cohort in Asia?

I tend to agree. ESMT has a brand name in Germany but in many parts of Asia might be virtually unknown. 

Why not look through LinkedIn, especially at professionals in the regions where you will end up, to see how expansive each of these school's networks is? Also take note of which schools are most often represented among people in the kinds of organizations where you see yourself working eventually. If neither Warwick nor ESMT is very well represented, maybe you need to look into different schools. 

CEIBS in Zuruch maybe? https://europe.ceibs.edu/programmes/global-executive-mba 

Hi, Thanks everyone for your replies.My budget was max 50K. So I had to filter out many schools. I got offers from RSM, IESE but rejected due to high tuition fee. I didn't apply to HEC, INSEAD, CEIBs etc for the same reason. 

The RSM EMBA is 53,000 Euro in Cologne.