Hey Guys, i visited both the schools and find them comparable. After visiting these two and few other schools i basically can say that in the end all schools are the same. It is on the individual to make the best of it. I'm still thinking between these two due to my GMAT score.@ Mallika did you decide which one to choose ?

I wouldn't say that these schools are comparable at all. I mean, in the sense that they're both well-regarded in the DACH region and are ranked similarly in the FT, but other than that they are really hard to compare. St. Gallen for one is much older while ESMT is very new.

And look at the career reports: St. Gallen is great for consulting or finance careers, while ESMT would be better suited for students interested in technology roles or maybe retail roles and especially those who want to land a job with one of the school's founding partners.

I would have assumed that HSG is much more selective.

PS but I was mistaken. See below.

[Edited by Duncan on Feb 23, 2016]

Isnt ESMT also selective. I attended their Online conference last year and they said they choose 20% of people who applied to them. I am more inclined to ESMT but my choices are limited in Europe as with a GMAT score of 620 there are very less colleges open. Oxford, Cambridge etc have already not given a positive response.

@ Maury, how did you come up with the point of roles ? I am interested in finding out that ! Could you enlighten me please.

You might be right. They told Bloomberg it was 22%. That is probably better than HSG.

1. Talk to HSG. Frankly, ask them why they admitted you. Also take a look at Do you need to speak the local language? www.find-mba.com/board/34713 for the comment from HSG.
2. These are not the only two schools in the world, and it's not optimal that you have offers in countries where you don't speak the language. It doesn't matter where these firms rank if you don't speak the language. It might be better to go to HSG, but perhaps after taking a year to get to the level of perfect fluency in German.

If you don't believe me read the HSG website it says the same thing.

http://www.mba.unisg.ch/employment-report

Around 80 percent of grads work in Germany or Switzerland.

And for "Language at Employer," 50 percent of the jobs are German/English, plus just over 3 percent for English only. That stat doesn't specify country though, and it's probably safe to say that 20 percent of the graduates - those who are not working in Switzerland or Germany - landed jobs where they just need to speak English.

I'm not great at math but wouldn't that mean that almost 70 percent of those who end up working in Germany/Switzerland speak German or English/German at work?

A comment I posted in 2013...

There's an excellent comment on the website of the St Gallen MBA:
"It is important to remember that during the year of the MBA, it is unrealistic to go from beginner to fluent. The aim of the [HSG's compulsory German] classes is to take you from beginner to conversational or from conversational to business level German. This is an important distinction to make if your intention is to work in the German-speaking part of Europe. Many non-German speaking graduates secure work in Switzerland after graduation although this is significantly harder in Germany or Austria. However, many companies will expect to see at least conversational German or active German study on a CV. For certain industries, companies or positions fluent or business-level German will be required."

See more at http://www.mba.unisg.ch/programmes/full-time-mba/language-classes.php

That's a good point - that employers may be looking for either basic understanding of the language, which you can build on, or an active course of study. I do suppose it would depend on the industry.