ESMT Berlin, consider or not?

Hi,

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Sian

Would agree with previous posters that ESMT is not a great b-school (yet). Has many great founding members (McK, BCG, and most big name German industry players), but many don't even recruit from ESMT. For now, I'd go for other b-schools in Germany (e.g. Mannheim, WHU-Koblenz (has exec-MBA partnership with Kellogg, MBA exchange program with LBS and others)). Would be great to have a top German MBA program in the future in a great city. For now, ESMT is still catching up.

Hi,

I don't visit these forums that often but one of my friends suggested to comment on the discussion about ESMT that is going on here. Since I finished my MBA from ESMT last December, I think some insider perspective might be helpful to the prospective candidates. So here it goes..

I would agree with most of what has already been said about ESMT in the previous posts, barring some minor corrections. Before thinking about MBA schools in Germany, one must note that MBA as such is not a well accepted (yet) degree in the German corporate world.There aren't many popular international business schools in Germany, which was one of the primary reasons ESMT was set up with the support from a number of German companies. They wanted to attract international talent into Germany! There was a mention about other German schools such as Mannheim, WHU being more popular than ESMT. Sure, but ESMT is only 4 batches old. ESMT is the only ranked school from Germany as far as the customized executive management programs are concerned. I am more than convinced that ESMT will be among the ranks very soon as the class size (which is a one of the major criteria for these rankings) keeps getting bigger.

Before choosing ESMT, I was made aware of the bad press circulating about the school too. But I had a friend that went there, who ended up giving a positive feedback on ESMT. And the fat scholarship made the decision easier given the situation in 2009. One thing that ESMT has going for it is the backing of its founders...fact that the support from many of them is merely financial(along with sending their employees for the executive programs) but the trend is positive. The founders have been getting increasingly involved in the school and I see lot of potential. Allianz is a MAJOR supporter of the school, and so is Deutsche Bank, besides others such as EON, SIEMENS to name a few.

Some comments about the 3 major topics that have been discussed so far in this thread.

Alumni Network - No surprise that it is not as big as that of the more established schools. You'll have to give ESMT some time. However, the executive MBA and other programs are huge in the school and given the corporate mentorship program that is offered here, there are ample opportunities to build your network. At the end of the day, it depends on the initiative of the students...No one will be spoon-fed though.

Berlin - One word, AWESOME! It is no doubt the cheapest among the big cities. I enjoyed it so much last year that I don't want to move out of this city!

Faculty - ESMT has been very aggressive in terms of recruiting faculty, and from time to time faculty from other famous B schools such as IMD, Stanford etc offer courses too. Overall, the quality is good.

Another huge positive for ESMT is the diversity of the school. Class of 2010 (size 40) has representatives from 20 countries, it is hard to find these levels of diversity anywhere else in the world.

I will end this on a precautionary note..Before choosing ESMT or any other business school in Germany, think why you want to get an MBA in Germany. If the motive is to work in Germany, you NEED German. If you have a German connection, ESMT is great - be assured that you will get a lot of attention among the German companies.


Feel free to post your questions about specific issues related to the school. I will be happy to answer to the best of my knowledge

Regarding the previous post, ESMT has definitely gone up in stakes.
As you touched on it's also in Berlin-a massive financial European hub. And I think its range of scholarship programs based on regions i.e. scholarship for Central Europe, Asia, Americas etc.
I also read that students come from a diverse and international background.

Hi esmt2009,

Could you please let us know about the placement scenario for people who did not have knowledge of German Language.

zany,

I am not sure if I am allowed to disclose the placement statistics before the school does, but let me tell you that a few of us with no German skills have managed to land a job in Germany..albeit only through personal network. The rest of us have moved to other countries in Europe..The situation is definitely better than what it was a year ago.

esmt2009 thnx for your response. Yep 2009 was definitely a very tough year even for the Ivy league colleges.

I attended a MBA tour in which ESMT was represented. While they came off as an impressive school with the industry connections, I believe their recent start and lack of alumni hurts them adversely. I guess ESMT will make huge strides in the coming decade with the industry support they have. Does anybody have their placement stats and if most of the graduates are working in Germany ?

I did my ESMT MBA in 2010 and I can share with you my class placement. We graduated in mid December 2010 and 2/3 of my classmates (39 of us in total) got at least one job offer by graduation date. By March 2011, about 90% got a job offer. Most of the offers came from Germany or European countries. I got 2 offers from German companies and am now working in Frankfurt.

Sure it takes time to build the network but the school itself is getting lots of attentions. Our school ex-president was the Chief Economist in the European Commission and has recently joined Angela Merkel for one of the top positions. Our current acting president appears in German and European news regularly for his analysis on the financial situations in Europe.

As for German language, definitely knowing some helps a lot. ESMT provides 3-month German course with Goethe Institute before the commencement of the program and during the program, there is a German teacher who provides Saturday tuition from March to December. Most students know at least basic to lower-intermediate German once they graduated. Those who have worked in Germany before would definitely have better career placement advantage with their German MBA. I had some basic German but the company enrolled me for 120 hours of lessons (excluding daily reading and conversing in German at work place)

If you want to know more, I am happy to share. Please write to me.

Here is the official placement statistics for ESMT Full-time MBA Class 2010: https://www.esmt.org/fm/291/ESMT_Placem ... t_2010.pdf

In summary:
Placement Statistics Full-time MBA Class of 2010
• 88% of our graduates received job offers three months after graduation
• 50% of our graduates found their job via the ESMT network
• The average base salary is € 68,000
• 60% of our graduates accepted positions in Germany

Examples of recruiting companies:
Allianz · Deutsche Bank · E.ON · Siemens
Johnson & Johnson · Toshiba · Deutsche Bahn
Capgemini · Sony · Huawei · Nokia Landmark Group · Infineon · BASF
ThyssenKrupp · Orga Systems · Apricum

And these were all our professors throughout the year
https://www.esmt.org/eng/mba-emba/mba-faculty/

Feel free to ask me any questions on ESMT, life in Berlin or working in a German company. A short introduction of myself. I was from Malaysia and been in telecommunications for 13 years in various roles before doing my MBA. I am currently a Service Manager (IT Service Delivery) at Deutsche Bahn.

Berlin named a top world city for students

Berlin has been named one of the best cities for students in the world thanks to its cheap cost of living and bounty of cultural offerings, according to a new survey. The capital was ranked eighth out of 98 cities worldwide according to Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), a British education services specialist. Munich was the only other German city to make the grade, coming in at 13th place. Quality and number of internationally ranked universities, as well as affordability were criteria in the QS study, along with quality of life and reputation among employers. Above Berlin were urban heavyweights Paris and London in spots first and second respectively. Boston, Melbourne, Vienna, Sydney and Zurich came closely behind. The survey hailed Berlin’s “liberal atmosphere” as well as “the huge variety of interests and tastes,” as being part of the reason the German capital is so popular among students. Another reason may be the high number of courses offered by the city’s universities which are taught in English, meaning that foreign students flock to Berlin. In 2011, 13,500 of the 84,000 students in Berlin were from abroad. Lower tuition fees helped cities bag a spot in the top ten, as Paris, Vienna, Zurich and Berlin all averaged under $1,000 per year, compared to $30,000 in the United States. But Berlin particularly shone when it came down to quality of life and living costs, especially in comparison to pricier European capitals. On average, students were found to be paying thousands less per year in comparison to students in other top ten cities. And although Berlin is not seen as “an academic hotspot like Paris, London or Boston” by many, the QS “World University Rankings” study named Berlin’s Free University number 66, the Humboldt University number 132 and the city's Technical University 205 in 2011. Where the city fell down was regarding reputation and interest from international employers, however, who tended to give preference to graduates elsewhere, the study found. But students in Berlin can take comfort from the fact that they are in one of the “coolest cities in the world,” which in the last few decades has undergone a cultural revolution, transforming it into an important centre for design music and art exciting enough to rival London and New York. “Unlike these two cities, Berlin is affordable on a student budget,” the study read. Source: https://www.thelocal.de/education/20120217-40793.html

Does this convince you to come to ESMT Berlin? : )

I was an MBA student at ESMT and I dropped out early this year.
Even though I had a full scholarship, I dont think I'd have profited through this school.

From what I heard from my friends stdying there, only 2 of the founding companies actually visited the campus. No job offers were made.
This is indeed a joke because ESMT advertises itself as a business school founded by business. This is a marketing gag at best.
The focus is on executive MBA candidates, who pay 50 000 euros as fees and return to their previous jobs.

If you are planning to join the full time MBA program, please steer away from it.

Career services - weak
Reputation inside Germany - weak
Reputation outside Germany - weak
Academic standard - weak
Partnerships with international schools - none
Alumni network - small and weak
Alumni who are executives - none

ESMT

Hi There
ESMT had one student who left the program early this year , and it was myself .
Not sure about the previous post but it’s certainly not me , putting the previous post aside for now, let me give a quick feedback about my experience in ESMT , because it’s more relevant for this blog readers

When I was applying to schools last year this post actually helped me to make up my mind so it's only fair to return the favor .

here’s what happened and you be the judge , I will try to split the discussion into 4 sections so you don’t get confused
1-first my personal process for choosing school
2-my personal experiences in the semester I spent in ESMT
3-my general thoughts about the school
4-few comments about the post above by my evil twin I guess 


1-first my personal process for choosing school

If you follow the post from the beginning it started in 2007, with some people expressing some worries about the school , which was understandable at the time , new school not much data about . as a prospective MBA student putting fwd an investment (both money and time) it’s normal to get second thoughts, specially with a clear message stay away from the school mentioned like that in the post, however it’s good to remember that blogs tend to reflect personal thoughts not facts and in this case posts from someone who decided not to join (am sure he made a logical rational choice)
U will see some positive thoughts and some negative thoughts as human beings we tend to be risk averse so usually the negative thoughts /comment will tend to stick , that’s normal  ( I learned that in a course by the way in ESMT)
So being and engineer and a rational person , I did the logical thing contacted the school and asked for some solid data about rankings, student placement , alumni and base salary and I asked for student with a similar profile as Mine and contacted some of them
The school administration was really transparent and direct about everything , long story short the information I got was satisfactory for me and sealed my decision and I joined the program in January 2012, I was awarded a partial scholarship which certainly helped my decision
Bottom line ESMT is not Harvard , ESMT is a young school but once you see the school progress/evolution (applicants, rankings, class profile) in the past few years you easily tell they are on the right track .on the other hand as ESMT school realize that fact they offer other attractive perks that –at least for me-balanced things out , like small class, one year program and financial aid

2-My personal experiences in the semester I spent in ESMT:

There is some information you can get about Berlin and the campus on their website , they are all true , great city and amazing/state of the art campus , one thing personally I noticed the staff is really helpful and because of the small class size the administration seemed to know all of us by name and helped us throughout the entire settling in process ,the atmosphere was simply friendly and accommodating .
Class: was pretty diverse to be honest ,and they were all really interesting and we got along quickly. But as with any group of people or teams there’s always some issues that arises but it’s all part of the learning experience I think.
Academic staff: if memory serves me well in the few month I spent I took courses around, Organizational behavior, Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, judgment and decision making, I had an engineering background so I never dealt with those topics before, I liked the material a lot to be honest , I won’t give much feedback about professors on this form, but I remember we had few comments and the school after each course issues a feedback form which they take seriously …..
Administration: ESMT have a young group of very friendly, professional and outgoing staff they helped us a lot with all administrative logistical ,housing and various issues we faced
Campus: is also as promised and described in the website I liked it a lot
Alumni: we arranged a couple of mixers where I got to meet some of ESMT previous Alumni , not a huge group but the ones I meet where certainly doing well , job wise and career wise and I remember asking few of them clearly weather the MBA from ESMT helped boost their career significantly I would say 2 out of 4 people I asked the answer was yes, the other two where sponsored by their companies and they went back to work there . but in general they all seemed engaging and willing to help for sure
Also we had few career coaching sessions, each of us was assigned a career coach, and we get to spend if I remember correctly like 1.5 hours each other week with them .I only attended one of these session but the coach was really experienced (had an impressive resume) and above all well connected in terms of business relations, which is certainly something valuable within for an MBA student.
About the German language: well study is in English, the few ALUMNI I talked with had not all of them had German background and where working in German companies, however like after the first month I decided I will spend serious time learning German because it will certainly open more doors for you .so if you make up your mind to go to ESMT having a German language proficiency will certainly increase your chances of landing a job in Germany

3-My general thoughts about the school /general advice for anyone seeking MBA

Do your homework , ask around , seek validated information not just for this school but for other schools , ESMT was the right choice for me (knowing I was accepted in HEC as well the only other school I applied for) is ESMT right for you ? , only you can tell ,but it’s certainly a school you need to explore not scratch or steer away as the posts are advising
Through ESMT or any other school for that matter you can always contact them and ask for references for current or past students , I keep in touch with most of my colleagues , most are stressed from the study load some are anxious about Jobs , some have started conducting interviews ,others not .
But keep in mind it’s only October right, usually u judge a business school with employment after the first 3 months of graduation. So my advice talk to current students and last year students to get a comprehensive overview (that’s for any school not just ESMT)
Would I advise the school for anyone, actually I did for a few people I know who have a similar profile/needs /situation as mine

4-few comments about the post above by my evil twin I guess 

First a comment to the Author: Not cool man , posting as someone else , I think it’s actually illegal ,and morally wrong regardless of the content or your intentions !!!

Second a comment about the content of the post:

all information about me is wrong specially about my reason for leaving the program , in a nut shell it was personal reasons and I got a job offer that was hard to turn down, nothing related to the school and I was offered a deferral to next year
The school was very understanding and supportive of my decisions keeping in mind that my departure may have impacted the class profile and diversity ,also someone else could have made benefit of the scholarship(it was a partial one by the way) ,however they were very professional about it and honestly that’s what you would expect from a decent school

About the comments about Alumni, Job Fair, reputation, academic standard and others well ,honestly I have no reliable information about that nor am in a position to deny or confirm that I simply wasn’t there , but from what I have encountered specially academic standard wise the few courses I attended it and the few alumni I have meet certainly this was not the case , I can confidently say that post is quite biased against the school and the fact that the author is impersonating me then let’s just say he is not 100% reliable (to put it delicately ) .
But as a prospective candidate I would certainly encourage you to check the validity of the allegation above, I can tell you it’s all wrong but as a rule of thumb , do your homework ,contact the school, contact current and past students , check statistics trust me you can get the info you need easily

Sorry for the long reply, but like I said that blog was helpful for me and as an MBA candidate you will appreciate all the guidance and help you can get ,I know I would have

Feel free to contact me , either through ESMT if you will contact them for application or any inquiries you may have , or through the blog , I will try to check every now and then
good luck everyone 

Hi

I am from India. I am pretty much keen in joining an German university next year through GMAT?
Could u pls let me know where the german universities stand globally and their placements and other information?
I need a scholarship grant thats why i am looking towards germany?
Your response can help me a great deal.

Thanks

Completely agree with you, they project themselves as insead or harvard but they are no where....career service is worst.....really hard to get a job in Germany without German language and career services guys won't help.....if you are not getting admission anywhere .....come to ESMT.

If anybody need any information about esmt , contact me.

gchawla123
Planning to apply for esmt. Can you provide me any recent info u may have? Please gimme ur email