The EMBA (Executive Masters of Business Administration) is a concept that was created at the University of Chicago 70 years ago. It came out as a method for senior management to gain an MBA whilst still working for their companies. The traditional MBA (Masters of Business Administration) is a full time 1-2 year course, tailored more for students with less management experience who want a good academic grounding in basic management theories.

The choice between enrolling for an EMBA or an MBA first comes up if you are someone of relatively senior management experience for between 5-10 years. In exploring the decision to choose between the two, let’s examine some of the advantages and disadvantages of the EMBA, a lesser-understood option:

1. Whilst the EMBA does not offer the full choice spectrum of core courses as the full-time MBA, there is significant choice. The students decide the classes offered. If a class is not offered, the administration will accommodate and provide one if there is enough interest.

2. Classes are typically smaller than that of a traditional MBA. However, a class of 80 people gives you the opportunity to be very close to most of your classmates. All students in campus MBAs with 500 to 800 students agree that there is a big amount of anonymity.

3. Additionally, instead of networking with a younger traditional MBA crowd of 25-28 year olds with two to four years of work experience, the EMBA only accepts more experienced candidates. Hence, your faculty is made up of a powerful network of senior management, CEOs, CFOs, or Senior VPs of a major companies or start-ups? The key to networking is not necessarily the number of people, but the quality of the crowd.

4. If you attend a very good university, your professors are the best of the best, chosen not only from your school, but others as well. They are paid consulting rates on the EMBA as it typically has no requirement to use solely internal professors.

5. Companies tend to pay for the course or subsidise a large portion of it.

6. You earn a full salary while going to school, so your opportunity cost is greatly decreased. This will offset the extra expense if you had to pay yourself.

1. Many business schools do not provide the same level of academic depth and technical expertise to the EMBA’s as they do to the regular MBA students. Traditional MBA students have the ability to work harder in their classes (willing to prepare more, do more research, solve more problem sets etc. EMBA’s cannot handle it, due to their time constraints and work obligations.

2. The catch is that if your company paid for your EMBA course, they also have to sign off on your participation in recruiting. This prevents you from finding another job through notorious campus recruitment efforts if you wish to complete the EMBA.

3. Traditional MBA students are more academically qualified on average (there are always exceptions on either side) and are generally more challenging to teach. This can be due to the fact that EMBA students are qualified for entry based on more practical work experience, rather than academic credentials.

4. Professors re-write the EMBA courses at times. They may have to, because relative to the regular MBA course, there's less class time, less time to do exercises, and EMBA students often have taken fewer prerequisites, so they cannot be expected to come in at the same level. They might use the same textbook, but the emphasis of what is discussed in class, assigned as homework and most importantly, tested at the end, is different.

Essentially, the bottom line is that both the MBA and the EMBA at a top school are fine programmes, but have very different characteristics. They are remarkably well tailored for their audience, which means that one suits you better than the other. It is not really a matter of choice. Most people who apply to MBA's are not qualified with enough work experience to enter an EMBA programme. Conversely, most EMBA applicants would likely be frustrated with the lack of experience and contacts of the younger traditional MBA student.

Know your own goals, your own qualifications, your own lifestyle needs. Then the choice will be clear and simple enough to make.