Typical admissions requirements include:

• Academic qualifications
• An entrance exam
• Letters of recommendations
• Personal statement or essays.

Each one of these is only one input into the decision criteria. They are all important. Poor performance on one can be compensated to some extent by good performance on others. But extremely poor performance on any one of these is not likely to be compensated by others.

We shall discuss each of the admissions requirements individually. Variations on requirements exist across schools. School may require some addition qualifications or documentation, but the requirements listed above are most demanding.

One additional to the above list of requirements is a 2 to 5 years of work experience for MBA, expected of candidates by top-tier business schools.

We have discussed this topic in detail in Section 2.1.1. Some additional comments however are appropriate at this stage. The requirements stated in Section 2.1.1 are followed strictly. Graduate college programs in America and Canada require that you have at least 4 years of college education that is at least equivalent to a Bachelor’s degree in America and Canada. Your 4-year college or university education must be in degree-granting programs.

Some students come up with a 16-year number because the Bachelor’s degree is of 4-year duration, which students enter after completing Grade 12 in high school. The requirements do not refer to any 16 years of education before entering a Master’s program. If you have, for example, a 3-year Bachelor’s degree and 1-year diploma, you are not eligible for entering a Master’s in America or Canada. Diploma programs, such as diploma in engineering or diploma in hotel management, do not qualify as college education. The correspondence or distance learning programs are not looked upon kindly either.

Trying to get around the fundamental requirement of academic qualification is a waste of time. You know the rules; if you want to play the game, stick to the rules. Otherwise, you will only frustrate yourself and others who you keep asking about how to get around the rules.

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