Admissions Requirements

All applicants to the Professional MBA must meet the following requirements:

• You must have earned a four-year bachelor's degree from an accredited institution in the United States or an equivalent degree from an accredited institution in a foreign country. For more information on proper accreditation of U.S. universities, click here. If you earned your degree(s) from outside the United States, refer to the following webpage for academic requirements by country: http://www.grad.illinois.edu/admissions/countries. If you are concerned that your degree may not meet the requirements for admission, we encourage you to call our office at 217-244-7602 to discuss your situation.


• We do not require a standardized test score for admission to the Professional MBA, but each applicant has the option of submitting a GMAT or GRE score for a test taken within five years of the proposed date of enrollment (January 2008 or after). Less-experienced applicants may view this as an opportunity to bolster their application to the Illinois Professional MBA program. For applicants choosing to submit a GMAT score, the score should be forwarded by Pearson Vue to the Illinois MBA—School code VKRTK76. The GRE score should be sent by ETS to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign – School Code 1836.


• English Proficiency Requirement
  Most, but not all, international applicants must submit an official TOEFL or IELTS score to the Illinois MBA. Some domestic applicants are also required to take the TOEFL or IELTS if they completed their post-secondary education in a country where English is not the primary language.
   You are exempt from taking an English proficiency examination if you meet ALL the criteria of either the first or second situation listed below:
  • You have completed two years of post-secondary, full-time study:
  • in a country where English is the primary language;
  • at an institution where English is the primary medium of instruction; and
  • within five years of the intended term of enrollment (January 2008 or later).
  • You have been awarded an advanced degree:
  • in a country where English is the primary language;
  • at an institution where English is the primary medium of instruction; and
  • within five years of the intended term of enrollment (January 2009 or later).

  To see if you may qualify for an exemption, check to see if the country where you attended university appears on the Exempt Countries list. We still recommend that you email us (illinoisptmba@illinois.edu) or call us (217-244-7602) if you have any concerns as to whether or not you would be required to take the TOEFL/IELTS.
  If you don’t meet these requirements, but you have been working in the United States or another English-speaking country for an extended period of time, we may be able to waive your TOEFL/IELTS requirement based on an interview with a member of the Admissions Committee. We will only conduct these interviews after a prospective student has applied to the Professional MBA. If the interviewer determines that you do not have a near-native English fluency level, you will be asked to take the TOEFL or IELTS before you can be considered for admission to the Professional MBA.
  The TOEFL score should be forwarded by ETS to the Illinois MBA – School Code 1836; Department Code: 02.
  The IELTS score should be sent to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

• Applicants to the Professional MBA program are expected to be full-time working professionals. Please contact the admissions office at 217-244-7602 if you are not fully employed but would still like to be considered for admission to the Professional MBA.

Non-degree applications are not accepted. Transfer courses are not accepted.

How to Apply

Applications for Spring 2013 enrollment are due by October 1, 2012.
Visit the online application page.
When you Create an Application Account, and you are filling out your Basic Information, select “Master of Business Administration (MBA)” as your Program of Interest. Then select “Spring 2013” as your Term.
Once you have created an application account, go to the Application Information page and fill out the required fields as follows:
• Proposed Program: Master of Business Administration (MBA)
• Degree: Part-time Master of Business Administration - MBA
• Concentration/Field of Specialization: None
• Desired Term of Enrollment: Spring 2013