Academic Handbook
The MBA Academic Handbook is your key resource as a student. You’ll find information about:
- Academic Policies and Procedures
- Specializations
- Student Clubs
- Staff Directory
The information in the handbook takes precedence over information from other sources (including this website) if there’s a conflict.
Academic Handbook Archive
Helpful Resources
Frequently Asked Questions
“Reserve Capacity Criteria”
- Although a course may appear to have seats available, the seats in the allotted “reserve capacity” that you have access to may be full at this time.
- Oftentimes, faculties release a specific number of seats to students outside of their faculty. Once faculties are certain that there are enough seats for their students, these seats will be released.
- We encourage you to try enrolling in a different section (if available) or a different elective with space and continue to try to swap into your preferred elective on Mosaic once the reserved seats are released.
- To confirm the reserved seat release date, you must reach out to the home faculty of the course offered.
“Pre-requisites Not Met”
- Please refer to the course website (Course Descriptions and Outlines – MBA Program (mcmaster.ca)) to view the prerequisites.
- If you do meet the prerequisite, reach out to us at askmba@mcmaster.ca so we can investigate this for you further. Please include your full name and student number in your inquiry.
“Department Consent Required”
- This error message means this course is currently full.
- Course enrollment will be monitored carefully. Please try back often to see if a seat has become available.
- In the meantime, we also suggest you register in an alternate course.
Note: You may get the “Department Consent Required” message even when the course does not appear to be full. This means someone has dropped the course and a seat is being given to the next student on the wait list.
- To defer a final examination, you must fill out a Deferred Examination Form.
- Please submit this form and supporting documentation to the Student Experience Office. You have five (5) business days from the date of the missed course work to complete this process.
- If approved, you will be required to write the deferred exam in the next deferred examination period (see Dates and Deadlines).
For the latest COVID-19 news and updates, please visit (and bookmark) the McMaster COVID-19 website.