To obtain general information about doing a postgraduate courses in the UK, please consult our relevant web pages. Our headquarters in the UK also publishes a useful information sheet entitled Choosing your postgraduate programme.

If you would like to look for specific courses, a good place to start searching is the Hobsons Postgrad website: www.postgrad.hobsons. The Prospects website is another useful and comprehensive website for postgraduate study.

You should begin with what you want to study and then search either the Hobsons Postgrad website or the Prospects website for universities that offer it. The best institution is the one that best matches your personal objectives. When making your choice, there are several things you might want to consider, such as: where the university is located, the cost of living in that area, the number of international students studying there, the teaching methods, the content of the course against your objectives, the facilities, the accommodation options, etc..

The following websites will help you identify how the institutions were assessed in your area of study: Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education and Research Assessment Exercise. It might also be useful to have a look at the university's faculty in your field and read what academic work they have produced. From this, you will probably be able to get a sense if their interests match your own.

You need to have a first degree from another university. This could be a Bachelor's from a UK institution or a Diplom or Magister from an Austrian university. You also need to have good grades and to provide some proof of ability in the English language, either through a language test or having lived in an English-speaking country for a substantial period of time.

British institutions usually request a translated copy of the degree transcript (some require official translations, others don't) as well as two reference letters. Some may also like to see other documents, but this depends on the specific university criteria and on your chosen area of study.

Sometimes individuals want to go on to postgraduate study in the UK even though they have not completed their degree in Austria. This is possible under certain circumstances. You have to have completed one year of your Hauptstudium. You also need to have extremely good grades. Finally, you need to talk to each university you would like to apply to. It is at their complete discretion how they evaluate your qualifications and whether they consider them to be sufficient to begin a postgraduate course.

Universities often require that international applicants do either the IELTS (International English Language Testing System) or one of the Cambridge ESOL exams.

These are the Certificate in Advanced English (CAE) and the Certificate of Proficiency in English (CPE). It is important that you contact the universities where you want to study and ask them which test they require and what mark they require, since these may vary from one institution to another.

For more information about these tests, have a look at our IELTS and  Cambridge ESOL pages.

You need to fulfil the same entry requirements as you would for another postgraduate course. Additionally, however, you would need to have two to five years work experience in a relevant field and in a managerial position. Our UK Education and Training Team produces an information sheet about the types of MBA courses available as well as the general entry requirements that you might find useful.

Please also have a look at the website of the Association of MBAs in the UK.