Secondary School Diploma Requirements
 

The following requirements are based on the guidelines for admission published every year by the Italian Ministry for Education. 

All candidates must:

• complete their High School studies and obtain their respective Secondary School Diploma before classes start in September 2024
• hold a high school qualification conferred after a minimum of 12 years of previous global schooling and achieved after at least 2 years of attendance within the same national education system.

Qualifications obtained after 11 or 10 years of global schooling do not allow access to Italian universities, unless candidates satisfy one of the following additional conditions:

1. They attended one (in case of 11 years) or two (in case of 10 years) years of university studies and took all the exams included in the relevant study plan. No transfer of credits can be requested for the university studies.
2. They can provide evidence that they attended a pre-school year (this usually applies to some Latin American countries), which can be taken into consideration only if its attendance was compulsory, and its syllabus included development of reading and writing skills in the local language. Its validity must be certified by the relevant Italian Embassy.
3. They successfully completed a Foundation Course from an Italian University. Foundations courses from non-Italian universities are not automatically accepted and their suitability as diploma integration will be evaluated case by case. 

 

Access to university-level studies

A candidate's high school qualification must satisfy the requirements for access to university-level studies in the awarding country.

If admission to university-level studies is subject to a special exam in the country where candidates graduated from high school, they must give evidence to have passed such selection with the required scores.

A few examples are:

• Selectividad in Spain
• Veveossi Prosvassis in Greece
• Vestibular / ENEM in Brazil
• Gao Kao in China (minimum required score: 500/750)
• YKS (TYT and AYT/YDT) in Turkey

 

High School qualifications that must satisfy additional criteria

International Baccalaureate Diploma - Candidates who either have obtained or are going to acquire a full International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma are eligible for applying to the Programme. On the other hand, partial IB “Certificates”are NOT valid for enrollment. 
The IB Diploma must be awarded by no later than the session of May 2024 (results are available at the beginning of July 2024). Before the final exam takes place, candidates must ask the Diploma Programme coordinator to submit a request to the IB institution on their behalf in order to send their scores directly to Università Cattolica. Our IB code is 001623. 

American High School Diploma - Students holding an American High School Diploma must have at least 3 Advanced Placements (APs) in different subjects. Candidates with 4 APs will be given priority consideration. The minimum passing grade for each AP exam is 3. Università Cattolica code at College Board is 7414.
Candidates whose mother tongue is Italian are advised not to choose AP Italian Language and Culture, as it does not contribute toward the ranking. Candidates with other partial university/college studies will be assessed on a case-by-case basis.
If you hold an American High School Diploma, fill in the AP exam declaration form and upload it to your application (additional document section).  

British qualifications - Applicants will need to obtain at least 3 subjects at Advanced –level, which must be relevant to the chosen degree course. Candidates whose mother tongue is Italian are advised not to choose A-level Italian, as it does not contribute towards the ranking.
Fill in the A-levels declarations form and upload it in the “Additional documents” section.
Btec Level 3 is not recognized for admission to an Italian University. 

Canadian high school qualifications - Applicants must have a school average of at least 75%, and their secondary school curriculum must satisfy the requirements for access to university as prescribed by each of the 13 Provinces and Territories in terms of both credits and subject combination.

Sri Lankan A-levels - Applicants will need to pass 3 subjects at Advanced – level with at least an Ordinary Pass (S), in addition to General English. The subjects must be relevant to the chosen degree course.

Scottish qualifications - Can be accepted for enrolment if they certify the passing of at least 3 Advanced Highers or, alternatively, 2 Advanced Highers and at least 4 Highers.

Candidates need to upload a recognised English language certificate to the online application.

Read our recognised English language certificates and exemption policy.   

The Bachelor in Economics and Management requires proficiency in English, a strong background in Mathematics and a good standing in candidates’ overall scholastic record, in addition to general diploma requirements to be admitted into an undergraduate degree programme in Italy.

Due to the competitive nature of the program, all applications will be evaluated based on high school GPA, performance in Mathematics and considering places available. Candidates must prove that they have a solid background in Mathematics, which is one of the most challenging courses included in the first year of the study plan.
 

Candidates who wish to increase their chances of admission into the programme can present one of the tests below:

• SAT (Scholastic Assessment test administered by the College Board) with scores in Math and Evidence-based Reading and Writing.
  Recommended minimum score for each section: 560.
  Candidates must upload a copy of their Official SAT Score Report (.pdf document) - downloadable from the personal page on the College Board website - to their online application and send it electronically as well from their College Board account to Università Cattolica (our code is 7414). The report must include the full name/surname of the applicant and Your Total Score, Sections Scores and Test Scores.
• ACT (American College Testing). Recommended minimum scores for Composite and Maths sections: 23. Candidates must upload the Official ACT Score Report in .pdf document, downloadable from the candidate's personal page on the ACT website, to the online application and send it electronically as well to Università Cattolica (our code is 8088).
• Cattolica admission test offered online with a passing score.  Successful completion of the admission test is equivalent to successful completion of the Foundation Knowledge Assessment Test (VPI).
  In case of a negative result, candidates will not be eligible for admissions and will have to retake the test in the next available session, if the test date is offered based on available places: it will not be possible to re-assess their applications based on high school grades or SAT/ACT results. Read here technical instructions to take the test.    

The International Admissions Office reserves the right to communicate to candidates the need to take any of the tests mentioned above, should their scholastic preparation be verified as doubtful for the purpose of being admitted to the faculty of Economics. Candidates who enroll to the Admission Test autonomously, will be evaluated only based on the outcome of the test and not on their academic curriculum anymore.
 

 
Candidates who fall under one of the following categories are required to take one of the tests listed above:

• Absence of Maths as a subject in the last 2 years of High school
• American or Canadian diploma

Candidates who fall under one of the following categories may decide not to present any of the above-mentioned tests:  

• IB students with a minimum GPA of 30 who present Math SL,A&I SL, A&A SL with a minimum grade of 5 or Math HL, A&I HL, A&A HL with a minimum grade of 4. 
• A-level students with a minimum score combination of CCC who present Mathematics as one of the 3 required subjects, with a minimum grade of C.