Secondary School Diploma Requirements
 

The following requirements are based on the guidelines for admission published every year by the Italian Ministry for University and Research (MUR). 

You must:

• complete High School studies and obtain your Secondary School Diploma before 30 August 2024
• hold a high school qualification conferred after a minimum of 12 years of previous global schooling and awarded on the basis of at least the last 2 years of attendance within the same national education system.

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

1. You attended one year 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. You can provide evidence that you attended a pre-school year (this usually applies to some Latin American countries). This 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. 
3. You 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 you graduated from high school, you must give evidence to have passed such selection with the required scores.

A few examples are:

• Selectividad/EBAU in Spain
• Veveossi Prosvassis in Greece
• Vestibular / ENEM in Brazil
• Gao Kao in China
• YKS (TYT and AYT/YDT) in Turkey

High School qualifications that must satisfy additional criteria

International Baccalaureate Diploma -  Carefully read Universita Cattolica IB admission policy.

American High School Diploma - In addition to your American High School Diploma, you will need to pass/have already passed at least 3 Advanced Placements (APs) exams in different subjects with the College Board. The minimum passing grade for each AP exam is 3.
If you are yet to take the AP exams, please fill in the AP exam declaration form and upload it to your application. If you already took one or more exams, please upload the official AP scores issued by the College Board to your application.
If you are a native speaker of Italian, you are advised not to choose the AP Italian Language and Culture exam, as it does not contribute towards the assessment.

British qualifications - You will need to obtain at least 3 subjects at Advanced –level, which must be relevant to the chosen degree course. If your mother tongue is Italian, you 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 - You must have a school average of at least 75%, and your 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 - You 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 - You may be accepted for enrolment if you certify the passing of at least 3 Advanced Highers or, alternatively, 2 Advanced Highers and at least 4 Highers.

Read our recognised English language certificates and exemption policy.   

Priority consideration for admission into the programme will be given to candidates whose high school transcripts reflect a GPA of 75% or above at the time of applying. This translates, for example, into CCC for A-levels or 31 points for the IB Diploma curriculum (see the IB undergraduate admission policy).

If you wish to increase your chances of admission into the programme, you can present one of the tests below, in addition to your transcripts:

• 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.
  You must upload a copy of your Official SAT Score Report (.pdf document) - downloadable from the personal page on the College Board website - to your 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. Superscores will not be considered: if you attended the test several times, only the highest overall test scores will be considered.
• ACT (American College Testing). Recommended minimum scores for Composite and Maths sections: 23. You must upload the Official ACT Score Report in .pdf document, downloadable from your personal page on the ACT website, to the online application and send it electronically as well to Università Cattolica (our code is 8088).

Note for IB students: please find specific requirements in the IB admission policy.

If you fall under one of the following categories:

• Absence of Mathematics as a subject in the last 2 years of high school.
• American or Canadian diploma.

in addition to your high school transcript, you are required to submit either:

• the SAT/ACT scores,
• or take and successfully pass the Cattolica Admission Test.

Read carefully the specific deadlines to apply for test registration.

In case of a negative result, you will not be eligible for admission to the programme, and you will have to retake the test in the next available session if places are still available. Please note: if you accept to sit the Cattolica test, it will not be possible to re-assess your application based on high school grades or SAT/ACT results.

The International Admissions Team reserves the right to communicate to you the need to take any of the tests mentioned above, should there be any doubts regarding your quantitative/Math skills.