Nurturing DRIVEN Professionals for Career Excellence
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Karachi set up the Institute of Public and Business Administration in 1955 with the mission to create managerial capital and leadership for the industry of Pakistan. The institute introduced two graduate degree programs in Pakistan, namely, Master of Public Administration in 1955 and Master of Business Administration (MBA) in 1956. Since then, more than 8000 people have graduated MBA from IBA, many becoming prominent leaders, including the President of Pakistan (Mr. Mamnoon Hussain), Prime Minister of Pakistan (Mr. Shaukat Aziz), and members of top management teams in national and international business enterprises.
IBA became a degree-awarding institution in 1994 by the charter of the Sind Assembly. To manage its organic growth as a university having approximately 5000 students, IBA divisionalized in 2021 by establishing three autonomous and independent schools, namely, the School of Business Studies (SBS), the School of Economics and Social Sciences (SESS), and the School of Mathematics and Computer Science (SMCS).
The MBA program is now part of the portfolio of the SBS and managed through the Directorate of MBA and EMBA.
Since 1956, the MBA@IBA has been the legacy and flagship program of IBA. The current MBA@IBA is a two-year, full-time, rigorous master’s program in business administration designed to prepare young graduates from various disciplines for a professional management career in the corporate world. It has been designed to serve as a springboard to help you reach the first level of corporate management and leadership. It equips you with the requisite knowledge, skills, and behaviors that are necessary for becoming an effective manager and leader, including the proficiency in key disciplines of business and management, analytical decision making, ethical leadership and teamwork, effective communication, and effective use of technology in management. This assortment of knowledge and skills has been carefully designed to put you on the fast track of corporate career so that you stand a good chance to become part of the league of leaders.
The MBA@IBA is not just a degree; it is a mission and a calling to make business a force for good and turn it into a catalyst for prosperity of people and sustainability of the planet. Getting a seat in MBA@IBA means that you become part of an ever-growing community of professionals who are committed to driving innovation, enhancing the competitiveness of enterprises, and increasing the productivity of local and global economy.
The MBA@IBA has been designed using the benchmarks of leading business schools of the world. The AACSB accreditation is an international acknowledgement that the program has been rigorously evaluated and meets international standards. It is a testament that MBA@IBA not only has the legacy of pioneers but also holds the currency of leaders.
IBA helps you rediscover yourself with a view to help the world rediscover and reinvent itself. The whole-person approach of academic training at IBA follows an eclectic mix of pedagogical methods including, but not limited to, the case method and problem-based learning. IBA provides countless stimuli and endless opportunities to expand your portfolio of talents including the technical, intellectual, emotional, and social skills (TIES) in ways that maximize your personal returns on investment in education and boost your economic and social value-added.
IBA can provide financing to eligible students through various sources including corporate sponsorships and scholarships. For various financing options available at IBA, please see Financial Assistance at IBA.
As business enterprises navigate digital transformation, sustainability imperatives, and geopolitical shifts, the demand for versatile, strategic leaders continues to intensify. The MBA remains uniquely positioned to develop such leaders—not despite its century-long history, but because of its multidisciplinary foundation and inherent capacity to evolve with emerging knowledge and practice.
IBA introduced the MBA to Pakistan in 1955 with assistance from Wharton, making us the pioneer of management education in the country. Today, IBA-SBS is an AACSB-accredited business school as we continue that legacy of innovation. We have fundamentally redesigned our MBA and Executive MBA programs—from philosophy to pedagogy—to address the grand challenges facing Pakistan and the global economy: sustainable industrial growth, digital transformation, and organizational resilience in an era of unprecedented uncertainty. Read More
The MBA@IBA has been carefully designed with a mission to prepare managerial capital and leadership for corporate entities shaping and driving the industry, economy, and the world. Accordingly, the program is geared towards inculcating a set of current and relevant technical, intellectual, emotional, and social skills (TIES) that are essential for being an effective manager and leader in corporates. Additionally, the program provides the graduates with the foundation and qualification to study beyond the MBA, if they choose to do so. The MBA@IBA is an accredited qualification of Level-7 in accordance with the National Qualification Framework of Pakistan (NQFP), enabling the graduates to proceed directly to the doctoral programs.
The program requires the completion of 60 Credit Hours in accordance with NQFP which are spread over two years of full-time study. The core of the program is comprised of more than half of the total Credit Hours and covers useful scientific knowledge pertaining to the disciplines of business, economics, sociology, and quantitative analysis. The first year of the program is dedicated to the academic and experiential training related to the core of the program.
By the completion of the first year, you will be well versed with the ins and outs of business enterprises and ready to develop a personalized portfolio of expertise. During the second year, you will develop your own portfolio of futuristic expertise by choosing from a carefully curated menu of elective courses. Additionally, you will engage in experiential interactions with our partner enterprises and undertake the MBA Capstone Project with a view to solving a significant real-life problem of industry and/or society.
Overall, the MBA@IBA will equip you with the following managerial competences:
In summary, carefully assorted content and eclectic pedagogy of the MBA@IBA provide a unique blend of scientific and experiential learning that can provide you with smooth entry and head start on the first level management positions in medium and large business enterprises.
The MBA@IBA offers a unique faculty mentorship program to advise and guide every student throughout the program which may extend to a lifelong learning relationship between the student and the mentoring faculty.
IBA arranges international immersion trip for Executive MBA (EMBA) students as part of that program. Students absorb all the costs of the trip. If seats are available, the students of MBA are also offered the option to join the EMBA trip if they wish and are willing to bear all the costs.
IBA owns separate hostels for ladies and gents for single, double, and triple occupancy. The hostels are directly managed and guarded by the administration and security departments of IBA. All students of full-time programs, who come from outside Karachi, are eligible for hostel accommodation, subject to the availability of space and hostel policy of the university.
The program fee is fixed for the whole program. The fee will be divided in parts and each part will be paid in advance. The total fee for the 2026-28 cohort is as follows:
|
Pak Rupees |
|
|
Admission Fee |
115,000 |
|
Business Orientation Program (BOP) |
50,000 |
|
Program Fee (all-inclusive) |
2,850,000 |
|
Total |
3,015,000 |
Program fee is received in four equal portions and each portion must be deposited before each semester, regardless of the number of courses and projects in the semester. The fee for repeating a course or project is charged separately and determined based on the prevailing total program fee vis-à-vis the total number of credit hours in the program and the number of credit hours in the course/project being repeated.
The program does not offer any financing facility or scholarship.
Candidates for MBA@IBA are considered eligible for admission if they have earned an undergraduate degree (equivalent to 16 years of education) from an HEC-recognized university by securing a CGPA of 2.5 or higher. They will also have 3 years of post-qualification professional experience.
We take great pride in providing personalized attention to the development of each student of the MBA@IBA. Accordingly, we select a small number of participants for the program every year. We seek to select very high-potential individuals who have the right attitude and aptitude to become effective and ethical managers and leaders.
We encourage you to carefully assess your personal and aspirational fit with our program before applying for admission. Our screening and selection process is highly competitive, rigorous, and selective. We believe in diversity and inclusivity and use academic and professional merit as the only criteria for selection based on the evidence related to the following:
The schedule of key milestones in program commencement includes the following:
|
Online Forms Availability |
Jan 01, 2026 |
|
Application Deadline |
Apr 15, 2026 |
|
Aptitude Test |
Apr 26, 2026 |
|
Aptitude Test Result |
May 05, 2026 |
|
Interview |
May 07-09, 2026 |
|
Business Orientation Program (BOP) |
Jun 29 – Aug 15, 2026 |
|
Commencement of Classes |
Aug 24, 2026 |
Applications are accepted only electronically. Please arrange digital copies of following documents to attach with the application form:
Please submit you application through the following link:
The academic status/level of all academic degrees is assessed in relation to the National Qualification Framework of Pakistan (NQFP). The Higher Education Commission (HEC) is a constitutional institution that has the exclusive authority to assess and certify whether an academic program of a university and its degree is legitimate and has a certain level of qualification according to the national and international standards. The MBA@IBA conforms to the NQFP qualification of Level 7 and is accredited by the HEC as a qualification equivalent to 18 years of formal education in Pakistan.
A full-time program runs during regular weekdays (Mon-Fri) and courses and academic activities are usually scheduled between 8:30 am to 5:00 pm. Therefore, every enrolled student is expected to be available for academic and co-curricular activities scheduled during these days and hours throughout the duration of the program.
MBA admissions are offered only once a year for the fall intake as part of a single round of admissions for the Fall semester intake. Application cycle typically begins in January and ends in April every year.
All foreign degree holders need to obtain equivalence certificate from Higher Education Commission of Pakistan. Foreign qualification must be equivalent to a degree involving 16-years of education in Pakistan.
According to HEC, professional certificates of qualification issued by ICMAP, ICAP, and membership of ACCA are equivalent to 16 years of education in Pakistan. Therefore, holders of are these qualifications are eligible for admission in MBA provided that they have 3 years of experience after the date of completion of any of these qualifications.
Yes.
No. You must be admitted to the program through the required admission process and start the program afresh.
Starting 2025, IBA requires 3 years of post-qualification experience.
The candidate for MBA must have earned at least 3 years of professional work experience after the completion of their undergraduate degree. Part-time experience during education does not count. This requirement is one of the key eligibility conditions for the program and must be met.
Please consult the admission schedule as a first step. You'll need to create an online account to access the application form. You can fill in the application form, attach documents required for each component, save the application, and submit the completed application by the deadline. Please note that incomplete and duplicate applications are rejected without any notice to the applicant.
Yes. We take IBA Aptitude Test for admission. Alternatively, we can accept Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) or Graduate Record Examination (GRE) test scores which are not older than two years.
Admission test is designed along the lines of GMAT to assess reading comprehension, critical thinking, quantitative reasoning, verbal reasoning, and essay writing.
For GMAT, the minimum score is 600 and for GRE, a minimum of 160 in quantitative and 150 in verbal part is required. Please note that these scores represent only a minimum eligibility condition and do not reflect the qualification merit for admission.
A referee is a person who can give a valid opinion about your academic and leadership potential. We need two referees whom we can contact on your behalf and who are willing to provide us with the required information about you.
The BOP is an intensive and graded program of four weeks in which all the participants are primed to the philosophy and strategy of the MBA program, provided with relevant knowledge and skills to be able to relate to its content, and coached in the appropriate attitudes and behaviors needed to successfully complete it. The BOP puts all the participants, regardless of their academic and professional background, on an equal footing so that no one has any disadvantage in terms of academic know-how and intellectual skills relative to their peers in the cohort. Accordingly, all participants regardless of their undergraduate degree are required to attend and pass the BOP to pursue the program. Participants failing the BOP are dropped from the program.
No. We invite only those candidates for the Aptitude Test who meet the eligibility criteria.
No. We invite only those candidates who demonstrate a reasonable potential to be successful in the program by achieving a reasonable score in the Aptitude Test.
Yes. You can apply in the future rounds of admission, but you will have to apply afresh. We do not consider previous applications as the input for admission.