ZUEL has been implementing its “student-centred” educational philosophy, with which, the MBA Centre can guarantee students’ quality from the source. It seeks the most promising students and evaluates each applicant by the admission criteria formulated under the national administrative departments of education while maintaining a diverse student body. Innovative fostering mode, scientific class management, all-round pastoral care and professional career service contribute to the quality of ZUEL MBA education and service. Even after the students leave the campus, the SBA continues to give career support resources to them by setting an alumni website, helping them with legal issues, and welcoming them to MBA courses so that they can have a sense of belonging and an everlasting spiritual home.  

1. Admission procedure

         The SBA is entitled to enroll independently in the framework authorized by the University. The enrollment scale, entrance examination and admission criteria of the MBA programme are scheduled by the Graduate Enrollment Committee of ZUEL and the specific implementation measures are set and carried out by the School  

1.1 MBA Admission Procedures

         The MBA admission procedures include the following seven steps: application, submission, qualification review, entrance exam, reexam, reassignment and matriculation. See Figure 1. The School sets up the MBA Enrollment Leadership Board and MBA Reexam Board to supervise and manage the enrollment and matriculation procedures. The entrance exam is standardized written exam organized by the Ministry of Education of China. For the subjects of MBA entrance exam, see Table 1.

Figure 1 ZUEL MBA Admission Procedures

Table 1 Subjects of MBA Entrance Exam

           The reexam is a critical step for selecting the MBA students, usually covering the three subjects: politics (70 points), English (30 points) and comprehensive capacity (100 points), totaling 200 scores. Politics mainly tests the candidates’ ideological and political literacy as well as their ability to understand and apply the Party's and state policies; English takes the form of listening tests, mainly testing the candidates’ listening and speaking abilities; and structured interviews are adopted to test the candidates’ comprehensive capacity, covering logical thinking, ability to analyze and solve problems, language expression and communication ability and on-site reaction ability, concerning the basic knowledge of management, economics and other related disciplines as well as practical problems related to their working background. Table 2 shows ZUEL MBA Admission Score in 2016-2018.  

Table 5-2 ZUEL SBA Admission Score in 2016-2018

 Note: Admission score is comprehensively determined according to the total scores of the tests. Detailed requirements are prescribed by the SBA and the Graduate Department.

1.2 EMBA admission procedures

          In 2017, China adjusted the admission policy on the MBA education, i.e., the same examination and admission procedures were adopted for both EMBA and part-time MBA programmes. Before 2017, the EMBA prgramme’s admission was conducted in the following procedures:

          The EMBA admission procedures included the following five steps: application, qualification review, entrance examination, comprehensive assessment and matriculation. Supervised by the Graduate Department and the MBA Degree Evaluation Committee of ZUEL, the EMBA programme Office organized the entrance exam on the basis of general requirements of the Academic Degree Commission of the State Council and the China National MBA Education Supervisory Committee. The entrance exam consists of written test (comprehensive capacity test) and expert interview. Written test covers two subjects: English and management. See Table 3.

Table 3 Subjects of ZUEL EMBA Entrance Exam

          Expert Interviews will focus on the applicants’ intellectual vitality, business achievements, leadership, and personal potential qualities. The interview panel is made up of experts from within or outside the Institution. Topics are closely connected with applicants’ actual management experience and situations of domestic and international politics and economic reality. An applicant’s capacity to apply management knowledge to analyzing and solving real-world problems is evaluated from macro, meso and micro perspectives. To be more specific, the panel will assess the applicants’ performance expressed in many forms, from management knowledge to decision-making abilities, from management experience to managerial quality, from linguistic presentation to communicative competence. The minimum enrollment scores for the ZUEL EMBA programme in 2014-2016 are presented in Table 4. Only those who reach the marks for written examination and interview can be granted an offer.  

Table 4 Enrolling Score of ZUEL EMBA from 2014 to 2016

          Owing to the adjustment of the national policy on the EMBA programme, this programme was halted in 2016. Then the School will initiate “Zhuoyue Project”, selecting the excellent students from the MBA programme and educating them according to the EMBA programme training scheme.