Business School Accreditation

Business school accreditation is a form of independent, professional accreditation that focuses on business schools and their various programs. Accreditation assures international students and their parents that a school adheres to high quality standards – that the school's programs are delivered by qualified faculty and that its programs are constantly updated to follow the changes and meet the needs of the business world. Attending an accredited school is often thought to make you more competitive on the job market. However, in Canada, there is no national accrediting body for business schools, although a number of schools have successfully pursued accreditation from international bodies.

International students can also look at whether a school or program has any memberships in, or endorsements by, discipline-specific professional associations which reflect certain standards of quality, but this is not the same as official accreditation.

Accrediting Agencies
Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB)
Established: 1916
Location: Tampa, Florida
Web: www.aacsb.edu
Accredits schools and colleges of business in Canada and internationally

Association of Collegiate Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP)
Established: 1988
Location: Overland Park, Kansas
Web: www.acbsp.org
Accredits schools and colleges of business in Canada and internationally

European Quality Improvement System (EQUIS)
Established: by the European Federation of Management Development in 1997
Location: Brussels, Belgium
Web: www.efmd.org
Accredits schools and colleges of business in Canada and internationally

Most accreditation organizations use the same standards and criteria to accredit each program type; however, accreditation is granted for specific periods of time that differ between individual schools and programs. The best way to determine a school's accreditation status is to visit the website of the accrediting organization. Most organizations keep current lists of schools granted accreditation by their agency.

Why Accreditation?
The goal of accreditation is to ensure that the education provided meets acceptable levels of quality. Accrediting agencies, which are associations of regional, national or international scope, develop evaluation criteria and conduct peer evaluations to assess whether or not those criteria are met. Institutions and/or programs that request an agency's evaluation and that meet an agency's criteria are then "accredited" by that agency.