Nova SBE’s International Master’s in Management (IMM) is one of the more striking stories in European business education: an 18-month, English-taught degree delivered from an oceanfront campus 20km west of Lisbon that climbed to #4 globally in the Financial Times Masters in Management 2025 ranking, at €11,650 base tuition — the lowest of any top-10 European MiM.¹ ⁵ The cohort is small and unusually international (around 69 students, 93% from outside Portugal, across 35 nationalities), and Nova is a CEMS member.¹ ⁶
Nova’s admissions process looks straightforward but has a few genuinely distinctive requirements that catch applicants out — a higher English bar than its sister programmes, a minimum work-experience threshold most “pre-experience” MiMs don’t impose, and a ranked-score file in which the GMAT is optional. This guide lays out what the IMM actually requires, what each component is testing, and how to play the calendar. It is built from Nova’s own admissions pages and our full Nova SBE IMM profile; where a requirement is specific to the IMM or varies by cycle, we say so rather than invent a fixed figure.
Who is eligible
The IMM is open to anyone holding (or about to complete) a bachelor’s degree from a recognised university, in any discipline — Nova explicitly reserves the right to admit only applicants from accredited or recognised institutions.² The expected profile is a recent graduate with 0–2 years of experience, with current cohorts averaging 23–24, and Nova asks IMM applicants to demonstrate a willingness for an international career — a real evaluation criterion given the programme’s 93%-international classroom and the fact that around half of graduates take their first job abroad.¹
First, a name check that matters: Nova runs two management master’s. The IMM is the English-taught, FT-ranked, internationally oriented programme this guide covers. Nova also runs a separate Portuguese-language Mestrado em Gestão for the domestic market. Applicants from outside Portugal almost always want the IMM — make sure you are applying to the right one.
The 12-week work-experience minimum
Here is the requirement most applicants miss. Unlike the typical pre-experience MiM — which expects little or no work history — the IMM requires proof of at least 12 weeks of cumulative professional experience (internships count; volunteering is explicitly excluded).² It is not a large bar, but it is a hard one: a candidate straight out of an undergraduate degree with no internships is not eligible until that threshold is met. If you are still studying, this is the single requirement to engineer early — line up a summer internship or two before you apply. The IMM also asks for a second language at A2 level (or English as your mother tongue plus a second language), reflecting the programme’s international orientation.²
The admission test — optional, but not irrelevant
This is where Nova diverges most from the marquee MiMs at LBS, ESCP or Bocconi. The GMAT and GRE are optional at Nova — listed as supporting documents that “may enrich your application,” not a requirement, with no published minimum.² Nova is comfortable making admissions decisions without a standardised test, reviewing the file holistically instead.
“Optional” is not “irrelevant,” though. Admitted IMM students cluster in roughly the 620–710 GMAT range with an average around 650, so a strong score is a genuine asset — and it is the cleanest way to stand out if your degree is from a less globally-known university or was light on quantitative work, since the admissions committee weighs quantitative background explicitly.³ Submit one if it helps your case; skip it if your transcript already makes the quantitative argument. For the wider context, see what GMAT score you need for a European MiM, and on the experience question more broadly, do you need work experience for a MiM.
English proficiency
The IMM requires C1 (advanced) English — a notch above the B2 that most of Nova’s other master’s programmes accept.² Nova accepts Cambridge, TOEFL and IELTS certificates (IELTS is the recommended option), plus Linguaskill and the TOEFL iBT Home Edition; every certificate must state its CEFR level, and Nova will not accept high-school diplomas or other online certificates. You are exempt if you are a national of an English-speaking country, completed a bachelor’s taught fully in English, or are a current Nova SBE bachelor’s student.² Because the IMM bar is C1 rather than B2, double-check the level your certificate maps to before booking the test.
The application file
The mandatory documents for the IMM are compact and specific:²
- A passport-style photo and a scan of your ID (front and back, matching your application details).
- A CV in English.
- An official academic transcript with your full course list and grades.
- A one-page motivation letter in English — Nova caps it at a single page, so it has to be tight.
- An English language certificate (C1 for the IMM).
- A motivation video (maximum three minutes) — the IMM-specific element, your chance to evidence the “international career” orientation and communicate in person.
Reference letters, the GMAT/GRE, additional language certificates and your bachelor’s diploma are optional add-ons that can strengthen the file but are not required.² That is a meaningful strategic difference: with references optional and the test optional, the transcript, the one-page letter and the three-minute video carry the weight — spend your effort there. For the written and video components specifically, see our Nova SBE MiM essays guide; and if the CEMS route is your goal, our CEMS Master in International Management explainer covers how that selective track works.
How Nova selects: a ranked score
Nova evaluates every application against a consistent set of factors and assigns a final score that determines a ranking — the mechanism behind admit, waitlist and reject decisions.² The committee weighs the final classification of your degree, your school of origin, your CV, internships and other experiences, extracurricular and volunteering activity, GMAT/GRE if submitted, language proficiency, quantitative background, and the motivation letter and overall profile.²
An interview is conditional, not automatic — Nova holds one only “in case of need,” and for the IMM there is a pre-screening of the CV and application before the video is reviewed, so not every application proceeds to every stage.² Practically, that means your written file has to earn the next step; you cannot count on an interview to rescue a thin application — our Nova SBE interview guide explains what triggers a live interview and how the three-minute motivation video stands in for it. Missing a mandatory document triggers automatic exclusion, so check the checklist carefully before submitting.
Fees, scholarships and timing
The application fee is €51 (non-refundable).² Base tuition for the three-semester IMM is approximately €11,650 — the lowest published figure of any top-10 programme in the FT 2025 ranking — with incremental fees for the CEMS year or a double-degree track.³ Living costs in the Lisbon area run about €10,000–€14,000 a year, materially below Paris or London, which is a large part of the IMM’s value case. On acceptance, students pay an enrolment fee of about €1,499 to confirm the place. Nova offers merit-based scholarships (assessed automatically with the application) and a portfolio of need-based aid; the strongest awards skew to earlier applicants.
Nova admits over a series of rolling rounds across the year, assessing and ranking applications as they arrive.² For the September 2027 intake, IMM, CEMS and double-degree applicants apply by the international deadline around 23 March 2027, with a later general round around 30 April 2027; decisions follow within roughly four to eight weeks.⁴ Because CEMS and double-degree allocations — and the bulk of scholarships — are decided in the earlier international round, candidates targeting those tracks should treat the March deadline as firm. Map your dates against the rest of your list on our deadline tracker.
How to read your odds
Nova does not publish an explicit acceptance rate, and on a deliberately small (~69-student) class the process is genuinely selective. The honest read of what gets a competitive file across the line:
- Clear the hard gates first — the 12-week experience minimum, the C1 English certificate, and the second language. A file that misses a mandatory requirement is excluded before it is ever scored.
- A strong transcript, sharpened by a test score if it helps. Because Nova ranks on degree classification and quantitative background, a good academic record does the heavy lifting; an optional GMAT in the 620–710 band is the cleanest way to reinforce it.
- A tight one-page letter and a genuine three-minute video that evidence a real international-career orientation — not a generic “I love business” pitch. With references optional, these are your voice in the file.
A strong academic record is the entry ticket; on a ranked-score process, it is the coherence of transcript, experience, language and motivation pointing the same way that lifts your score.
Confirm before you apply
Nova keeps the live application components, exact fees, accepted-certificate list and round dates inside its own admissions pages and updates them each cycle, so use this guide for the structure and the strategy and verify every hard number against the source before you submit. Weigh Nova against the wider field on our best MiM in Portugal guide, the Portugal MiM hub and the composite rankings; see how it stacks up head-to-head in Nova SBE vs Católica Lisbon and across borders in Spain vs Portugal for a MiM; and if you are still deciding whether the degree itself is worth it, start with is a MiM worth it in 2026, how to build a MiM profile and MiM vs MBA.
Sources (retrieved June 2026): Nova SBE’s official master’s admission process and eligibility pages for the optional GMAT/GRE, the C1 English requirement (vs B2 for other programmes) and accepted certificates, the mandatory documents (photo, ID, CV, transcript, one-page motivation letter, English certificate) and the IMM-specific motivation video (max 3 min), the 12-week minimum professional experience and second-language requirement, the optional reference letters, the conditional interview, the €51 application fee and €1,499 enrolment fee, the rolling rounds and the ranked-score selection; the Nova SBE IMM overview and fees pages for the €11,650 base tuition and CEMS/double-degree structure; the Financial Times Masters in Management 2025 and QS Business Masters: Management 2026 tables for the rankings; and our own Nova SBE IMM profile for the 620–710 GMAT range / ~650 average, the class profile and the published September 2027 round dates. Nova revises the live application each cycle — confirm the current requirements in the application. No figures or process steps are invented; where a requirement is IMM-specific or varies by cycle, this guide says so rather than quoting a single value.
¹ Nova SBE — International Master’s in Management profile & official programme pages. ² Nova SBE — master’s admission process & eligibility pages. ³ Nova SBE — IMM fees page. ⁴ Nova SBE — IMM published application rounds (September 2027 intake). ⁵ Financial Times — Masters in Management 2025. ⁶ CEMS Global Alliance — Nova School of Business and Economics.