Key facts
The International Marketing and Management at ISM University of Management and Economics runs Two years full-time (120 ECTS, four semesters — one September intake a year) in Vilnius, Lithuania, with tuition of EUR 3,450 per semester for EU/EEA/EFTA citizens and Ukrainians, EUR 3,675 per semester for everyone else — four semesters, so EUR 13,800 and EUR 14,700 across the degree. ISM prices only the semester and publishes no programme total, and attaches no academic year to either rate (read at source 2026-09-07). Outside tuition: a EUR 100 application fee and a EUR 500 place-reservation payment credited to the first semester. The GMAT/GRE is optional.
- Location
- Vilnius, Lithuania
- Length
- Two years full-time (120 ECTS, four semesters — one September intake a year)
- Credits
- 120 ECTS
- Tuition
- EUR 3,450 per semester for EU/EEA/EFTA citizens and Ukrainians, EUR 3,675 per semester for everyone else — four semesters, so EUR 13,800 and EUR 14,700 across the degree. ISM prices only the semester and publishes no programme total, and attaches no academic year to either rate (read at source 2026-09-07). Outside tuition: a EUR 100 application fee and a EUR 500 place-reservation payment credited to the first semester
- Test policy
- GMAT/GRE optional
- Taught in
- English
What this programme is
International Marketing and Management is ISM University of Management and Economics’s English-taught two-year, 120-ECTS master’s in Vilnius, admitting once a year for a September start and awarding a Master of Business Management.¹ ³ It is the first Lithuanian programme in this catalogue and the second from the Baltics after TalTech, so the job of this page is not to rank it — it appears in no Financial Times or QS management table — but to say exactly what it asks of you and what it gives back.
Two structural facts shape everything else. It is a marketing-weighted management master, not a general one: the published course list runs Foundations of Data Science in Marketing, Multivariate Statistics, Services Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Digital and Social Media Marketing, International Consumer Behaviour and Customer Value Analytics alongside Business Strategy, Corporate Finance and Advanced Topics in International Management, closing with a Master Thesis.¹ And it is taught in the evening — “on average, three times a week on weekdays from 18:00 to 21:15” — which is a delivery decision rather than a detail, and the thing that makes the work rights below matter.¹
ISM states one international accreditation for itself. Its own about page, under a heading that reads “AACSB member”, says it “became the first university in the Baltic States to receive the highest level of AACSB accreditation for business schools”; it claims no EQUIS and no AMBA, and adds Eduniversal’s “5 out of 5 palmes of excellence”.⁵ The “Triple Crown” wording you will meet on the programme page belongs to its partners — BI Norwegian Business School, with which the programme was “designed”, and KEDGE, where the double degree runs — not to ISM.¹ Read the school as a well-connected regional specialist rather than a global brand, and compare it against the triple-crown flagships in Central and Eastern Europe.
Three things that make this worth reading
1. The school publishes the arithmetic that decides your application
Most schools describe their selection. ISM prints the formula. Its 2026 admission regulations — a Rector’s order, not a marketing page — set the competitive score as 0.4 × M + 0.6 × your credit-weighted bachelor’s average + PB, where M is the motivation letter and the motivational interview together on a ten-point scale, the middle term is every subject in your diploma supplement weighted by its credits and graded out of ten, and PB is up to 1.0 bonus point.³
That single line answers questions applicants normally have to guess at. Your transcript is 60% of the decision, so a strong average is worth more here than a strong story — but the story is not decoration either, because the other 40% is a letter and an interview that every applicant sits, and which you can fail: *“Admission to the study programmes is open to applicants who have a positive result in the admissions interview (at least 5 points).”*³ The bonus point is split: 0.5 for attending ISM’s own workshop or lecture series, and up to 0.5 for professional or international experience — but only in early admission.³ Applicants are then “placed in the competition queue in descending order of the competitive score”, and the school’s up-to-50% scholarship goes “for candidates with the highest competitive score”, so the same number that admits you also prices you.¹ ³
Only a handful of schools on this site publish their selection this plainly — Goethe, Mannheim, TUM and Cologne among them — and it is the single best reason to read a school’s own regulations rather than its brochure. Our approach to the letter that carries 40% of the weight is in the toolkit.
2. No GMAT and no work experience — and the school’s own page shows why you might have thought otherwise
There is no admissions test in the published requirements, and no work-experience minimum.² ³ The second half of that sentence is worth pinning down, because the one-year rule a reader might expect belongs to the programme next door: the regulations require “not less than 1 year work experience after undergraduate studies” for Global Leadership and Strategy, and attach no such condition to this degree.³ Experience is a bonus, not a gate — worth up to half a point in early admission, and able to shorten the bridging credits of an applicant who is short of business coursework.³
What does gate you is the subject of your bachelor’s. A management degree qualifies directly; from any other field ISM requires “at least 18 ECTS credits in subjects related to business, management, economics, marketing, or finance”, rising to 30 ECTS for a professional (college) bachelor’s from a non-major field.² ³ So this is a partial conversion route rather than an open one — more forgiving than TalTech’s 36 ECTS, stricter than the true conversion masters at St Andrews.
Two clauses stop this from being a simple “no test” story, and both belong to international applicants specifically. First, after assessing a foreign qualification ISM “may require the applicant to submit GMAT … results or other exam results as specified by ISM” — a discretionary power over your file, not a published requirement, which is why this profile records the test as not required and quotes the clause rather than burying it.³ Second, the English rule is unusually generous and then unusually conditional: the exemption for education “completed in English” carries no country condition at all, which almost nothing else in our English-evidence comparison can say, and it is still “based on the admission committee’s decision” — with ISM reserving the right to make you sit its own test “regardless of the English proficiency document submitted”.³
3. Evening classes, 40-hour work rights, and a deadline set by your passport
The timetable, the work rules and the calendar are one story. Classes run three evenings a week from 18:00 to 21:15.¹ ISM’s international office states that EU students “can work full-time, meaning up to 40 hours per week” and that non-EU students “can also work up to 40 hours per week after obtaining the temporary residence permit” — with the trap printed alongside it: *“If you have a national visa (D) for your studies, you are NOT allowed to work during your studies.”*⁴ After the degree, “you also have the possibility to apply for a temporary residence permit for 12 months for job search and self-employment purposes” — three months longer than Estonia’s nine, and worth reading next to post-study work visas in Europe.⁴
Then the calendar, which splits by passport in a way that puts most readers of this site on the earlier side. For the September 2026 intake, main admission closed 31 May “For candidates from visa regime countries” and 24 July “For candidates from visa – free regime and CIS countries”, with an additional round to 14 August open only to the second group.² An Indian, Nigerian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi applicant therefore has roughly two months less than the date most of the page is written around — and the earlier early-admission track, closing 30 April, is the only one carrying the experience bonus and the first word on funding.² ³
What this programme does not have
Outcome data. Neither the programme page nor the school’s about page publishes a graduate employment rate, a median salary, a class size or an intake profile, so this profile publishes none.¹ ⁵ Against the schools here that report FT-audited salaries three years out, that is a real gap, and it means the case for ISM rests on cost, timetable and access rather than on a number.
A ranking. ISM appears in no Financial Times or QS Masters in Management table, and this profile assigns it none rather than borrowing a university-wide league position that measures something else. The programme’s own claim — “the best-rated marketing study programme in Lithuania among master’s and bachelor’s study programs (SKVC, 2021)” — is a national quality-agency assessment from five years ago, and is quoted here as the school’s claim rather than as our finding.¹ How to read what rankings do and do not carry is on our rankings page.
A page you can take entirely at face value. Three small contradictions sat on ISM’s own site on the day this profile was written, and we state them rather than resolve them: the Dublin study tour is offered to “International marketing and management program students” in one line and to “All students in the Global Leadership and Strategy programme” four lines later; the INSEEC double degree promises Paris and then repeats KEDGE’s “optionally in the cities of Bordeaux or Marseille”; and the additional-admission block headed “(July 22 – August 14)” tells applicants to submit “by the deadline: 15th of August, 2025”.¹ ² None of them changes the degree. All of them are a reason to confirm a date with the admissions office before you plan a flight around it — which is how we verify everything on this site.
Who this is actually for
Three readers. The transcript-strong applicant who would rather be judged on a published formula than on a brand’s taste, and who can see in advance that 60% of the decision is already in their diploma supplement. The applicant who intends to work while studying — an 18:00–21:15 timetable, 40 hours a week of legal work once the residence permit lands, and twelve months afterwards to convert it into a job. And the budget-led applicant building a real list, for whom EUR 13,800–14,700 over two years in an EU capital sits far below the French and UK end of what a MiM costs and close to the cheapest programmes on this site.
It is not for the reader optimising for consulting and banking pipelines, for a published salary outcome, or for a triple-crown brand — those belong to the school’s partners here, not to ISM. Start from the rankings and the shortlist builder if that is you, and treat this page as the floor of your budget rather than the top of your list.
Sources
- ISM University of Management and Economics — International Marketing and Management, programme page. Key facts: 'English', '1,5 years + 6 months Master thesis', 'On average, three times a week on weekdays from 18:00 to 21:15', 'Masters of Business Management', '120 ECTS'. Structure block headed 'Semesters 1 2 3 4'; courses include Foundations of Data Science in Marketing, Multivariate Statistics, Services Marketing, Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability, Business Strategy, Marketing Strategy, Digital and Social Media Marketing, International Consumer Behaviour, Customer Value Analytics, Research Methodology, REAL: Interdisciplinary Impact Project, Microeconomics of Competitiveness, New Product Development and Service Innovation, Research Proposal, Corporate Finance, Advanced Topics in International Management and the Master Thesis. FEE TABLE, EU/EEA/EFTA and Ukraine: '3450 Eur Standard semester price', '2415 Eur Semester price for ISM graduates', '2933 Eur The semester fee for ISM corporate sponsor employees', '~1147 Eur Semester price with State scholarship from the Educational Exchange Support Fund'; non-EU/EEA/EFTA/Ukraine: '3675 Eur Standard semester price', '2573 Eur', '3124 Eur', '~1372 Eur'. No programme total and no academic year is attached to any of it. Funding: 'ISM Baltic Talent Scholarship 75% tuition fee scholarship for Latvian and Estonian students', 'ISM Scholarship Tuition fee discounts of up to 50% of the student's tuition fees may be applied for candidates with the highest competitive score', 'The ISM 75% Entrepreneurship Scholarship is awarded to applicants to Master's programmes who are actively developing their own business', 'ISM's 15% family discount', 'All applicants from Ukraine and Sakartvelo who enroll at ISM for the 2025 intake will receive a 20% tuition discount for the full duration of their studies', 'A 15% discount is given to the employees of sponsoring companies', and PIT relief 'up to 20%. from the paid tuition fee'. Partner claims: 'The programme is designed with BI Norwegian Business School, the 2nd largest business school in Europe with the Triple Crown accreditation'; double degrees with BI ('the student is paying tuition fee to BI Norwegian Business School with a 10% discount and is exempt from payment to ISM for that period'), KEDGE ('It doesn't cost anything extra, the standard ISM tuition fee applies', 'optionally in the cities of Bordeaux or Marseille', 'the studies are extended by half a year') and 'BBA INSEEC Grande École (France)' — whose block says 'Study in one of the top universities in Paris, France (accredited by AMBA)' and then repeats KEDGE's 'optionally in the cities of Bordeaux or Marseille'. 'More than 100 exchange partners in almost 50 countries around the world.' Programme claim: 'It is the best-rated marketing study programme in Lithuania among master's and bachelor's study programs (SKVC, 2021).' Study tour to Dublin: 'In the first year of studies, during the spring semester', 'Duration? 4 days', 'Price – 500-700 Eur', and — in a block that opens 'International marketing and management program students are offered a study tour' — 'Who can participate? All students in the Global Leadership and Strategy programme'. The page publishes NO class size, employment rate, salary or ranking ism.lt ↗ — ISM University of Management and Economics (retrieved Sept 2026)
- ISM — Admission (master's studies). SCOPE CHECKED 2026-09-07: this page carries two English-requirement blocks, one for bachelor's admission (ISM test 55, TOEFL iBT 60, IELTS 6) and one for master's admission; only the master's block is used here. September 2026 intake calendar: 'Early admission (November 1 – April 30)' with 'Step 1: Submit the Online Application by 30th of April', 'Step 4: Sign a study contract (Until 20th of May)' and 'After signing the contract (no later than May 31), the candidate must transfer an advance payment of 500 EUR to the ISM account. This amount will be credited toward the total tuition fee. Please note that the advance payment is non-refundable'; 'Main admission. For candidates from visa regime countries (May 1 – May 31)'; 'Main admission. For candidates from visa – free regime and CIS countries (May 1 – July 24)'; 'Additional admission. Only for candidates from visa – free regime and CIS countries (July 22 – August 14)' — whose step text then reads 'The online application must be submitted by the deadline: 15th of August, 2025', a stale date from the previous cycle. 'Start your studies in the beginning of September, 2026.' Documents: bachelor's diploma and supplement, transcript, proof of English, CV, motivation letter, passport copy, photo, 'Application fee (100 EUR)'. 'All applicants who have fulfilled the eligibility criteria and submitted necessary documents will be invited to the motivational interview'; 'The head of the program in which the candidate is applying as well as a member of the ISM admission team participates in the interview.' Programme-specific: 'For admission to the International Marketing and Management programme, candidates must have completed a bachelor's degree in the field of management. Candidates from other fields must have completed at least 18 ECTS credits in subjects related to business, management, economics, marketing, or finance'; Global Leadership and Strategy requires 'at least one year of work experience after completing their bachelor's studies'. Master's English requirements: 'IELTS Academic 6.5 (each subsection no less than 6.0); TOEFL iBT no less than 79; Cambridge English B2 First or C1 Advanced Certificate no less than 176; PTE Academic no less than 59; Duolingo English no less than 125; Diploma from any other ISM programme'. Note also 'Admissions to the Master's programme in Business Sustainability Management will not be held in 2026' ism.lt ↗ — ISM University of Management and Economics (retrieved Sept 2026)
- ISM — REGULATIONS FOR ADMISSION OF INTERNATIONAL MASTER'S STUDENTS AND FREE MOVERS (PDF, 12 pages, sha256:e2e752dac30f301a, read with npm run pdf:text on 2026-09-07). Approved by the Rector 'on 2026 01 14, by Order No. 2026/01-07-5'. Programme table: 'State code 6211LX006', 'International Marketing and Management', field 'Marketing', 'Duration 2 years', 'Programme scope 120 ECTS', 'Degree awarded Master of Business Management'. SELECTION CHECKED 2026-09-07 — the competitive score is published in full: 'KB = 0,4 x M + 0,6 x [credit-weighted grade average] + PB', where 'M - Motivation letter (compulsory for all applicants) and motivational interview (compulsory for all applicants). The motivation letter and the motivation interview are assessed on a 10-point scale', 'ci - is the number of credits in the i-th subject; gi - the grade of the i-th subject in the 10-point system', and 'PB - additional points awarded for attending ISM workshop/lecture series for students (0.5 points) … In addition, up to 0.5 points for professional or international experience are added for applicants during the early admission process.' Also '2.1.6. Admission to the study programmes is open to applicants who have a positive result in the admissions interview (at least 5 points)' and 'Applicants shall be placed in the competition queue in descending order of the competitive score'. WORK EXPERIENCE: the one-year minimum is scoped to a different programme — 'Global Leadership and Strategy study programme are open to graduates who have not less than 1 year work experience after undergraduate studies' — and the International Marketing and Management clause states no experience condition. Credit table for non-major applicants: university bachelor's from a non-major field 18 ECTS; professional qualification from the field 18 ECTS, from a non-major field 30 ECTS. 'The scope of the additional studies may be reduced if the candidate has at least one year of work experience in the field of the programme', with the relevant fields for this degree given as 'marketing, advertising, communication, commerce and product and service development'. ENGLISH EVIDENCE CHECKED 2026-09-07: the accepted tests are IELTS Academic 6.5 (no section below 6.0), TOEFL iBT 79, Cambridge B2 First or C1 Advanced 176, PTE Academic 59, Duolingo 125, an ISM bachelor's diploma or 'A successfully passed ISM-administered English language test', and 'The above-mentioned international English language certificates … are accepted only if the test was taken no earlier than two years before the start of studies at ISM.' The exemptions carry NO country condition: 'A document confirming secondary or higher education completed in English'; six months of Erasmus or bilateral exchange with 'at least 30 ECTS credits in English'; 'an official employer certificate confirming at least six months of work experience in a position where English is the official language of communication'; a mixed-language workplace certificate covering 'at least one year of work experience in which at least 70% of daily communication was conducted in English'; and 'an internship abroad conducted in English for a period of at least six months' — all 'based on the admission committee's decision', and '4.6. ISM reserves the right to request applicants to take an additional ISM or other recognized English language test after a motivational interview, regardless of the English proficiency document submitted by the applicant.' GMAT: '6.3 … Additional evaluation may require the applicant to submit GMAT (Graduate Management Admission Test) results or other exam results as specified by ISM.' Annex 2 (non-Lithuanian citizens): early admission runs '1 November to 30 April', general admission 'from 1 May until the closing date of the admission phase, as published on the ISM website', 'The exact dates of admission are published on the ISM website www.ism.lt/admission by 1 November of the current year', 'Admission dates and application deadlines for foreign nationals from different countries vary', the EUR 500 reservation is due 'no later than 31 May' with 'Advance payment equivalent to the semester tuition fee … paid by 15 June at the latest' for early admission, a semester in advance within seven days of signing for the main and additional rounds, 'The advance payment shall not be refunded upon termination of the study agreement, except in cases where the applicant's diploma is not recognised or a visa is not obtained', and 'An applicant who has obtained a temporary residence permit (TRP) in Lithuania for studies at ISM by September 1 of the current year must arrive at the university no later than September 15.' Tuition itself is not in the regulations: '1.13 International Master's (postgraduate) studies are fee-based. Tuition fees are listed at https://www.ism.lt/en/master-studies/' ism.lt ↗ — ISM University of Management and Economics (retrieved Sept 2026)
- ISM International Studies — Full-time international students. Work rights: 'EU students can work full-time, meaning up to 40 hours per week'; 'International students from non EU countries can also work up to 40 hours per week after obtaining the temporary residence permit'; and the trap that matters — 'If you have a national visa (D) for your studies, you are NOT allowed to work during your studies (only after obtaining a temporary residence permit).' After graduation: 'After graduating, you also have the possibility to apply for a temporary residence permit for 12 months for job search and self-employment purposes.' Health insurance for non-EU students 'may vary from around 50 to 150 EUR per year depending on the insurance policy'. Housing: ISM has no dormitories of its own — students 'sign the accommodation contract with properties directly', with an accommodation guide and accommodation@ism.lt for support. The page publishes no living-cost budget international.ism.lt ↗ — ISM University of Management and Economics (retrieved Sept 2026)
- ISM — About the university. ACCREDITATION CHECKED 2026-09-07: the accreditations block is headed 'AACSB member' and reads 'ISM University of Management and Economics became the first university in the Baltic States to receive the highest level of AACSB accreditation for business schools — a recognition held by institutions such as Harvard, Stanford, INSEAD, London Business School, and others.' The only other distinctions claimed are Eduniversal's — '5 Palmes ISM is the only university in Lithuania that holds 5 out of 5 palmes of excellence' — and membership of the UN Principles for Responsible Management Education. NO EQUIS and NO AMBA accreditation is claimed for ISM itself; the Triple Crown wording on the programme page belongs to its double-degree partners. 'Students have the opportunity to earn double degrees – ISM and BI Norwegian Business School, KEDGE Business School (France) or the Illinois Institute of Technology (USA).' Address: 'Gedimino ave. 7, Vilnius, LT-01103, Lithuania'. The page states no founding year, no student or alumni numbers and no ranking, which is why this profile publishes none ism.lt ↗ — ISM University of Management and Economics (retrieved Sept 2026)
- ISM — Accommodation in Vilnius, Lithuania (PDF, 8 pages, sha256:3046a99c4b7dab57, read with npm run pdf:text on 2026-09-07). SCOPE NOTE: the guide is dated 2023-2024 and is the most recent one ISM links, so its figures are used as an indication of rent levels rather than as a current budget, and no living-cost band is recorded in this profile's data. Rents by district: Naujamiestis '1 room apartment around 350 eur/month', 'Shared apartment one room 260 eur/month'; Senamiestis, Uzupis and Paupys '1 room apartment around 500 eur/month', shared room '215 eur/month'; Snipiskes and Antakalnis one-room 'around 350'-'400 eur/month'. Purpose-built co-living: 'Single studio (19 sq. m.) 539 EUR/month' to 'Premium studio (28-32 sq. m.) 689 EUR/month', with 'All utilities included'. ISM has no dormitory of its own; students contract with landlords directly ism.lt ↗ — ISM University of Management and Economics (retrieved Sept 2026)