Hamilton is a forty-five minute drive from Toronto’s Pearson International Airport. Munro International Airport, located on the outskirts of Hamilton, offers air connections to a number of Canadian cities and a few American cities. GO Transit offers bus and commuter train connections to downtown Toronto.

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McMaster University was established in 1887. It was initially located in Toronto, but in 1930, the university accepted the offer of a building site on the edge of the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton. It has since grown into a medium-sized university: the full-time student body now includes 16,000 undergraduate students, 2300 graduate students, and 600 medical interns and residents. There are approximately 1200 faculty positions at the university. See Fast Facts for further information on the university.

The department currently consists of 28 permanent faculty members, a number of adjunct professors (holding permanent positions in the business school or epidemiology department), and several active emeritus professors. Their current research is summarized in the department’s annual research report.  The department's strength lies in applied economics and policy-relevant economic research.

In a typical year there are 15-20 students enrolled in the masters program and about 20 students enrolled in the doctoral program. Students graduating from our programs tend to do well on the job market. The first employment of past graduates is summarized here for the Masters program and the PhD program.

Canadian students are expected to have an honours BA in economics, including the advanced microeconomics and macroeconomics courses (that is, one course in each beyond the full-year intermediate courses) and some econometrics. The university requires students to have maintained a B+ average in the final two years of their undergraduate programs, but it practice, students with less than an A- average are seldom admitted.

Students with lesser qualifications in economics but very strong backgrounds in mathematics or statistics are occasionally admitted, but such exceptions are rare.

Students from foreign universities are expected to have equivalent backgrounds. Although equivalency is difficult to determine, here are some guidelines for a few countries:

• India: First class standing in the bachelors degree and upper second class standing in the masters degree.
• Bangladesh and Pakistan: First class standing in both the bachelors and masters degrees.
• China: A four-year degree with an average of at least 85%. The subject area should be economics, not business. Strong skills in both mathematics and statistics/econometrics are expected.

A student whose native language is not English, and who has not completed an English-language degree in a predominantly English-speaking country, must submit a TOEFL or IELTS score.  The minimum acceptable TOEFL score is 580 (237 on the computerized exam); the minimum acceptable IELTS score is 7+.

Strong students in our masters program are offered admission to the doctoral program.  As well, the department generally admits to the doctoral program a small number of students who obtained their masters degrees at other recognized universities.  Competition for these positions is very strong.  Applicants are expected to have at least a B+ average in the theory courses, and a B+ in econometrics.  In the recent past the students who have been offered admission have tended to have A- averages or better.  The English language requirements for doctoral students are the same as those for masters students.

We routinely evaluate several hundred complete applications each year but accept only about 20 new students. The criteria set out above are only minimum standards: a student who does not satisfy them will not be admitted. However, a student who does satisfy them will only be admitted if his or her application is among the very best that we receive.

Here are the admission statistics for the 2004-5 academic year:

Canadians and Permanent Residents

                                                 
Visa Applicants

Most students who are admitted are also offered some form of financial assistance. Incoming students are almost always offered a teaching assistantship, which requires the student to perform 260 hours of marking or tutoring in exchange for a payment of about C$8650. Most students are also offered a scholarship. The amount of the scholarship varies between C$500 and C$7000.

Tuition fees are currently C$4422 for Canadian students (this category includes permanent residents) and C$12,045 for visa students. Visa students are typically given a tuition bursary that reduces their tuition fees to an amount close to that paid by Canadian students.

Doctoral students are guaranteed funding of at least C$15,500 during each of the first four years of their programs. (For visa students, the guarantee is C$15,500 in addition to the tuition bursary.)

Applicants are automatically considered for financial assistance – no special forms need be filled out.

The total amount of financial support is often less than one person’s living expenses, so students should be prepared to partially finance their studies from their own resources. An estimate of a student’s cost of living in Hamilton is provided here.

Additional information on financial support:

Student financial aid and scholarships homepage
SSHRC scholarships
OGS scholarships
Commonwealth scholarships

The application form can be

downloaded or completed on-line .  There is a C$75 application fee. The fee should be paid as a cheque drawn on a Canadian bank, or as a World Money Order, payable to “McMaster University”.  When prompted, students wishing to obtain a masters degree in economics should choose the "economics focus"  and students interested in economic policy should choose the "economic policy  focus".

A complete application package should include:

The School of Graduate Studies does not consider GRE scores

Completed forms should be sent to:

Jan Martens
Department of Economics
McMaster University
Hamilton ON
Canada L8S 4M4