Currently, the MBA - Corporate Responsibility and MBA - Leadership degrees have no required prerequisite credit hours. However, there are recommended prerequisite courses for the MBA - Corporate Responsibility degree (Principles of Accounting I & II or BUS 530 Accounting for Decision Making). The MBA - Accounting degree has 18 prerequisite credit hours (Principles of Accounting I & II, Intermediate Accounting I & II, Principles of Taxation, and Principles of Auditing), which must be completed before the 9 emphasis credit hours in Accounting can all be taken. Some of the emphasis credit hours can be taken before all 18 credit hours of prerequisites have been completed if certain criteria have been fulfilled. A student can be accepted into the MBA program and take the 27 core credit hours without these prerequisite credits being completed.

In addition, beginning with students entering the program in May 2013, students who completed their undergraduate degree in a field typically recognized as business will be considered as having satisfied all Common Professional Component (CPC) areas and will therefore have no other prerequisites than those described above. For applicants whose undergraduate degree was not in business, the director of the program will evaluate transcripts of applicants to identify all completed courses that satisfy CPC requirements. Students with any unsatisfied CPC areas may be admitted in the status of Conditionally Admitted—CPC Deficiency. A student admitted with this status must satisfy all CPC deficiencies in order to achieve the regular admission status, and this must be achieved before the student may register for courses beyond twelve hours cumulatively in the program.

The director of the program will work with each student using multiple options to satisfy CPC deficiencies—including: 

1. completion of specified undergraduate or graduate courses with a minimum grade of C; 
2. earning credit by examination (CLEP of DSST) for specified undergraduate courses; 
3. achieving a minimum grade on the pre-test for specified commercially-marketed CPC competence non-credit courses; OR 
4. successful completion of such specified commercially marketed CPC non-credit courses. 

Even while in the Conditionally Admitted—CPC Deficiency status, the student may register for any core curriculum course in the program for which the student does have the corresponding CPC area satisfied.