Frequently Asked Questions

The BMS Admissions Committee determines admissibility to the BMS based on the supplemental application. Before an offer of admission can be extended, UBC Admissions verifies that applicants meet Faculty of Arts and UBC minimum academic requirements. All those who are interested are welcome to apply, and must simply follow the instructions outlined on the Admissions page. Students looking to transfer into the 2^nd year of the BMS may find more relevant information here.

While the media studies programs at the Vancouver and Okanagan campuses share a similar topical focus and open doors for students to explore a wide variety of media forms and perspectives, there are a few areas where each program has emphasized different strengths and competencies. While we can give an in-depth overview of the Vancouver BMS program, students interested in the Okanagan BMS are encouraged to visit their website or contact their co-coordinators (Annie Wan or Megan Smith)for more information.

The BMS -Vancouver program is founded in critical media theory. It is grounded on reciprocity, that the production of media is informed by a critical scholarly discourse about media and its role in society or power structures—and that this theory and scholarship have, in turn, responded to innovations in media production and how people use it. We aim to equip students with both this scholarly perspective and with the concrete skillset to produce media of their own, while also emphasizing the collaborative nature of modern media-centric workplaces. This allows students to cultivate specific skillsets (through our data, narrative, and visual focus areas) and invites them to pursue additional specialization or expertise based on their interest (through the breadth requirement of the focus areas and the opportunity to complete a minor).

Within the BMS curriculum, students build skillsets with a focus on visual, narrative, and data aspects of production.  All students share exposure to the theoretical and research-intensive side of the curriculum, and all contribute their unique profiles to the collaborative and community-based projects of the core media studies coursework.

We'd recommend looking at the courses included in each curriculum to see how well they address your own points of interest, and thinking about how much either program allows you to pursue other opportunities (academic or otherwise) that contribute to your development. In either case, best wishes as you approach your applications!

No. You will only be considered for admission if BMS is listed as your first choice.

Your BMS Vancouver application will not be evaluated unless you put BMS Vancouver as your first choice program. You will have to check in with the BMS-O about any such stipulations before making a decision about ranking them in your application.

The BMS communicates final decision outcomes to all applicants, not just the successful ones. As the evaluation timeline follows the admissions cycle, your decision will be communicated between late March and early May, well before second-year registration commences. If you have any urgent questions about your application and/or exceptional circumstances that require you to know the outcome sooner, you may email the program at arts.mediastudies@ubc.ca. The program cannot communicate an outcome that has not been determined, but may be able to account for such circumstances to expedite evaluations.

BMS offers are typically released between mid-late March, with final rounds of offers being made in early April. Offers of admission can only be extended once UBC Admissions has verified your documents, English-language abilities, and confirmed you meet UBC and Faculty of Arts minimum requirements for admission: UBC Admissions will reach out directly to solicit all required information, so be sure to follow all instructions promptly.

All candidates, regardless of outcome, will be notified about their BMS application. It is likely that your BMS application is still under review. If you have not heard back from us or the admissions office by mid April, please feel free to email our inbox at arts.mediastudies@ubc.ca to check in on your application. However, if your other offer is time sensitive, you may contact us by email to notify us of the same and we can work out next steps if the acceptance deadline does not coincide with our evaluation timeline.

All candidates are informed of their application outcome, whether successful or not. If you have not heard back from us or the admissions office by mid April, please feel free to email our inbox at arts.mediastudies@ubc.ca to check in on your application. Unfortunately individual feedback on applications is not available.

You may approach UBC Admissions to raise concerns about your decision; UBC Admissions facilitates all admissions-related appeals. The BMS Program does not conduct any reviews of supplemental applications. You may also choose to resubmit your application to the program in the next admissions cycle, or consider joining the program through the Year 2 entry (transfer) stream. Please note that if you are a transfer student and your application to the program was denied, you were automatically considered for the first-year entry as well and were likely for both. You must wait for the next application cycle if you'd like to still be considered.

Appeals to defer admissions are accepted and processed by UBC Admissions. Note the application deadlines; UBC Admissions verifies that a student is eligible, and confirms feasibility with the program. Deferral beyond one academic year is not possible; students must not attend another postsecondary institution while on their gap year.

Students already on a gap year are welcome to apply without restriction.

The transfer application stream is for students who have already begun postsecondary studies and undertaken media-related coursework. Students can now apply through a dedicated Year 2 Entry process and join the second-year cohort each September. Year 2 Entry students will still be required to complete three years of student to progress with their cohort through years 2, 3, and 4 of the BMS curriculum. This is because of the cohort-based model of the BMS curriculum. Please note that no exceptions can be made to this, students will not be admitted to Year 3 or Year 4.

Transfer applicants will submit their portfolio and written responses through the supplemental application, and will be evaluated on the same timeline as direct-entry applicants.

To be eligible for Year 2 Entry, students must demonstrate completion of sufficient coursework—the Foundational Preparatory Academic requirement (FPAR)—that contributes to similar development as the BMS first-year curriculum. For information on how to demonstrate completion of the FPAR at your current institution, see Year 2 Entry. Those who have not completed sufficient prerequisite coursework, or whose courses are not approved towards the FPAR, may still indicate their wish to be considered for admission into Year 1 of the program.

All students must submit their application by January 15, 2024. Review the website for detailed instructions on the specific requirements and application procedures relevant to your situation.

When you transfer into the BMS in your second year, you will be admitted to Year 2 of the BMS program.

The BMS communicates final decision outcomes to all applicants, not just the successful ones. As the evaluation timeline follows the admissions cycle, your decision will be communicated between late March and early May, well before second-year registration commences. If you have any urgent questions about your application and/or exceptional circumstances that require you to know the outcome sooner, you may email the program at arts.mediastudies@ubc.ca. The program cannot communicate an outcome that has not been determined, but may be able to account for such circumstances to expedite evaluations.

You may indicate whether you wish to be evaluated for Year 1 entry only if you are determined not to meet the Foundational Preparatory Academic Requirement (FPAR). If the Admissions Committee determines that you do meet the FPAR, you are not eligible for entry to Year 1 of the program.

Yes, but keep in mind you would still be embarking on a three-year curriculum; there is no possibility of expedited completion, although the additional credit could allow you more flexibility to pursue other opportunities while in the BMS.

If you are transferring from another postsecondary institution (i.e., if you are not currently studying at UBCV or UBCO), you may appeal through UBC Admissions. If you are currently studying at UBCV or at UBCO, contact the program at arts.mediastudies@ubc.ca for more information.

The supplemental application is linked on the BMS Supplemental Application page.

No. The supplemental application has separate fields for you to upload the works individually. To ensure everyone applying is evaluated in an equitable manner, you must pick the two works that best represent your knowledge and mastery of the media forms.

You are invited to reflect on the process of creating the media you chose to submit in the second written response of the supplemental application. There is no requirement or field in the supplemental application for a process portfolio, or any other longform document to elaborate on the work you are submitting.

Only works completed before the application deadline may be included in your application; accepting later works from some students would undermine the equity of the evaluation process.

The program does not perform portfolio reviews; all applicants must represent their work according to the publicly-available criteria on the website.

No, the BMS does not accept or consider references or letters of recommendation as part of the admissions process.

Standardized test scores are not a component of UBC Admissions evaluations, and the program does not accept or consider them in its own evaluation process.

You can use the BC Transfer Guide. This identifies how the courses you have taken correspond to the UBC courses on the first-year requirement list—if 9 credits are available to you, you will only need to specify that you've completed counterparts to these courses:

• ARTH 101 Ways of Seeing: Introduction to Visual Studies: Drawing on examples from across history and around the world, this course deals with the role of the visual in society, culture, and everyday experience.
• CINE 100 Introduction to Cinema Studies: Basic aesthetic, economic, sociological, and technological aspects of film.
• CPSC 100 Computational Thinking: Meaning and impact of computational thinking. Solving problems using computational thinking, testing, debugging. How computers work.
• CPSC 103 Introduction to Systematic Program Design: Computation as a tool for systematic problem solving in non-computer-science disciplines. Introductory programming skills.
• CPSC 110 Computation, Programs, and Programming: Fundamental program and computation structures. Introductory programming skills. Computation as a tool for information processing, simulation and modelling, and interacting with the world.
• CRWR 206 Introduction to Writing for the Screen: Techniques of and practice in creating, developing, and writing a screenplay. Manuscript submission is not required for admission.
• CRWR 208 Introduction to Writing for Graphic Forms: Techniques of and practice in creating, developing, and writing the graphic novel, manga, and other forms of illustrated writing.
• CRWR 213 Introduction to Writing for the New Media: An exploration of and practice in writing for new media, including podcasting, blogging, and writing for websites, games, and online environments.
• FIPR 101 Introduction to the History of Film Production: The history of film and film production by decade with a strong emphasis on filmmakers and advances in production technology.
• INFO 100 (De)coding Information and Why it Matters: Information and data as concepts and aspects of everyday experience. Creation, sharing, authorization, and valuing of information with implications for society. Critical perspectives and practices to engage with data, information, and technologies for personal productivity, scholarly inquiry, and civic engagement.
• JRNL 100 New Media and Society: Development of new media technologies, their applications, and their cultural, political, and social impacts.
• MDIA 100 Media Objects: Multidisciplinary perspectives on contemporary media objects and their effects.
• VISA 110 Foundation Studio: Digital Media: Foundation instruction in techniques and approaches to digital practice. The nature of digital technologies and their role in contemporary culture will be examined.

If your courses are not listed there, or if you are attending an institution outside British Columbia, your transfer credits will be evaluated after you accept an offer of admission; UBC’s transfer-credit articulation team does not have the capacity to review courses preliminarily, informally, or otherwise outside of established processes.

Transfer credit generally applies to elective requirements at UBC. BMS disciplinary core and MDIA courses do not typically correspond to courses taught at other institutions, and you’ll complete these with the rest of your cohort.

Once admitted, you may check the applicable transfer credits you have and write to the program chair, to appeal to apply those to BMS core courses. The Program Chair evaluates your transferred course syllabus against the role that the required BMS course plays in the curriculum; generally speaking, if the course was not specifically articulated as corresponding to an existing course at UBC by UBC’s central Transfer Credit Articulation team, it does not cover sufficiently-similar topical or methodological material to replace a core-course requirement for the BMS.

Regardless of whether the BMS allows you to apply those credits to BMS core courses, they will still count towards your elective credits. For more information, you may wish to speak to a BMS Advisor at bms.advisor@ubc.ca

In order to earn their degree, students must complete at least 120 BMS-eligible credits. This is an institution-wide requirement that stipulates students can only graduate from their program once they meet this requirement. The BMS required courses do not cover all 120 credits and students are responsible for their course planning and registration to ensure they are taking courses beyond the BMS to meet the requirement by their intended graduation timeline. You can find out more about what kinds of credit are eligible and how they are counted towards your degree on the BMS Academic Calendar.

As a BMS student, you must prioritize completion of your BMS requirements and keep up with the progression of your cohort. The BMS Program cannot rearrange the timings of any of the first year required courses or reserve seats for you in non-BMS classes. You will have to monitor the Student Service Center (SSC) for the classes you are interested in to see when seats become available. Seats generally open up closer to the start of term and during the first week as students tend to register in extra classes to "shop around" and drop the ones they are not as interested in.

If a class you are interested in clashes with a BMS required course, we require that you prioritize the BMS requirement and cannot make exceptions. This is because all students admitted to a BMS cohort are required to progress alongside the cohort. If you are unsuccessful in finding an empty seat in the class you are interested in, or the class clashes with the BMS required courses, consider whether other courses are of similar interest or to wait and take a specific course in a future session. You may consult the BMS Advising team for advice on mapping out your registration.

You choose your electives and determine your courseload at your own discretion: this is dependent on your personal interests, your other obligations, and your confidence in your ability to juggle extracurriculars, academics, and your wellbeing.

International students, student-loan recipients, and students receiving certain bursaries or scholarships must ensure that they meet specific minimum credit loads. For example, to be eligible for most merit-based awards at UBC, you need to take 24 percentage-graded courses in a Winter session. (Students working with the Centre for Accessibility may have specific reductions approved.)

At the program level, there is no recommended or required amount of electives to take in first year either, but most students will take 1-2 in their first year (1 elective/semester). Adjusting to university life can be challenging, and so it is also fine to not take any electives in your first year as long as you are cognizant of making time for them in your timetable for future years.

The BMS Advising Team can help you anticipate the workload of your required courses and map out the effect of course planning decisions on your graduation timeline.

This is a requirement only for BMS students in the original curriculum (admitted 2022 or prior) to notify the program of courses that are not currently listed as core plus on the academic calendar to still count for the core plus requirement. You can fill out the form here with the course syllabus and rationale for the course to be reviewed.

Starting in second year, you'll take additional courses in one of three areas of focus that dive deeper into the theory behind, and production of, specific forms of media: visual, narrative, and data. You'll have the chance to apply these skills while learning, working with other members of your cohort in the MDIA courses on projects that require different talents. For this requirement, students complete 15 credits (5 semester-long courses) in the Data, Visual, or Narrative focus areas. Students must also complete at least 6 credits (2 semester-long courses) of coursework from focus areas outside their own. You can find out more about which courses are part of each focus area on this page.

Focus Areas are assigned to equal numbers of students to ensure that there are even distributions of specific competencies among all the students in advanced MDIA courses. You are welcome to approach the Program Chair or advising team to raise concerns, but we encourage that you keep in mind the following:

• You’re still required pursue coursework in other Focus Areas through the breadth requirement;
• You can pursue a minor in fields associated with any of the focus areas, with minor programs being more in-depth and hands-on than a focus area;
• Building a skillset in areas outside your comfort zone expands the skillset you have when you approach professional life after graduating, and can provide greater flexibility in the tasks you’re able to engage with in the workplace