Editing Postgraduate education (section)

===Admission===
Admission to a graduate certificate program requires a university degree (or in some cases, a diploma with years of related experience).  English speaking colleges require proof of English language proficiency such as IELTS.  Some colleges may provide English language upgrading to students prior to the start of their graduate certificate program.

Admission to a master's (course-based, also called "non-thesis") program generally requires a bachelor's degree in a related field, with sufficiently high grades usually ranging from [[Academic grading in North America|B+]] and higher (different schools have different [[letter grade]] conventions, and this requirement may be significantly higher in some faculties), and recommendations from professors. Admission to a high-quality thesis-type master's program generally requires an [[honours degree|''honours bachelor'']] or Canadian [[honours degree|''bachelor with honours'']], samples of the student's writing as well as a research thesis proposal. Some programs require Graduate Record Exams (GRE) in both the general examination and the examination for its specific discipline, with minimum scores for admittance.  At English-speaking universities, applicants from countries where English is not the primary language are required to submit scores from the Test of English as a Foreign Language ([[TOEFL]]). Nevertheless, some French speaking universities, like HEC Montreal, also require candidates to submit TOEFL score or to pass their own English test.

Admission to a doctoral program typically requires a master's degree in a related field, sufficiently high grades, recommendations, samples of writing, a research proposal, and an interview with a prospective supervisor. Requirements are often set higher than those for a master's program. In exceptional cases, a student holding an honours BA with sufficiently high grades and proven writing and research abilities may be admitted directly to a Ph.D. program without the requirement to first complete a master's. Many Canadian graduate programs allow students who start in a master's to "reclassify" into a Ph.D. program after satisfactory performance in the first year, bypassing the master's degree.

Students must usually declare their research goal or submit a research proposal upon entering graduate school; in the case of master's degrees, there will be some flexibility (that is, one is not held to one's research proposal, although major changes, for example from premodern to modern history, are discouraged). In the case of Ph.D.s, the research direction is usually known as it will typically follow the direction of the master's research.

Master's degrees can be completed in one year but normally take at least two; they typically may not exceed five years. Doctoral degrees require a minimum of two years but frequently take much longer, although not usually exceeding six years.