How to Get Into UBC From Morocco: Bac, IELTS, Profile

What UBC looks at from a Moroccan applicant

UBC lists Morocco on its international high schools requirements page (select Morocco from the country menu). The general requirement is “Graduation from a university-preparatory program at a senior secondary school: Baccalauréat.” The same entry says certificates must be official, that photocopies are acceptable only if certified by the school principal, head or counsellor, and that notarized copies are not accepted. Keep that last line in mind in June: a stamped copy from your lycée is worth more to UBC than a notaire’s stamp.

UBC reads the Baccalauréat de l’enseignement secondaire as one credential whatever your filière: Sciences Mathématiques A or B, Sciences Physiques, Sciences de la Vie et de la Terre, Sciences Économiques, Lettres et Sciences Humaines. What changes by filière is whether you carry the subjects a degree needs (below). Your moyenne générale is the number UBC converts. In the Moroccan system it is built from the national exam at the end of 2ème année bac (weighted 50 percent), the regional exam at the end of 1ère année bac (25 percent) and continuous assessment (25 percent), each part itself weighted by the coefficients of your filière. Confirm the coefficients with your lycée; UBC does not recalculate them, it takes the moyenne on your relevé.

Two variants matter. The Bac international option français or anglais (BIOF, BIOA) is still the Moroccan bac with the same exams, read under the Morocco entry; the English option does not waive the English test. Students at mission-française lycées sit the French bac, which UBC assesses under its France entry: baccalauréat général or option internationale, “Math Informatique does not satisfy the math requirement” for science programs or Sauder, and a past average of 11 on the French scale. If that is you, read the France entry for the grade line.

The grades that get offers

UBC’s Morocco entry is unusually direct about the number: “In past years, an average of 14 on Morocco’s 20-point grading scale was required.” Read that as the floor, not the offer line: UBC also says the grades needed “differ by degree, and vary from year to year” and publishes no per-faculty cut-offs for the Moroccan bac. Sauder, Engineering and Computer Science fill well above the floor, so a 14 that is competitive for Arts is not a Science or Commerce file.

Prerequisites are read as subjects at “upper secondary” level, meaning your 1ère and 2ème année bac courses. Copied from the Morocco entry, for Fall 2027 entry (confirm on the page):

Computer Science is a Science degree at UBC, so it needs the Science row. A Lettres student has no route into Science or Engineering at direct entry; Arts, and the Arts-based routes into economics, are the honest targets. The UBC core average versus overall average guide explains which of those subjects UBC is quietly averaging for a Science or Sauder file.

English: not waived for the Moroccan bac

UBC’s English Language Admission Standard lists the ways to meet it. None of them is the Moroccan bac, the BIOA option or a strong Anglais mark. The routes that could apply to you are four or more years at an eligible English-medium international school (the American schools in Casablanca and Rabat, if UBC lists them), IB English A at 5 or better, or a test. Minimums for the 2026/2027 cycle, tests dated January 1, 2024 or later:

• IELTS Academic: 6.5 overall, no component below 6.0.
• TOEFL iBT: 90 overall with Reading 22, Listening 22, Writing 21, Speaking 21 on the old scale; 4.5 overall on the new 1 to 6 scale.
• Duolingo English Test: 125 overall, with 115 Reading and Listening and 120 Writing and Speaking.
• CAEL: 70 overall. PTE Academic: 65 overall, every component 60 or above. Cambridge: 180.

The deadline to show UBC you meet the standard is February 15, 2027. Book a test in Casablanca or Rabat for the autumn so a weak first sitting still leaves a second attempt before the date.

How and when to apply for Fall 2027 entry

You apply through the UBC application on EducationPlannerBC, the same form Canadian students use. From UBC’s dates and deadlines page for the 2027 Winter Session, confirm each before you plan around it:

• Early October 2026: application opens.
• November 15, 2026: apply to UBC by this date if you want the International Scholars Program (need-based; see money).
• January 15, 2027, 11:59 p.m. Pacific: application deadline for everyone.
• January 31, 2027: documents for admission (and the International Scholars document deadline).
• February 15, 2027: English standard documentation.
• March 15, 2027: out-of-country high school transcripts, per UBC’s document submission page, which also asks that transcripts be issued in the original language of instruction, show the school’s stamp or seal and include both sides.
• November 2026 to June 2027: decisions on a rolling basis. Most offers to bac students arrive in spring on 1ère année results and the first-semester 2ème année marks; your national exam result in June confirms a conditional offer.
• May 1 or June 1, 2027: accept and pay the deposit.

The national exam results come out in mid-June, after UBC’s acceptance deadline, so you will accept a conditional offer, pay the deposit and start the study permit before you know your final moyenne. That is normal.

The Personal Profile: the part you control

Every high school applicant to Arts, Science, Engineering and Sauder writes the Personal Profile. UBC publishes the questions on its Personal Profile page: who you are and how your family, friends or community would describe you; what is important to you and why; up to five activities; one or two of those in depth; academic history and plans; and two references, one a school official. Answers run 500 to 2,100 characters, roughly 50 to 500 words each. UBC says it reads for engagement, leadership, substance and voice. Sauder adds its own questions. The UBC Personal Profile question examples walk through each one with worked answers.

For a Moroccan applicant the profile does more work than for a Vancouver student, because the reader cannot place your school or your activities from context. Explain what a thing is in half a sentence (“Olympiades de mathématiques, the national round”), then spend the rest on what you did. Write in English; a French draft translated sentence by sentence reads like a formal letter. Paste each answer with its question into AcceptMe’s essay coach and it hands back a verdict paragraph plus notes pinned to your own sentences, tagged works, tighten or fix, so the lines that sound like a CV get caught before a UBC reader sees them.

Money: tuition, scholarships, proof of funds

UBC publishes 2026/27 international tuition per credit on its undergraduate tuition fees page, with a promise that for students starting in 2026/27 tuition rises by no more than 3 percent a year for the next four years. The 2027/28 figures are not out yet; expect these plus up to 3 percent:

Add student fees, health insurance and Vancouver living costs; UBC’s cost page has an estimator. Three awards matter, all on UBC’s international scholarships page. The International Major Entrance Scholarship and the Outstanding International Student Award (C$10,000 to C$25,000 a year) need no application; apply by the admission deadline and you are considered on grades and the profile. The International Scholars Program (which includes the Karen McKellin International Leader of Tomorrow Award) is need-based: your lycée nominates you, a teacher writes a reference, you submit family financial documents and four essays of 150 to 250 words by November 15, 2026, and you may be asked for a video interview. Applying to it removes you from the merit awards. The UBC entrance scholarships and the Personal Profile guide covers what the profile has to show for either.

For the study permit, IRCC’s financial support page requires a single applicant outside Quebec to show C$23,448 for living costs for applications from September 1, 2026, on top of first-year tuition and travel. Bank statements in dirhams are fine; the officer wants to see where the money came from and that it stays available.

The study permit

Canada caps new study permits. IRCC’s 2026 allocation notice gives British Columbia 32,596 spaces for 2026 and says the government is still aiming to shrink the temporary-resident share of the population by the end of 2027, so do not expect 2027 to be looser. An undergraduate needs a Provincial Attestation Letter (PAL) from BC, issued through UBC once you have accepted the offer and paid the deposit; IRCC’s PAL page explains it. The Student Direct Stream, the fast track Morocco was part of, closed in November 2024, so there is no expedited route: you apply through the regular stream with the letter of acceptance, the PAL, passport, proof of funds and biometrics, and IRCC’s study permit page links the current processing-time tool. Apply the week the PAL arrives. A conditional offer is enough to start; the final bac relevé goes to UBC, not to IRCC.

A worked Personal Profile answer

Note what it does: names the place and the scale, reports a failure and a change, and ends on a reflection a seventeen-year-old would actually make. 1,050 characters, inside the limit.

Mistakes Moroccan applicants make

• Sending a notarized copy of the relevé. UBC’s Morocco entry says notarized copies are not acceptable; it wants the school’s own certification or the official document.
• Assuming the BIOA or a strong Anglais grade covers English. It does not. Book IELTS or TOEFL for the autumn and have the score in by February 15.
• Applying to Science from a filière without Physics and a moyenne under 16 in Maths and Chimie. The waiver exists; it is specific.
• Listing activities without explaining them. A UBC reader does not know what an association de quartier does. One clause of context each.
• Waiting for the national exam result to accept, or leaving the permit until August. Accept the conditional offer by the deadline, start the permit the day the deposit clears, send the final relevé in July.

Where to go next

The same bac goes to Montreal and Toronto with different rules: the McGill admission guide for Moroccan applicants explains why McGill reads your relevé alone and how the Quebec tuition agreement with Morocco works, and the University of Toronto admission guide for Moroccan applicants covers OUAC 105 and the Rotman and Engineering timed videos. If you are choosing between the two UBC dates, the UBC early versus regular admission guide shows which of your grades UBC has in hand in each round. For the wider picture across countries, start from the by-country guide to Canadian university admissions for international applicants. Then take each profile answer to AcceptMe’s essay coach and fix the sentences it flags before January 15.