The first section to complete is the education section.
Enter the highest level of education that you have attained, the years you were there, and the high school, college, or university you attended along with the country it is in. You’ll also need to add the field of study.
This section is where the first review of your eligibility takes place. To be eligible to take the PMP® exam, you must meet the required criteria.
You can see the requirements in the table below.
| Educational Background | Project Management Work Experience | Project Management Educational |
|---|---|---|
| Secondary degree (high school diploma, associate's degree, or global equivalent) | Minimum five years/60 months unique non-overlapping professional project management experience* | 35 contact hours of formal education unless you are an active CAPM holder |
| OR | ||
| Four-year degree (bachelor's degree or global equivalent | Minimum three years/36 months unique non-overlapping professional project management experience* | 35 contact hours of formal education unless you are an active CAPM holder |
| OR | ||
| Bachelor's or post-graduate degree from a GAC accredited program (bachelor's degree or master's or global equivalent) | Minimum two years/24 months unique non-overlapping professional project management experience* | 35 contact hours of formal education unless you are an active CAPM holder |
The application system will prompt you to select your GAC accredited program from a drop-down list if you choose an institution that is accredited.
You don’t need to know in advance if your course was accredited, but if you want to check, you can find out if your degree is accredited by PMI at the Global Accreditation Center website. If your degree was accredited, you will receive a 12-month credit toward the work experience eligibility requirement. In other words, you’ll only have to evidence 24 months of project experience.
If you do not meet those eligibility requirements, it’s time to think about your educational background and whether one of the other credentials would be more appropriate for you. For example, CAPM® has an entry route that does not require any formal school-based education as long as you have 23 hours of project management training completed by the time you sit for the exam.
The next section of the PMP application form covers your project management education. In this section, you need to evidence that you have completed the required amount of project management training hours. That’s 35 contact hours for the PMP application.
You need to record the details of your training provider, the dates you attended the training, and the name of the training program. Make sure you have these details to hand before you start completing your application.
Your project management education must have been completed by the time you submit your application.
You don’t have to upload your training certificates in this section. Your training provider will give you a certificate of attendance as evidence that you did the course, but you are not asked to provide this unless your application is audited.
Eligible Education
You can satisfy the education requirements with completed courses, workshops, and training sessions offered by one or more of the following types of education providers:
A. PMI Registered Education Providers (REPs)
B. PMI Authorized Training Partners (ATPs)
C. PMI Chapters*
D. Employer or company-sponsored programs
E. Training companies or consultants (for example, training schools)
F. Distance-learning companies, including an end-of-course assessment
G. University/college academic and continuing education programs
Note that the following education does not satisfy the education requirements:
1. Self-directed learning (e.g., reading books, watching instructional videos or sessions with coaches or mentors)
2. * PMI chapter meetings, BUT, if at least one hour of a PMI chapter meeting is spent conducting a learning activity, you can count the time you spend in that activity towards your educational requirement.
College or University Courses
If you have completed a university or college course on project management that met for three hours per week for 15 weeks, you would document 3 x 15 = 45 contact hours. If only a portion of a course dealt with project management, you can only apply only the hours you spent on project management.
This means that although you may be able to document particular classes that were part of a bachelor’s degree or an MBA, you cannot document the degree program. This is because some classes within the program will not be about Project Management. You will need to determine how many hours you spent learning about project management topics and only claim this portion in your PMP application.
What is the maximum length of time that the training can be in the past?
Well, the PMI says:
'Document all education hours regardless of when they were accrued.'
This means that if you took an 'Introduction to Project Management' course 20 years ago... you can still claim it.
However, we recommend you taking some kind of PMP Exam preparation course anyway. And those courses mostly provide some form of 35 Contact hours validation.
Congratulations, you completed the first section of your PMP Application ... let's move on to the next section ...