An updated posting…
The final set of offers are getting posted to our online Quest system, and then to the OUAC application centre (there is a day or two delay between the two). At this moment, a lot of the Ontario school applicant offers (Form 101) have been posted. The Form 105 offers (for outside Ontario) are being processed. The university hopes to have the majority of decisions posted by the end of next week (May 13). Because there are thousands of decisions to process (in addition to just Engineering), it can take a while for it all to finish.
A suggestion about communications…if you’re an applicant waiting on a decision, the best thing to do is to monitor your Quest account and your email until you see the outcome. It is not a good idea to phone or email the university at this point, as the staff don’t have any information to offer until the decisions are finished being posted. We know it’s difficult to wait, but phone and email won’t get a result any faster.
As a quick summary for this year, we had just under 12,000 applicants for about 1,550 spaces, or around 7.5 applicants per space. It’s actually a bit more complicated than that. There were about 6 applicants per space reserved for Canadians and Permanent Residents, and almost 17 applicants per space for the 200 spots reserved for visa students, so that competition is quite a bit tougher.
Overall, with our space limitations and the number of applicants, we will be turning away over 2,500 applicants with a 90%+ admission average.
A Professor in Waterloo Engineering 
Hello Professor,
I, personally, was blown away when I read “turning away over 2,500 applicants with a 90%+ admission average”. With regards to historical data, what would you say would be the reason for this? Knowing that the admission averages were once-upon-a-time far lower, have the number of applicants grown exponentially? Or, perhaps, have overall averages simply gone up? If that is the case, in your opinion, is the AIF still sufficient for admissions purposes, or is there a need for a larger, more holistic system?
Yes, it’s just a simple matter of the number of applications increasing (from around 6,000 to 12,000 over the past 8 years), while the number of available spaces has only increased by about 250.
First, thank you for this very informative, clear and concise blog. It helped clarify where to find information about engineering programs and how Waterloo’s engineering admission process works.
Secondly, the quality – organization, clarity – of all (all programs, not just engineering) of Waterloo’s communications to prospective undergraduate students is better in my opinion than from other universities.
For my son after co-op this was the second factor that made him choose Waterloo over other admission offers.
Some examples
– The brochures: clear, concise highlights for each program, colour-coded.
The colours in the brochure match the T-Shirts of people from that program at open houses. Extremely simple and extremely helpful!
Also liked the nice touch of how the common front page encompassing all the colours in the symbol.
– The fact that the courses for each program can easily be found on the programs’ pages
– Examples of schedules in some of the programs’ pages.
That gives high-school students food for thought early, before they start university.
Thanks for the feedback. I’m sure our marketing and communications staff will be pleased with your comments.