A brief update on what’s happening in the 2017 engineering admissions cycle.
- Recently we sent out some offers to Ontario high school (OUAC Form 101) applicants. As usual, we only sent enough to fill about 25% of the available spaces in each program, so we leave lots for the major round in early May. Generally these offers go to top-ranked applicants with strong grades across the board, a submitted AIF, and 3 Grade 12 required courses completed.
- Plans are in motion for our annual March Break Open House on March 18. A visit to Waterloo is highly recommended for those within travel distance, especially if you’ve never been here before. It’s a great chance to meet and talk with current students about their class and co-op experiences.
- We’re working away on the non-Ontario (OUAC Form 105) applicant files, which is a complicated and manual process. Tentatively, we hope to send out some offers to this group in early April.
- We continue to review Admission Information Forms (AIFs). Applicants should make sure they pressed “Submit” and not just “Save”, otherwise we don’t consider it and an offer is very unlikely.
- We’re also working away on reviewing the submitted optional interviews. It’s too early to conclude anything, but they seem to be going well.
- Our big push for offers comes in early May, and then all the admitted applicants have until early June to make their final decision. We will start compiling a wait list for any spaces that might open up in June.
A Professor in Waterloo Engineering 
Hello sir,
My school submitted our marks on February 13 but they weren’t received by Waterloo until yesterday. Does this mean we missed the early round?
That’s correct. It happens every year that some grades are not in our system in time for early decisions, which is another reason why we hold back the majority of our spaces until May when we’re sure we have all grades at hand.
Just to clarify, Waterloo won’t make any offers in the May round until everyone’s marks are received right? Thanks.
Yes, usually in May we don’t have problems with missing marks.
But sir that is unfair to students who worked hard to complete their application before the Feb. 3rd deadline only to not get admission because their school submitted marks late.
If on the AIF applicants are required to manually enter marks then school-submitted marks should only be used for cross-referencing, not being the main source for marks.
Yes, disappointing I’m sure. But our systems are completely dependent on the electronic data transfers from Ontario schools, and these situations are outside of our control.
My daughter received an offer of admission last year for Nanotechnology Engineering but her offer was withdrawn in July because […] Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
It’s not possible to give specific advice, other than to continue doing her best in the program and see what develops.