A crowd around the Engineering area of Waterloo’s booth.

As usual, the Ontario Universities Fair was a busy place last weekend as high school students and families talked to people from all the universities in Ontario gathered in the Toronto Convention Centre.  Here is a photo I snapped while taking a quick break from the crowd.  We had dozens of faculty, staff and current students there to answer questions about our programs.  There are always some common questions, so here are some of them with a quick answer.

1. “What sort of marks do I need?” or “What is the cut-off?”  There is no cut-off, and you can estimate your chances for each program from the data we provide.
2. “Can I change programs after I start?”  Theoretically it’s possible, but in practice may be difficult/impossible or may cost an extra year.  Applicants need to do their homework before applying so they are not likely to be in that situation.
3. “Is the first year common?” No, it’s direct entry to the specific program and co-op jobs start in first year.
4. “What is your aerospace program like?”  We don’t have an aerospace program but consider mechanical, mechatronics, electrical, systems design or management engineering instead.
5. “What do you need for an early offer?”  Very high marks, some completed grade 12 required courses, and a lot of luck.  We give out relatively few early offers, and 70%+ of them come out in May.  There is absolutely no advantage in receiving an early offer, other than just knowing a few weeks earlier.

There were lots of other questions of course, but those were some that come to mind as being asked a number of times.