Admission to our Engineering programs requires the completion of certain Grade 12 courses (or equivalents in various other school systems), specifically Functions, Calculus, English, Chemistry and Physics in Ontario. For many years we have discouraged the idea of re-taking any of these required courses to boost marks and get a competitive edge for admission. In recent years, this has taken the form of a penalty of around 5% points off the overall average of the required courses if one or more are repeated (the higher grade is used). The net effect is that unless the repeated course(s) add at least another 30 percentage points to the total, repeating a course is not worthwhile for competitive advantage in admissions. In many cases, repeating course(s) will knock the application out of the competition completely. Other universities seem to have a range of approaches, from accepting repeats without question to ignoring the improved grade completely. So, we’re somewhere in between. But why use this penalty approach? Continue reading
university admissions
What Do Engineers Do?
Here’s a great post about what it’s like to be an electrical engineer. These are the sorts of stories we like to use to help prospective students decide on their career path, so thanks to the author!
When you think of what an engineer does on a daily basis, what comes to mind? Do you think we sit around and solve math problems all day? Maybe you think we sit in a cube and work on our projects alone.
Well, I have to confess that I don’t perform calculations all day. I’m sure that there are some engineers who spend time “doing the math”, but most of the calculations I do are either relatively simple or I rely on software to do it for me.
So, what is life as an engineer like? What do I do in a typical day? Considering that engineers aren’t typically known for their communication skills, I spend a considerable amount of time communicating via emails, in meetings and on conference calls. Oftentimes, I am communicating with colleagues around the world. (It gets really interesting when you have an engineer in Mexico…
View original post 485 more words
Private Schools: caveat emptor
Caveat emptor: a Latin legal term for “let the buyer beware”
I was recently advised about a private school in the Greater Toronto Area that had its credit-granting authority revoked by the Ontario Ministry of Education (a list of revocations is available here). Meaning? Anyone we admitted with a required course credit from that school may have to have their admission offer revoked. Staff are looking into it, but it raises once again the issue of private schools and university admission. Continue reading
Engineering Admissions by Lottery?
The Tenured Radical blog on the Chronicle of Higher Education website has a post reflecting on the possible use of a lottery system for admission to competitive universities. Under this system, we would just identify everyone who meets our minimum admission requirements (maybe an 80% average for the required courses?), then run a random selection process that fills the seats. There are some tempting reasons to do this. Continue reading
Offer Revocation Season
This is the start of the season when we start deciding whether to revoke admission offers. The season starts when final grades become available, and lasts throughout the summer as we receive various exam scores and transcripts from around the world. It’s always a bit painful for us, as we have to make hard decisions in some cases. It’s certainly painful for applicants who lose their offer. Continue reading
Waterloo does not have to be #1!
I recently ran across a blog posting with suggestions for home-schooled applicants to Waterloo. Overall, it was quite informative and had good information, with one exception. That’s where it propagates the myth that Waterloo expects to be the applicant’s #1 choice, implying that if Waterloo is not #1 it will somehow insult us or affect the application. Continue reading
A Professor in Waterloo Engineering 