Waterloo

Submitting Your Admission Information Form 2017

/ profbillanderson / 32 Comments

Updated version of a past post for the 2017 admission cycle, as there have been a few small changes.

The Admission Information Form, or AIF, is the primary vehicle for applicants to tell us about themselves.  Our admission decisions are mainly based on grades, but the AIF information can help us distinguish between people who have similar grades, and we award up to 5  points onto the admission average for outstanding applicants.  Let’s go through the various parts of the AIF and see what is involved. Continue reading →

Engineering Admissions by Lottery?

/ profbillanderson / Leave a comment

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

/ profbillanderson / 15 Comments

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 →

Meeting your Waterloo

/ profbillanderson / Leave a comment

June 18 is the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, the final major clash between Napoleon’s French Imperial forces and the Anglo-Dutch and Prussian allies arrayed against him, near a small village in modern-day Belgium.  The battle clearly resonated throughout the western world, resulting in the eventual use of the name “Waterloo” for a county and village in Ontario, and a university named after the city where it was founded.  There is also a Waterloo in Quebec, Iowa, New York State, New Zealand, and many other locations according to Wikipedia.  You might wonder what history has to do with the theme of this blog, but I’ve managed to find a connection. Continue reading →