Canadian University Stats

As the last acceptances for Canadian universities trickle in over the next month, the trend in Canada towards more and more students applying to more universities and more programs continues to grow.

The Ontario University Application Centre (OUAC), the system through which all applications to Ontario universities are fed, has released preliminary data for 2012.

Over the past 8 years, the number of applicants to Ontario universities has increased by almost 20,000 students. On average, each student is submitting three applications each. Part of this reason is you can apply to three universities under one OUAC fee; part of it is because students are applying to more universities than ever before because competition is getting stiffer!

With a larger number of universities moving towards a Broad Based Admissions system, in which more than just grades count to determine admission (McGill is the noticeable hold-out here– it still only looks at your grades and nothing else!), students are finding it more challenging to get into universities that might have been options in the past.

OUAC January 2004-2012 Preliminary Data

Year

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

Applicants

71,222

72,968

75,660

79,568

83,381

84,300

86,542

88,626

90,373

Applications

348,500

325,803

331,061

350,759

368,749

367,739

375,278

383,403

392,742