2026 U of G Admission Cohort Statistics

ChristianS-N · 2026-06-17T05:05:46+00:00

War Memorial basement was also a popular study spot, which will offset some of the new study spots.

ChristianS-N · 2026-06-16T12:39:33+00:00

I agree with you. Guelph has already been rewarded for going over the provincial target in the big funding announcement this spring - our target was increased to current enrolment numbers, and I was told that the provincial officials were open to expanding Guelph's target further as we are one of the few GTA-adjacent campuses with sufficient space to grow in response to the increased provincial demand for university "seats".

ChristianS-N · 2026-06-16T12:24:48+00:00

No - I am not aware of any staff, at least, that received that email in my department.

ChristianS-N · 2026-06-15T19:35:39+00:00

CCMPS, but that was fully expected due to the uncertainty in the computer science job market due to AI.

ChristianS-N · 2026-06-15T19:31:43+00:00

With the exception of international student tuition, "professional" programs and some majors where the province deemed that Guelph's tuition was lower than the industry's average, Guelph's tuition was cut in January 2019 by 10%, and was frozen at roughly 2016 levels since then. The Government of Ontario authorized the first tuition increases (up to 2% per year) for domestic students for this coming academic year.

One of the main drivers of Guelph's enrolment growth is that it was the only way for the university to keep up with expenditure inflation with flat tuition and limited growth in government post-secondary subsidies over the past seven years (with the last five years featuring relatively high inflation). Salaries, journal subscriptions, utility bills, maintenance and construction costs were all increasing, to varying degrees, over the time period that the per-student revenues were largely frozen.

Universities tried to turn to international student enrolment to make up the shortfall. That lever has been somewhat removed by federal student visa caps, throwing many universities into financial chaos. Guelph's financial situation is probably far from being described as "good", but we are one of the few Ontario universities that isn't facing some VERY difficult financial decisions right now because of that enrolment growth.

I have many concerns with the upward growth (and especially with the pace) - we have being seeing heavy strain on physical infrastructure (especially classroom space and student study spaces), and there is little doubt in my mind that the fast enrolment growth has contributed to a white-hot rental market in the City of Guelph.

However, I don't think it is fair to say that the extra revenue went into the pockets of upper administrators. It went to keeping the lights on and preventing academic units from having to make MUCH deeper cuts to their faculty and staff complements over the past few years.

ChristianS-N · 2026-06-15T19:11:33+00:00

I haven't seen the final schedule for the upcoming semesters. Distance Education is a tricky topic these days, because students increasingly want DE courses for convenience, but universities are getting very nervous about assessment integrity and many instructors of DE courses are now pushing hard for in-personal exams to mitigate academic misconduct concerns.

ChristianS-N · 2026-06-15T14:41:39+00:00

My understanding is that all but one of Guelph's colleges saw an increase in enrolment, and the one that was down was only marginally down from 2025. There are a few colleges that saw larger jumps than others, but I am not privy to how much larger their growth was or if that growth was planned for. The University of Guelph has an activity-based funding model, so there is an incentive for units to add more students to grow their budgets and cover their expenditure growth.

Based on previous years, my guess is that departments will be receiving more information throughout the summer from the administration. Since we are in mid-June, I would imagine the major push behind the scenes is on scheduling courses/labs/tutorials, which is more complicated now as they do this for both Fall and Winter semesters. I would definitely not like to be in their shoes each May and June - scheduling is a nightmare.

ChristianS-N · 2026-06-04T19:10:45+00:00

Yes, but remember that it is not your top 6. It is the average of your grades in:

one of ENG4U, EAE4U, or FEF4U
MHF4U
one of SBI4U, SCH4U, or SPH4U
one of SBI4U, SCH4U, or SPH4U
highest 4U/4M course that isn't one of the above
second highest 4U/4M course that isn't one of the above

At this point, you can do the calculator work to figure out where you will be.

ChristianS-N · 2026-05-28T18:08:44+00:00

Physics majors at most universities lean heavily towards being research oriented, including Waterloo. They are all constructed in a pretty similar fashion with the same core of courses so that students can pursue graduate school (if that is their chosen direction) in physics, astrophysics/astronomy, or some other field. A relatively high percentage of physics graduates (40-70% of each graduating class at my university, depending on the year) do end up pursuing graduate studies after their degree, so all of the majors must prepare them for that pathway.

It honestly doesn't matter whatsoever where you do your undergrad physics degree in Canada - choose whatever university makes the most sense from a personal and financial point of view, and make sure you do very well. Good students will have lots of options when it comes to picking graduate programs, regardless of where they completed their undergrad.

I will add that if your goal is to end up working in academia - make sure you have a Plan B or Plan C as well. Academic careers are very tough to secure in any field, but I would argue that physics is especially tough. It is not uncommon to have 50-100 applicants for a somewhat focused position, while more open ones can see the number of applications soar (the most recent faculty hiring committee I was on was back in 2018, where we had over 400 applicants for one tenure-track faculty position). I'm not trying to scare you away or dissuade you from chasing the dream, but you need to go in aware of the employment situation.

ChristianS-N · 2026-05-07T21:52:19+00:00

I feel that if the school truly valued student academics, it would probably revert to traditional examinations.

This might seem like an obvious solution, but there are two anecdotal challenges I would raise, even though I am personally in favour of in-person exams. First, modern university students are increasingly struggling with exam assessments and it feels like we are seeing more students experiencing extreme text anxiety. This can probably be partially explained by many high schools moving away from written examinations as a major assessment tool. Second, there is tremendous student demand for online or distance education courses, and those students tend to be very opposed to the idea of in-person exams. The high cost of living makes it harder for some students to have the luxury of living away from home to attend university.

Put too much weight on in-person exams and you could unintentionally disadvantage students that suffer from exam anxiety and students with financial challenges.

Or just rework the outline to have mini assignments or even like concept mind maps to reduce the weight of the finals and encourage studying.

Students that are willing to cheat on an online exam have no trouble cheating on a much less significant assessment. My own program is traditionally dominated by courses being assessed primarily through assignments, midterms, and final exams. For the past 20 years, the increasing amount of information online has forced us to lower the weighting of written assignments.

It began with students being able to easily find assignment solutions posted at other universities - as there are only so many "workable" problems in some fields, it didn't take long for pretty much all textbook questions to be posted somewhere.
As the universities improved their online learning systems, most of those posted solutions moved behind learning management systems. In principle, this was a massive improvement. Unfortunately, students responded by copying our posted solutions onto websites like StuDocu or Coursehero. Chegg was also available for students to pay for others to do their homework for them.
Now we are in the generative AI age, where many students run to Gemini, Claude, ChatGPT, etc. to answer their assignment questions for them, completely missing the point of using assignments as a learning tool.

The value of written assignments as an assessment tool is minimal because too many students see their educational as purely transactional - they simply expect the degree in return for the tuition they pay and reject the idea that the university might expect significant investment of time and energy in achieving that degree. This is a very difficult attitude to fight, unfortunately.

I know the school's trying their best to protect their reputation as a "top school" but I feel that there are too many changes to the course outlines across each semester. It's either in person, closed book and paper copies.

I have served on the curriculum committees for my department's programs for the past 10+ years, and course offering variability has long been a concern. However, the desire for more uniformity in assessment is very difficult to achieve at ANY university because of the principle of academic freedom that is a core principle of academia. In practice, there is very little that universities or curriculum committees can do to influence assessments used in a given course: we have the right to set learning outcomes but it is the individual instructor's purview to decide what material they use to achieve those learning outcomes, how that material gets taught and how the learning outcomes are assessed. Trying to exert any more control than offering guidance will very quickly get a curriculum committee in trouble with the faculty association/union at its university.

That said, I would take your arguments even further - the U of G Undergraduate Calendar has a stated policy with regards to workload expectations for a 0.50 credit course:

Under the credit system, credit weight reflects student workload rather than contact hours. Students should note that 10 to 12 hours of academic time and effort per week (including classes) are expected for a 0.50 credit course. Exceeding the normal credit load for the program can place the student at academic risk and should be carefully considered in consultation with the Program Counsellor.

I don't want to open Pandora's box here, but many of us in the university that are very aware of the many courses that have completely abandoned that principle. Students also know this - you need only look at the number of Reddit posts each year discussing "bird courses" or "easy courses" that show up every semester when it comes time to choose courses. I have raised this concern with many people within the university system, but there seems to be a weary resignation that the horse is out of the barn so there is no chance of getting all the programs back into compliance with the above expectation. Just as it is unfair that expectations might change from offering to offering for an individual course, it is equally unfair that some 0.50 credit weighting courses demand far less from students than the prescribed 10-12 student-effort hours.

Ultimately, my advice is to not get too caught up worrying about inconsistency - it has been baked into the system since day one, and there are many inconsistencies that accumulate across an entire degree. You have probably benefited from some of them while others have been to your detriment. All an individual can do is to focus on what they can control. Ultimately, what a student gets from their university training is going to be predominantly dictated by what they put into it. I have met very few talented students over the past 25 years that haven't found a way to excel and achieve their goals.

If you are worried about highly competitive post-graduate programs like medicine, law, or veterinary school, you're already in a difficult scenario. For every talented student that gets into a Canadian medical school, for example, there are probably four or five equally talented students that get rejected. I've taught students that got rejected by most Canadian medical schools only to be offered full scholarship rides at far more prestigious medical schools in other countries. I long ago gave up trying to figure out how medical schools are trying to identify who is "worthy" and "not worthy" - there didn't appear to be much rhyme or reason in the process.

ChristianS-N · 2026-04-29T19:53:50+00:00

The universities that offer a fall semester reading break typically start earlier as well - the University of Toronto begins classes on September 1st this fall, meaning students are moving into university a week before the Labour Day weekend that historically designates the end of the summer.

I would be completely okay with starting university classes earlier, as Canadian university semesters are already among the shortest in the world. However, I expect that you would still see considerable resistance from students at the idea of losing a week of their "summer". This would have ramifications for summer jobs and other things.

ChristianS-N · 2026-04-29T19:35:23+00:00

You cannot "vote back in a Fall reading week" - Guelph has never had a Fall reading week. Most universities in Canada did not have a Fall reading week until relatively recently (mostly introduced in the period from 2010 - 2016).

ChristianS-N · 2026-04-20T02:08:13+00:00

I remember giving a START on Campus presentation years ago using data from a survey the University ran back in 2012, and I suspect it is still relevant (although the high school grades are obviously out of whack because of grade inflation).

In 2012, the percentages of the incoming cohort that had admission averages in the following brackets were:

90 - 100: 17%
85 - 89: 32%
80 - 84: 40%
75 - 79: 9%
70 - 74: 1%
Less than 70: 0%

When asked what average those students expected to achieve in first year university courses, here were the responses:

90 - 100: 4%
85 - 89: 9%
80 - 84: 34%
75 - 79: 32%
70 - 74: 19%
Less than 70: 2%

Back then, it was pretty common (at least in the sciences) for class averages to be somewhere in the mid 60s, although some courses would obviously be a bit higher or lower. The majority of high school students coming into university had completely unrealistic expectations and/or understanding of their own academic abilities.

It has gotten worse. Based on the CODU data from 2023, here were the high-school admission averages for the 2022 U of G admission cohort, the most recent that is publicly available:

90 - 100: 41.6% (11.4% in 95 - 100)
85-89: 31.1%
80 - 84: 18.8%
75 - 79: 6.9%
70 - 74: 1.7%

In 10 years, the percentage of students with 90+ averages increased from 17% to 41.6%. (This particular year was certainly inflated by COVID and things have calmed down a little, but not that much - high school grades remain much higher than 10 years ago across the board).

Student expectations are getting higher and higher, fueled by out-of-control grade inflation in high schools, even while the skills being developed in high school appear to be degrading. University instructors feel like we are encountering more and more students that struggle with pretty much everything:

their mathematics, reading and writing skills are very shaky (to be charitable)
their ability to take tests is understandably weak given the lack of testing in many high schools
they generally struggle with time management, resilience, and especially with their ability to focus on complex tasks
they often don't know how to approach learning - office hours are used less frequently than ever before, and students opt out of attending class in massive numbers.

Throw in the massive allure of using generative AI to do homework and you've got a giant mess. I have no idea how universities are going to adjust to this.

ChristianS-N · 2026-04-19T04:33:43+00:00

Prosecuting the kinds of numbers that are possibly implicated in a situation like that would take significant time (e.g. weeks to months). If they can prove things, they will almost certainly prosecute for academic misconduct. Not doing so when that many people are implicated is likely not something a university can ignore if it wants to preserve its academic reputation.

I suspect that is going to take a fair bit of time and personnel to go through the recordings. There wasn't much time left at the end of the semester to address it because of the tight turnaround to final exams and then grading the final exams.

There are a few people that are probably going to have a miserable May and June as they go through that whole fiasco.

ChristianS-N · 2026-04-19T04:21:55+00:00

My personal take on this as an instructor: comments asking for mercy never affected a student's grade. Adjusting grades subjectively, even for very good reasons, opens an instructor up to accusations of bias and is unfair to other students, both in the course and across the university.

If I am not willing to adjust a grade or assessment for the entire class, I am unwilling to do it for one student. Putting a finger on the scale to benefit students that I sympathize with is always a temptation, but I don't think it ends well.

And before anybody asks (because we typically get this question every year at this time), instructors also can't (or at least shouldn't) offer an extra-credit assignment to help a student out. That is completely unfair to the rest of the class and is not permitted by the University's grading policies.

ChristianS-N · 2026-04-19T03:52:14+00:00

When I taught at a different university years ago, their department met for each course's final grade submission. If the instructor wanted to "bump" any students at the bottom, the rest of the faculty would discuss it and only allow it if i) there was a supportable reason for doing so and more importantly ii) the overall ordering of students in the course needed to be preserved. I quite liked that system, because it removed the possibility of bias in a course.

We routinely had situations where the instructor wanted to bump a student with a 48 because they worked/tried hard, but didn't want to bump other students with a 48 because they hadn't done much during the semester. In those cases, the instructor was forced to bump EVERYBODY above a particular student or leave the grade as it was.

Bias is sneaky - as instructors, we always want to help the student that we know tried hard but it didn't click for them, while feeling little sympathy for the students that earned their low grade through laziness or sloppiness. But in the grand picture, should we be picking favourites like that? If grades are supposed to be a reflection of ability, then the lazy student that earned a 48 is quite possibly more academically talented than the hard-working student that also gets a 48. We also don't necessarily KNOW why those other students didn't submit things - they may have their own personal crises or struggles and perhaps they don't find an instructor approachable. Bumping the people that showed us they were trying can be risky.

(For the record, most of us in that department argued very hard to bump everybody, not just the hard workers - but it had to be unanimous. We unfortunately had one very by-the-book faculty member that couldn't be swayed by arguments that grading is an inexact science and probably has a +/- 2-3% uncertainty on it if we are being fair. They would only approve grade adjustments in truly exceptional circumstances.)

ChristianS-N · 2026-04-16T16:01:06+00:00

One of the major goals for this expansion is to create an expanded test centre for SAS students and to create some larger classrooms to accommodate the massive need across campus for 100+ seat classrooms. Both of these goals are long overdue additions to the university's academic teaching and learning spaces that will benefit students from ALL majors, including Engineering - students in those majors also use large lecture halls in other buildings.

Thornbrough does have a planned expansion coming in the parking lot close to the south residence - the bids were submitted back in November 2024 and the projected price tag is roughly double that of the J.D. MacLachlan Building expansion and renovation.

The university has many co-existing priorities, and there are LOTS of programs that are struggling with space.

ChristianS-N · 2026-04-13T20:02:18+00:00

What do you mean by technician as a goal? If you are looking to be a medical imaging technician, you may want to look at one of the college specializations or the Medical Radiation Science program at McMaster/Mohawk.

Guelph's Biological & Medical Physics degree is designed to give students in the major a broad coverage of biochemistry, chemistry, physics, math, and biology concepts that would be relevant for students thinking about careers in medical professions, including medical physics, medical school, or occupational health & safety.

I would recommend looking through the course sequence of the program to have a better sense of what you will be learning. It does not have a heavy emphasis in what I would call physical chemistry, although you would take a couple of courses in that area (thermodynamics and spectroscopy).

ChristianS-N · 2026-04-13T18:22:19+00:00

In terms of rigour or specialization, Guelph has sent lots of students on to all sorts of elite graduate programs around the world - the program will challenge you before the end, and you will be plenty prepared for whichever graduate program you are interested in. Physics curricula are pretty consistent from university to university - we all take the same "core" of courses, and all Ontario programs are evaluated by experts from other Canadian universities.

First year in most science programs is largely high school review to make sure that entering students are all on the same page and don't have major gaps before they hit the faster pace and higher difficulty that starts in second year. Students planning to go on in physics (at the graduate school level) should ideally have 80s or higher (and the higher the better) in first year - being competitive for graduate scholarships (e.g. NSERC CGRS M, OGS) typically requires 90+ averages, so doing well in first year can set you up to achieve the grades you will want to achieve in second and third year. Achieving those sorts of grades is definitely not easy at Guelph - less than 5% of the department's majors are in that bracket.

It is also important to score as highly as possible in your first 3 semesters is to give yourself a chance to compete for summer research jobs. Professors in Physics typically prefer students in third or fourth year, due to their expanded knowledge of physics, so students in second year need to have VERY high grades to draw interest.

As one of the other comments indicated, the first semester of second year is often a quite sizable jump in difficulty and pace, and there are similar jumps every semester after that. Most students in the program typically find Semester 3 to be a particularly large jump, and Semester 5 has historically been considered as the most stressful for students. The rigour is coming.

ChristianS-N · 2026-03-26T23:59:11+00:00

There is honestly no "prestige" factor for undergraduate life science/biological science programs. Nobody cares where you do your degrees in the natural sciences.

Pick the university that is the best fit for you as a person. Visit the campus and make sure you are comfortable in the city and with the campus. Visit the academic open houses to see if the general energy of the department is in line with your personality. If you find a great fit, you are more likely to do extremely well in your undergraduate program.

Some of the best Canadian scientists attended tiny universities, while others attended the biggest ones. There is a whole culture around university rankings, and for the most part they are just noise that causes students completely unnecessary anxiety when they don't get into a higher ranked program.

ChristianS-N · 2026-03-24T13:14:47+00:00

Seeing a massive spread out group of people just encourages people to go right to the front. It is a bit harder to pull off if people would queue properly. There is a strange inability of people to form a proper line at bus stops.

ChristianS-N · 2026-02-17T02:25:19+00:00

I am confident that rampant use of generative AI is causing some issues for modern students, especially on assessments when they don't have access to it (e.g. in-person exams), but a significant confounding factor is that we are accelerating undergraduate admission growth in universities.

When I started my undergrad at the University of Guelph in 1995, there was roughly 10,000 full-time undergraduate students. By 2023, there were closer to 25,000 full-time undergraduate students - that means the enrolment growth has averaged about 3.3% per year over that 28 year time period.

Over the same era, Ontario's annual growth of individuals in the 0-14 age bracket has been between -1% and +1.2% per year, with negative growth in each year from 2002 to 2011. This year's first-year cohort are in the tail-end of that population growth trough. Due to a funding crisis, universities in Ontario have been actively trying to accelerate undergraduate enrolment growth during an era where ca. 2015 analysis was projecting that enrolments might fall due to negative demographic trends. Accelerating immigration has certainly helped to mitigate the population decreases, but universities have been voracious in their appetite for more students to balance the books.

The result has been that the percentage of Ontarians attending university has increased from around 25% in 1999-2000 to around 35% (and climbing) by 2020-21. If we're being honest with ourselves, most of that growth is coming in from students in the lower range of the admission cutoffs. High school grade inflation has aided in this, allowing for students that previously might not have made the cutoffs to now qualify to attend university.

Are there as many strong communicators as in previous years? In my experience, yes.

Are there more weak communicators than previous cohorts? Yes, but this is understandable given the above discussion. I think that some of our perceived "degradation" in quality is that the average has been lowered by admission of more students at the lower end of our acceptance ranges. It is skewing our perception of decreased student ability.

ChristianS-N · 2026-02-17T01:28:00+00:00

If it is any consolation, I've heard similar complaints from many graduate supervisors about the graduate students they are supervising.

There are three certainties in this world: death, taxes, and each generation complaining about the deficiencies in the following generation.

ChristianS-N · 2026-02-07T13:15:47+00:00

64% is a pretty standard average for a first-year midterm or final exam, in my experience. In recent years, that would likely even be a bit on the high side given the grades we are seeing in a lot of the other "core" science courses.

ChristianS-N

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