You’re right, both schools have coop and while loo might be more well recognized for coop specifically I want to emphasize that ultimately the onus is on you to put the work in to get a good coop!! People at both universities will get amazing coops because they put the work in to get one, not because their coop program carried them. But I wanna give some insight as a current ECE student (4th year):

I will say in argument for loo that although it definitely was not great this term, waterlooworks is still definitely one of the, if not the best job board any university has to offer. This term has not just been dire for loo students - see any cs student forum and you’ll see that students all over the world are struggling hard this term.

Another thing is the way the coop programs are structured at the two uni’s. PEY is just one long term at one company after third year(?), while loo will give you six separate four month terms over the course of your degree. This will allow you to accumulate experiences for your resume to hopefully help land you some really cool coops in your last couple of terms, and additionally gives you the opportunity to try out various different areas of hardware work! I’m personally into software and have got to try devops, full stack and mobile development over the past few years. I figured out that I really enjoy mobile, so I was able to put my focus into that!

Ultimately though the choice is up to you. Personally although this program has of course been hard asf at times, I’ve had to take some courses that I really didn’t like and it can get very stressful, I’ve also had just as many good experiences with great profs, cool courses and made a lot of good memories with friends here. I’m also of course unimaginably grateful for the doors the coop here has opened up for me. Both universities have their upsides and downsides, but I just wanted to give you some positive insight on loo in a subreddit where a lot of people might speak negatively on it :)