In this section you will find answers to some of our most commonly asked questions. Use the links below to jump to a specific set of FAQs.
If you still can't find the answer to your question, please contact us.
COVID-19 admission-related FAQs
U of T Engineering usually considers grade 11 and 12 grades in pre-requisite courses as a part of the admission process which will continue to be the case for this cycle. For Ontario students, admissions decisions are made in February, March and May. Students admitted in February and March have traditionally been considered with missing pre-requisite grade 12 courses. For 2021, this approach will continue for our May round decisions. In making our decisions, we will consider your complete academic history, along with the information included in your online Student Profile.
Students are admitted on condition of obtaining a specific overall average, along with a minimum grade in required subjects — this will be outlined in the offer of admission.
While Canadian secondary schools and provincial Ministries of Education are adjusting their evaluation methods, grading processes, or using alternative methods of assessment, such adjustments will not negatively affect admission consideration. In jurisdictions where Diploma/Provincial exams are now optional, when considering an applicant’s final results for Fall 2021 admission, we will use the final mark on a transcript whether a Diploma/Provincial exam was written or not.
We understand that many activities have cancelled or limited due to COVID-19 restrictions. We encourage you to list the activities you have been involved with, throughout high school. You will be given the opportunity on your Online Student Profile to reflect on how your involvement outside of the classroom has changed due to the pandemic.
If your English language test has been cancelled we encourage you to complete the TOEFL online test. If the test has not been made available in your region or you are unable to complete that test, please contact the U of T Engineering Admissions team at ask@ecf.utoronto.ca to discuss alternatives.
School jurisdictions around the world are adjusting their evaluation and assessment methods and submitting results to universities accordingly. We will accept the adjusted assessment methods as determined by your educational jurisdiction in order to meet our conditions.
In the event that your school board or testing agency is unable to send us final transcripts or exam results by the document deadline, please e-mail us at ask@ecf.utoronto.ca. Please take advantage of any supplementary learning materials that may be provided to you so that you are as well prepared as possible for university studies.
Admissions FAQs
Application deadlines are posted on the Important Deadlines page. On that page you will also find the deadlines to submit required documents, including the Online Student Profile.
All candidates are required to apply online through the Ontario Universities' Application Centre by the posted deadlines.
The U of T Engineering admission process is a holistic one that takes an applicant's academic and non-academic (as demonstrated in the Online Student Profile) performance into account.
Last year, Ontario Secondary School Diploma (OSSD) applicants who were eligible for admission consideration presented admission averages within the following ranges. Note that meeting these minimum averages did not guarantee admission. Admission averages are calculated using the following prerequisite subjects: English (ENG4U); Advanced Functions (MHF4U); Calculus and Vectors (MCV4U); Chemistry (SCH4U); and Physics (SPH4U).
| Low to Mid 90's | Engineering Science |
| High 80's to Low 90's | TrackOne/ Undeclared; Chemical Engineering; Computer Engineering; Electrical Engineering |
| Mid to High 80's | All other Core 8 programs |
While we do not discourage applicants from repeating courses, it is the policy of the University of Toronto Engineering Admissions Committee to consider only first attempt marks. The Admissions Committee in general does not consider repeated course marks. However, we will consider any extenuating circumstances that perhaps had a negative effect on academic performance. You will need to provide documentation to explain how the circumstance affected your academic history with a specific timeline. Please note that if the circumstance is medical in nature, official medical documentation must be provided as well.
Please note, if prerequisite courses have been completed more than five years from the applicant's intended start date at the University, they will be required to complete them again at the high school level.
All U of T Engineering programs require Grade 12 Chemistry (SCH4U) or an equivalent course. All applicants to the U of T Engineering program are required to present Chemistry at the senior level for the education system they are studying in. Applicants who otherwise meet our admission requirements but have not completed the Chemistry prerequisite may submit an AP Chemistry Subject Test result instead. Applicants who are writing an exam to meet the requirement must ensure that their result is received electronically by the February 1st deadline to submit documents and results.
Alternatively, students may complete the Ontario curriculum’s Grade 12 Chemistry (SCH4U) course online via a service accredited by the Ministry of Education in Ontario such as the Independent Learning Centre to meet this requirement. Please note that students pursuing this option must submit an interim mark by the February 1st deadline.
The Faculty requires applicants to submit an Online Student Profile as part of the admissions process. Accessed through the Engineering Applicant Portal, the Online Student Profile allows applicants to detail their extra-curricular involvement, specify their engineering program choices, and provide more information on their academic background. Learn more about the Online Student Profile.
We believe that marks alone do not provide a complete picture of your potential. The Online Student Profile gives you the opportunity to tell the Admissions Committee about your abilities, strengths and interests. In particular, we are interested in your activities and achievements that demonstrate leadership, dedication and overall excellence. The Online Student Profile is a mandatory part of your application. If you do not submit your Online Student Profile, your application will not be considered for admission. The Online Student Profile will be available on the Engineering Applicant Portal once the Faculty has received your application from the Ontario Universities' Application Centre (OUAC).
The Faculty uses a broad-based admissions approach and does not have a set cut-off for our programs. Applicant choice is a small factor among many that we use when making our admission decisions. Highly competitive applicants can expect to receive an offer of admission regardless of choice.
However, where we have a select number of spaces to offer to students that are found to be equally competitive, we believe that those students who have indicated a strong preference to be here will ultimately be more successful in our programs. Therefore, students who rank U of T Engineering below 3rd choice on their OUAC application will be disadvantaged in the admissions process.
Applicants are strongly encouraged to submit their Online Student Profile and supporting documents by February 1. Applications completed after this date are not guaranteed equal admission consideration. For a more comprehensive list of important dates and deadlines, please visit the Important Deadlines section.
If you are a current Ontario high school student, your high school will automatically send us your grades for your current Ontario high school courses.
If you completed or are completing studies outside of Ontario, submit those transcripts using the Document Upload feature in the Engineering Applicant Portal.
If you are offered admission, you will need to provide official final transcripts. Print the barcoded mailing labels in your Engineering Applicant Portal to mail official, final transcripts to the Engineering Undergraduate Admissions Office. The mailing labels allow you to confirm the date that your final transcripts are received, and ensure that they are sent to the correct office at U of T:
Engineering Undergraduate Admissions Office
Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering
35 St. George Street, Room 157
Toronto, ON
M5S 1A4
Please note that documents sent to the University of Toronto become the property of the University and will not be returned or forwarded to other institutions.
TOEFL and IELTS test scores must be sent electronically by the testing service. The TOEFL Institution Code for undergraduate studies at the University of Toronto is 0982-00. When arranging to send IELTS results, select University of Toronto (Undergraduate and Graduate programs) from the list of options on the IELTS website. We do not accept paper results for the TOEFL or IELTS test.
For all other English facility tests, the official results must be sent as indicated on our English Language Requirements page.
If you are required to send in a paper copy of your results for the test you have taken, they must be sent directly by the testing service to our office.
You can check the status of your application online through the Engineering Applicant Portal website. The Admissions Committee uses this website to communicate with the candidates, outlining documents received and documents that are requested or missing. This site will be active once we have received the application information from the OUAC. Please check this site regularly for updates.
Applicants who have already obtained an undergraduate engineering degree from a recognized university are not permitted to proceed towards a second undergraduate engineering degree from the University of Toronto. Please visit the School of Graduate Studies program page for information on further studies.
No. The Engineering Applicant Portal is the primary portal for Engineering applicants. It is where you will complete your Online Student Profile and where all updates to your application, including admissions decisions, will be posted.
The JOIN portal is only for applicants who have applied to University of Toronto divisions other than U of T Engineering. No update to your Engineering application will be posted to JOIN.
If your question has not been addressed, please email us: engineering@utoronto.ca
Personal Profile
The Personal Profile is a component of the Online Student Profile that takes about 30 minutes to complete online.
It consists of three randomly-selected questions:
Question 1: You will have 10 minutes to prepare and type a 250-word written response
Question 2: You will record a two-minute video response after two minutes of preparation
Question 3: You will record a three-minute video response after three minutes of preparation
The Admissions Committee will use all information available to make a decision; this includes all components of the Online Student Profile and your complete academic record.
No specific preparation is required to answer the questions contained in the Personal Profile.
You will need:
- Laptop or desktop computer with a webcam and microphone
- Browser with Adobe Flash installed
- Stable Internet connection
- Pen and paper for taking notes
- Quiet location
- 30 minutes of uninterrupted time
No. Once you begin the Personal Profile submission (by clicking “Start Interview”) you must complete your entire Personal Profile at one time. There are no opportunities to redo your profile later. You may complete the practice questions as many times as you like until you feel comfortable. Your official response will not begin until you click “Start Interview.”
Applicants access the Personal Profile via a link in the Online Student Profile; no separate login or password is required.
Your Personal Profile will only be used in the evaluation of your application for admission. Your responses will not be made public or shared on social media.
We recommend that you first speak to your high school or a local library to determine if they have technology that meet the requirements for the Personal Profile. If this is not successful, please contact the Engineering Admissions Office and we will help you find a solution.
The individuals who evaluate the Personal Profiles are members of the University of Toronto community who have been specially selected and trained to ensure that all profiles are fairly evaluated.
We understand that some students may be nervous on camera. Please do your best to be yourself — you will be assessed on the content of your answers.
The choice of location is up to you. We recommend that you complete the Personal Profile in a quiet, well-lit location where you are not likely to be interrupted. Please ensure that the background visible in your video is appropriate.
If you experience technical challenges during the submission of your video, visit kiratalent.com/support or contact the Engineering Admissions Office.
Please contact the Engineering Undergraduate Admissions Office by e-mail at engineering.admissions@utoronto.ca to arrange appropriate accommodations.
U of T Engineering Applicant Census
U of T Engineering is committed to attracting students, staff, and faculty from a wide range of backgrounds to build a community that reflects the society we serve. Asking these questions allows us to collect information to better understand the diversity of our prospective students in order to gauge our performance to this commitment. The questions we ask provide applicants the ability to optionally self-identify features such as race, religion, sexual orientation, gender and (dis)ability. These categories were chosen as a result of these identities being common points for community group building within our current student body and/or have historically had disproportional impact on access, representation, inclusion and success within STEM and post-secondary education.
The Ontario University Application Centre (OUAC) provides does applicants the option to identify their gender and if they are an Indigenous Person of Canada. The Engineering Applicant Census allows applicants who wanted to provide more depth within these features of identity, the ability to do so.
At an individual level, sharing this information will have no impact on the success of an application as no-one in the admission selection process is able to see this information. However, within the Engineering Applicant Census, applicants can give permission to be contacted about specific scholarships, institutional resources or student communities that may be of additional/particular interest to them. For example, incoming students who self-identify as Indigenous (First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples) will be given the option to connect with the First Nations House and other members of the highly supportive Indigenous community at the U of T.
At a community level, the collective aggregate information will let us know whether we are adequately engaging and considering students from diverse, intersectional backgrounds, particularly those who are historically underrepresented in post-secondary engineering education and take steps to address large gaps or discrepancies.
The University of Toronto is committed to the protection of privacy, and protects your personal information consistent with the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA). This includes all personal information provided as part of your application to the University and the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering.
Only staff within the U of T Registrar’s Office with responsibility for maintaining and analyzing the Census data will have access to the information. The representatives responsible for making admission decisions will not have access to this information.
If you give permission to be contacted based on the information that you provide, your contact information may be shared with the Engineering Student Recruitment Office so that they may contact you to connect with services within the U of T community (e.g., U of T Engineering’s Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Professionalism, First Nations House Indigenous Student Services, Engineering Positive Space, Accessibility Services, etc.). No individual applicant information will be shared outside of the U of T community.
No, the information collected through the Engineering Applicant Census will not become part of your student record.
Information provided in this tool will be stored for up to 12 months after the application deadline to facilitate data analysis before being cleared from the Registrar’s Office database.
