Getting into Waterloo CS?

On January 05 2011 09:34 Coramoor wrote:
You have a lot of things to consider on this regard

first off grade 10 is a little early but if you wish to plan ahead then that is your choice

I'm currently attending the university of guelph, which as i'm sure you know has the 2nd ranked CS program in canada after UW

Second thing to note is that the only marks that really matter are your gr 11 and 12 marks, most of the stuff you're doing now, especially the computer science is reasonably useless to your future education, although it certainly does look good to have CS of some kind on your resume for applying.

I do not want this to appear racist simply because it is not, it is just the truth, there was an article in macleans recently, which has since been pulled for being controversial, but it's true, is that the computer science and some of the more hardcore eng and math areas of campus have gained the nickname mainland china for the large number of asian students there, especially those of an ESL nature, the article listed situations in which a TA got sick of trying to explain a concept in english and switched to mandarin, and most of the class understood what he was saying. So i'd advise against UW for that and quality of life on campus issues, however if those aren't priorities for you, or you happen to be asian and/or ESL, then you should be good with a solid 85 avg and good extracurriculars for your application

On January 05 2011 12:18 emperorchampion wrote:
Canadian Universities are ridiculously easy to get into. If you have those same marks in Grade 12, with Sciences ~85% you will be accepted 100%, provided you have a few extra-curricular.

P.S: Don't go to Waterloo!!! :p

Remember the time (last year?) which Blizzard was visiting different universities to hire people? The only Canadian university they went to was Waterloo.

On January 05 2011 12:25 iSeeNubs wrote:


haha ok this motivates me even more, I'll probably look more into this next year, where things such as early acceptance and scholarship apply comes. Thanks! :D

On January 05 2011 12:33 Sufficiency wrote:


I am pretty sure you will be OK. Getting into a Canadian university is really easy. Like I said, apply to two different Waterloo programs just in case.

Just make sure you get over 90 for all the grade 12 math courses (there are three of them I think), grade 12 computer science, and take some other science courses (physics, chemistry, biology at the grade 12 level), and don't do *too poorly* for grade 12 english (i.e. don't get lower than 70, lol), and you are set! Sit back and enjoy all the acceptance letters.

Do know that the tuition for CS per year is probably 10k+. It's a big commitment.

On January 05 2011 12:49 Monoxide wrote:
UW's CS program is very very strong. I go to U of T and I would say UW's program is very strong. According to my professors, we have one of the best graduate computer science programs in NA. Wouldn't that mean the our undergrad CS program isn't bad as well? I'm not in CS but have taken some courses in that department. I dunno about Guelph being 2nd in Canada.

On January 05 2011 12:49 Monoxide wrote:
UW's CS program is very very strong. I go to U of T and I would say UW's program is very strong. According to my professors, we have one of the best graduate computer science programs in NA. Wouldn't that mean the our undergrad CS program isn't bad as well? I'm not in CS but have taken some courses in that department. I dunno about Guelph being 2nd in Canada.

On January 05 2011 12:04 Sufficiency wrote:


I seriously didn't know University of Guelph was supposed to be good at CS. LoL. Maybe it is, I don't know, but it does seem very small - only 20 faculty members, many of which are actually in bioinformatics. Faculty size is a strong indicator of departmental strength. There also isn't a lot of seminars going on from what I can see (if at all).

It's superior than uoft in the sense that it has co-op. But we are not even sure if OP is interested in persueing graduate studies. He should definitely come to uoft or waterloo if he is interested in research. But again, this is too early to tell.

On January 05 2011 13:38 Coramoor wrote:
well i can tell you definitively that when i was getting ready and appyling to uni, i graduated high school in 08, it was, as it was a big part of their pitch, and i can honestly say that for the most part the instruction is quite good, of course i have no basis for comparison but still




and funnily enough when it comes to ug vs g studies, there really is no correlation between one and the other, certain schools have a very strong program throughout, certain ones don't, can't think of one off the top of my head, although i know there are several schools with medical programs, with quite poorly regarded pre med programs, which seems odd, but that's how it seems to go



well the thing about bioinformatics, is that UoG has i believe the largest and one of the best if not the best biology programs in canada across the board, to the point that most government offices for any form of bio field is based in guelph now days, hence why it would attract a lot of professors with research interests in that field, but when it comes to undergrad studies, it tends to be irrelevant what the profs research area is and more if they can teach, and i can tell you that at uog, teaching is actually an important element, at some universities it isn't and it's always important to dig deep and ask questions for people going so they can find out more about the profs in their department and if they are actually willing to take the time to answer questions and the like, all i'm saying is it's good for me, and most people in my program also have no regrets of those i've spoken to

On January 05 2011 13:50 Sufficiency wrote:


Not sure what you consider as "biology", but UoG doesn't actually have a medical school.

For me, who is interested in postgraduate education, undergraduate teaching quality means absolutely nothing. I am more interested in seeing a department with active research and famous researchers.