OUAC: how the Ontario university application works, Group A and Group B (the old 101 and 105), and which of your marks the universities read, and when

OUAC is the Ontario Universities' Application Centre: one application, forwarded to every Ontario university you choose, with your marks sent by your school. Current Ontario high-school students are Group A applicants, once called 101; everyone else is Group B, once called 105. The universities do not see one number. They see your Grade 11 finals, then your Grade 12 midterm marks in the winter, then your finals in July, and they decide at different points along that line. Here is how the application works, and which marks count when.

What OUAC is, and what it is not

The centre does three things. It takes one application from you, with the programs you list in order. It receives your marks, from your school if you are a Group A applicant, and forwards them with the application to each university you named. And it carries the universities' answers back to you: the offers, their conditions, and the place where you accept one.

It does not do the rest. The centre does not decide who is admitted, does not set a program's prerequisites or its average, and does not hold the offer; each university's admissions office does those. So when a question is "do I need SCH4U for this program", the program's own page answers it, not the centre. The same holds for the six courses this blog maps: the six Grade 12 courses are the ones most programs ask for, and the program's page says which.

One rule for every number on this page. Fees, exact dates and form details are set by the centre and change by cycle. They live on the centre's site, and that is where you read them. This page describes the shape of the year and the marks, which do not change; it does not type a date or a fee as a fact, because a page that does goes stale the following autumn. The date at the top says when the shape was last read.

101 or 105: which group you are in

For years there were two undergraduate forms, the 101 and the 105, and students, schools and universities still use those names. Since the application for 2024 entry there is one Undergraduate application. It asks about your schooling and places you in one of two groups, and the group, not the form, decides how your marks travel and which dates are yours.

Group A is the old 101. It is for students currently taking courses at an Ontario secondary school and working toward the Ontario Secondary School Diploma, within an age limit the centre sets each cycle. Your school gives you what you need to start, the application shows the marks and courses your school has on file, and the school's guidance office sends your marks to the centre as the year goes on. You never upload a transcript.

Group B is the old 105. It is for everyone else: a student at a school outside Ontario, a student who finished high school in an earlier year, a mature applicant, an international applicant, and anyone the Group A rules do not cover. A Group B applicant supplies their own documents, by upload or by having the school or the previous institution send them, and follows the centre's instructions for each.

Group	Who	Who sends the marks
Group A (once 101)	Currently taking courses at an Ontario high school, working toward the diploma, within the centre's age limit	Your school, through the centre, several times across the year
Group B (once 105)	Everyone else: out of province, international, out of school, mature	You, by uploading or arranging the documents the centre names

The edge cases are real: a student repeating a semester, a student at a private school in Ontario, a student finishing one credit at night school, a student near the age limit. The centre's criteria decide them, and the guidance counsellor at your school has seen each one before. Ask early; a question about your group costs time at exactly the moment the January deadline is near.

The dates, and where they live

The year has a shape, and the shape does not change. The exact dates do, by a few days each cycle, and they are published on the centre's calendar every autumn.

The application opens in the autumn of Grade 12. For Group A applicants there is an equal-consideration deadline in mid-January: an application in by that date is read on the same footing as every other, and one after it is read if the program still has room. Universities then set their own deadlines for anything they ask for beyond the application, a supplementary form, a portfolio, an audition, an interview; those dates are the university's, not the centre's, and they can fall before or after January. Changes to the application after the deadline, adding a program or reordering choices, are possible under the centre's rules. Offers arrive through the winter and spring, and Ontario universities agree not to require a Group A applicant to answer an offer before a date in early June. Final marks reach the universities in July.

So the calendar you copy has six rows: the application opens; the university's own supplementary dates; the January deadline; the earliest June response date; the July marks; and, beside each, "check the centre's current calendar". The second row is the one students miss, because it is on a different site from the first.

Which marks universities read, and when

This is the part that decides how you study Grade 12. The universities do not read one average at one moment. They read three times.

When	What the universities see	What they do with it
Autumn of Grade 12	Your final Grade 11 marks and the list of Grade 12 courses you are taking	The first read: whether the required courses are there, and an early sense of the average
Winter and spring	Your Grade 12 marks as the school transmits them: in February, first-semester finals and the current marks in full-year courses; in April, updated full-year marks and second-semester midterms	Most conditional offers are made on these
July	Your final Grade 12 marks	The condition on every offer is checked against them

Most programs compute an admission average from six Grade 12 U or M courses, including every course the program requires. "Most" is the exact word. Each university states its own rule, some say the prerequisites must sit inside the six and a few compute it differently, so the program's page is the rule and the sentence above is the pattern.

What the timeline means for your year is this. The midterm mark in a required course is read before the course is finished. For a second-semester course, the April mark the offer often rests on is a midterm. For a semestered course taken in the first semester, the final mark is sent in February, while most offers are still being made. Either way, the first half of each Grade 12 course is the half the offer stands on, and the July finals are what the condition is checked against.

The required courses, by code, with their pages here: MHF4U and MCV4U for most mathematics, engineering, computer science and physical science programs; SCH4U and SBI4U for most life science and health science programs; SPH4U for engineering and physics; and ENG4U for nearly everything. These are the common patterns, read across the program directory. A program can require fewer or more, and a few require a specific mark in one of them. Check the program.

Worked example: the admission average, and what one course moves

Six Grade 12 U marks of our own: 88, 84, 91, 79, 86 and 90.

• Sum: 88 + 84 + 91 + 79 + 86 + 90 = 518.
• Average: 518 ÷ 6 = 86.33.

Raise the 79 to an 85, which is the kind of move one semester of the method on the study plan you will keep makes in a course you were coasting in.

• New sum: 518 − 79 + 85 = 524.
• New average: 524 ÷ 6 = 87.33.
• The change: 87.33 − 86.33 = 1.00, exactly. Six points in one course moves a six-course average by one point.

The second lesson sits outside the arithmetic. When the 79 is in a course the program requires, and the program sets a minimum in that course, the 79 is read on its own as well as inside the average. Some programs do this, most often in the mathematics or the chemistry prerequisite for a competitive program; the program's page says whether yours does. An 87 average with a 79 in the one course the program names is a different application from an 87 average with the 79 in an elective.

The common wrong line: averaging all eight of your Grade 12 courses, or letting a Grade 11 mark into the six. The average is six Grade 12 U or M courses, and the required ones are in it whether they are your best six or not. Your two weakest electives beyond the six are not counted, and your strongest Grade 11 mark is not counted either.

How to get into university in Ontario: the plan on paper

Read backwards from the July marks and the plan writes itself.

1. Grade 11, course selection. Choose Grade 12 courses that keep the programs you are considering open. The pattern above is the checklist: the two maths, the two life sciences, physics, English. A required course you never scheduled is hard to fit in once Grade 12 has started.
2. September of Grade 12, week 1. The first Grade 12 marks the universities see are sent in February, a few months away. Start the error log and the spaced plan in every required course now, not in November. Chapter 3 of the free playbook is the method for turning a course outline into the one-line-per-idea checklist you keep all semester.
3. The autumn. The application opens; fill it in early, because the choices can be changed and the deadline cannot. Read each program's page for its own supplementary form and its own date.
4. The university's dates. Supplementary applications, portfolios and interviews on the university's calendar, which may be before January.
5. January. The equal-consideration deadline for the application itself.
6. The winter midterms. The marks the offers are made on. The week before a midterm that counts is a one-week plan built for exactly this.
7. Spring. Offers arrive, with conditions. Keep studying: the condition is checked in July.
8. June. The earliest date a university may require your answer. One offer accepted.
9. July. Final marks transmitted; conditions checked.

Said once, because it changes how the year feels: this is a study plan with an application attached, not an application with some studying attached. Most of the nine steps above are decided by how the required courses go, and the application is the paperwork that carries the result.

After the offer: conditions, alternates, and the response

Nearly every offer to a current high-school student is conditional. The usual conditions are the diploma, the required courses completed, and a final average or a final mark in a named course at or above a stated number. The university states its conditions in the offer, and checks them when the July marks arrive.

An alternate offer is an offer to a different program than the one you listed, usually your second choice at the same university or a related program, made when the first choice is full or your marks fall short of it. It is a real offer, with its own conditions, and you may accept it or wait on the others.

You accept one offer, through the centre, by the date the offer names. The centre's rules say what happens to your other offers and applications when you accept one; read them before you press the button. Some universities also ask for a deposit or a residence step by a date of their own.

If a final mark falls below a condition, the answer is a phone call, not a guess. Admissions offices handle this every July, and the outcome ranges from the offer standing to an alternate program to the offer being withdrawn. The sooner they hear from you, the more options are open. Nothing on this page can tell you which outcome yours will be; the admissions office can.

OUAC on one screen

• One application, forwarded by the centre to every Ontario university you list. The universities decide; the centre carries.
• One application, two groups. Group A (once 101) if you are currently taking courses at an Ontario high school toward the diploma, and your school sends the marks. Group B (once 105) for everyone else, who supply their own documents. The centre's criteria decide the edge cases.
• Three reads of your marks: Grade 11 finals in the autumn, Grade 12 midterms in the winter and spring (the offers are made on these), finals in July (the conditions are checked on these).
• The six-course average, Grade 12 U or M courses including the ones the program requires; some programs also read a minimum in one course. The program's page is the rule.
• The dates live on the centre's site, and the university's own supplementary dates live on the university's. Copy both into one calendar in September.
• The plan is the study plan: the error log and the spaced schedule in every required course from week 1, because the first marks that count are sent in February.