University of Waterloo · Admission Information Form · 2027 entry
The Waterloo AIF, explained from Waterloo’s own page
The Admission Information Form is the part of a Waterloo application that grades cannot fill. It is short, it can be submitted once, and Waterloo is explicit that the student must write it. This guide sets out what the official page says: who needs the form, what its five questions ask, when it is due for September 2027 entry, how it is read, and the rules on help and AI. Then it gives one tool of our own, a short program for counting activity hours inside the form’s window. We never write or edit an application, and nothing here is a model answer to copy. Waterloo changes the form between cycles, so check its page before you start.
10,000+ learners since 2020 · Projects built and explained by the student · We never write applications
In short
The Waterloo Admission Information Form is an online form in the applicant portal: four short answers of up to 150 words each, then an activity chart with 2026 hours. On 22 October 2026 Waterloo required it for every Engineering program except Architecture, every Faculty of Mathematics program and Computing and Financial Management; the page lists February 15, 2027 for programs other than those in its next rows, which covers Math. Modern Age Coders teaches the coding itself live online through Ontario Computer Science Companion, as a group class or one to one.
Skills worth writing about
Three courses where students build things of their own
The form asks what a student has done and learned. These courses give a student work that is genuinely theirs, which they can describe in their own words.
Waterloo describes the form plainly: “some programs require an Admission Information Form and/or supplementary information forms in addition to your grades.” It adds that “These forms allow you to share your interests, experiences, and abilities. The information is also used to award scholarships in some programs.”
Supplementary forms by program group, from Waterloo’s AIF page (read 22 October 2026)
Program group
What Waterloo asks for
All Engineering programs (excluding Architecture)
The AIF and an online video interview, both required for admission; an optional alternate-choice form; a Supplementary Information Form for Software Engineering applicants only
All programs in the Faculty of Mathematics, including Computer Science
The AIF, required for admission, and a Supplementary Information Form about Waterloo math contests
Computing and Financial Management
Listed with the Faculty of Mathematics programs that use the AIF
Conditional Admission to Pharmacy, Optometry, Pharmacy, Social Work
Not the AIF: a series of short supplementary forms in the applicant portal
Faculties of Arts, Environment, Health and Science
The AIF is not used
Architecture; Accounting and Financial Management; Sustainability and Financial Management
The AIF is not used
Why Waterloo uses it
For Faculty of Mathematics programs, Waterloo says the forms are used “because we’re looking for well-rounded students who have had meaningful experiences outside the classroom.” Its FAQ adds that many programs receive more applications than they can accommodate, and the forms help it learn about applicants “who may have very similar grades.”
For Engineering, the page is more specific about what it does not want: “We’re not looking for specific extracurricular activities and do not expect you to have engineering-related experience.” It looks instead for time management, interpersonal and leadership skills and a variety of interests.
What happens without it
The FAQ answers this without softening: for programs that require the AIF, if a student does not submit it and any other required forms, “your application will not be reviewed.” The AIF is not optional extra credit for those programs. It is part of the file.
A student applying to several Waterloo programs completes one AIF, because the questions are the same for every program that uses it. Engineering and Math applicants may still owe extra forms, which the applicant portal lists in a personal checklist.
The deadline depends on the programs a student has applied to, and Waterloo warns that “Submissions will not be reviewed after the deadline.”
Supplementary form deadlines on Waterloo’s AIF page (read 22 October 2026)
Programs applied to
Deadline
“Programs other than those listed in the next rows” (no row names the Faculty of Mathematics or Computer Science, so they fall here)
February 15, 2027
Engineering
February 1, 2027
Engineering and a Faculty of Mathematics program
The Engineering deadline: February 1, 2027 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time
Pharmacy
January 20, 2027
Optometry
Refer to the Doctor of Optometry website
Bachelor of Social Work
TBD
Waterloo also recommends completing the forms “as soon as possible” once a student has applied and received portal instructions. For a student outside Ontario the Eastern Time cut-off matters: 11:59 p.m. Eastern is 10:59 p.m. in Alberta and 9:59 p.m. in British Columbia on 1 February 2027, by the winter offsets (Eastern UTC-5, Alberta UTC-6 all year, British Columbia UTC-7 all year). That conversion is ours; check it against your own clock.
The five questions
What the AIF asks, question by question
Waterloo publishes the questions in advance. Each of the first four carries a 150-word limit, and the fifth is an activity chart with hours. We summarise each prompt below; the full wording is on Waterloo’s page, and students should answer from that, not from our summary.
The AIF questions as published by Waterloo for 2027 entry (read 22 October 2026; prompts summarised, headings and limits quoted)
Question
Heading on Waterloo’s page
What it asks, in brief
Limit
1
Tell us about a passion or strong interest of yours
How and when the interest began, how long it has lasted, what it taught the student about themselves, and how they will apply that at Waterloo
150 words
2
Community involvement
A group or community the student belongs to, what they contributed, whether they led or influenced decisions, and how the group is better for it
150 words
3
Experience reflection
A time the student was treated unfairly or saw someone else treated unfairly, what they did, whether they would act differently now, and how it changed them
150 words
4
Goals for Waterloo
The main goal for attending, any exposure to the intended field, and whether someone helped them think through alternatives or backup plans
150 words
5
Outside the classroom
Activities in school, the community or at home, with the hours spent on each between January 1, 2026 and December 31, 2026
Hours per activity
The window for question 5
Waterloo is exact about the dates. Students include hours “between January 1, 2026 and December 31, 2026”, and for an activity that has run longer than 12 months, only that calendar year counts. The page then translates it: “For most students, this equates to the second semester of Grade 11 (or equivalent), your summer break, and the first semester of Grade 12 (or equivalent).”
So a Grade 12 student reading this in October 2026 is already ten months into the window. The section on counting hours below shows how to work out the part of a long-running activity that falls inside it.
Contests, awards and projects
Waterloo says contests such as its own math, computing and science contests, and awards, can go into the activity chart or into the other answers. One sentence on that FAQ is easy to miss and matters a great deal for coders: “Information in links (such as links to awards or portfolios) will not be reviewed.”
A GitHub link, a deployed app or a portfolio site will not be opened. Whatever a student built has to be described in words, inside the limits, clearly enough for a reader who never sees the code.
Most mistakes with the AIF are procedural, and Waterloo’s FAQ answers each of them directly. These are the rules a family should know before anyone opens the form.
AIF rules quoted from Waterloo’s FAQ (read 22 October 2026)
Question
Waterloo’s answer
Can someone else complete it?
“No. You must complete and submit the AIF on your own.” An application may be rejected or an offer revoked if Waterloo has “reasonable grounds to believe your AIF was written by someone other than you.”
Can AI write the answers?
The questions are about the student, and “no one (including ChatGPT!) knows you better than you do.” If AI is used to create answers that are untrue, incorrect or plagiarized, “we reserve the right to deny admission or withdraw your Offer of Admission.”
How many times can it be submitted?
Once: the questions are the same for all programs that use it
Can answers be changed later?
“You can’t edit or add information once you’ve submitted the AIF.” Before submitting, though, the AIF is the only form a student can save and return to
Can a student see it after submitting?
No; Waterloo suggests taking a screenshot first if a copy is wanted
Is there a spell checker?
Not inside the online form; Waterloo recommends writing in a word processor first, then pasting
How is length counted?
Some questions have a character limit, and “The character limit includes spaces, punctuation, and special characters.”
Our position, stated once and kept
We do not write, draft, outline, rephrase or edit any part of a student’s application, and we do not offer that service under another name. Waterloo’s rule is clear, and it is also the right rule: the form is meant to be the student’s own voice.
Students under 18 should also know that ChatGPT’s terms require a parent’s permission at that age. That point is separate from Waterloo’s rule, which is about authorship whatever the tool.
What a family can properly do
A parent can remind a student about the deadline, help them remember the dates an activity started, or confirm hours from a work schedule. Those are facts, and getting facts right is the student’s responsibility under Waterloo’s own wording: the application must be “truthful, complete, and correct.”
What a parent or tutor should not do is supply the sentences. A reader who sees thousands of these can tell, and Waterloo has said what it will do if it believes someone else wrote the form.
How it is read
How Waterloo reviews the AIF
Waterloo’s FAQ describes the review process in more detail than most universities publish, including its use of AI.
People and AI
The form “is reviewed both by people who have been trained on reviewing supplementary information forms and by artificial intelligence (AI).” If the scores differ significantly, “a second human scorer reviews the submission.”
Names removed
To reduce bias, identifying information such as name and applicant number is removed before review. Waterloo says the AI system and its data are managed by the university and that “data is not sent to any third-party AI services.”
Why it exists
In highly competitive programs, Waterloo says, supplementary requirements “allow us to be more selective beyond just grades.” The form is how it tells apart applicants whose marks look alike.
Two practical conclusions follow, and both are ours. First, a reader will compare answers across thousands of applicants with similar grades, so generic sentences cost the most: a line such as I am passionate about technology tells a reader nothing that the program choice did not already say. Second, specific details that only this student could write, such as what broke in a project and how they found the cause, are what make an answer the student’s own.
Source: Admission Information Form (AIF) and other supplementary forms, FAQ items “How will my AIF be reviewed?” and “Why do some programs have supplementary application requirements?”, read 22 October 2026. The example of a generic sentence is ours.
A tool, ours
Counting activity hours inside the 2026 window, in Python
Question 5 asks for hours, and only hours inside the 2026 calendar year. For an activity that started in 2024 or ran through a school year, working that out by hand invites mistakes. Here is a short program of ours that does the arithmetic, plus a word counter for the 150-word answers. It handles numbers only. It never suggests a word of anyone’s answer.
Write each activity as facts. Its name, the date it started, the date it ended (or 31 December 2026 if it is still running), and the usual hours per week.
Clip each activity to the window. The counted part starts at the later of the activity’s start and 1 January 2026, and ends at the earlier of its end and 31 December 2026.
Handle activities that miss the window. If the clipped end comes before the clipped start, the activity happened entirely outside 2026 and counts zero.
Count days, then convert. Days inside the window, including both end dates, times hours per week, divided by seven.
Round once, at the end. Waterloo asks for a number of hours; an estimate to the nearest hour is honest, a figure to two decimals is false precision.
Check the word count of each draft. Count the student’s own words, and cut from the student’s own sentences when an answer runs over.
Python · hours inside the window and a word check (ours)python
# Hours inside the AIF window, and a word-limit check (ours)
from datetime import date
WINDOW_START = date(2026, 1, 1) # the window Waterloo's AIF page gives for question 5
WINDOW_END = date(2026, 12, 31)
def hours_in_window(start, end, hours_per_week):
"""Count only the part of an activity that falls inside the window."""
first = max(start, WINDOW_START)
last = min(end, WINDOW_END)
if last < first:
return 0 # the activity missed the window entirely
days = (last - first).days + 1 # both end dates count
return round(hours_per_week * days / 7)
def word_check(draft, limit=150):
words = len(draft.split())
if words <= limit:
return f"{words} words, {limit - words} to spare"
return f"{words} words, {words - limit} over the {limit}-word limit"
log = [
("Robotics club, build season", date(2025, 9, 8), date(2026, 3, 27), 4),
("Bus-times app for my school", date(2026, 2, 2), date(2026, 8, 28), 3),
("Part-time job, grocery store", date(2026, 6, 29), date(2026, 12, 31), 10),
("Math help for Grade 9 students", date(2024, 10, 1), date(2026, 12, 31), 1.5),
("Summer camp counsellor, 2025", date(2025, 7, 2), date(2025, 8, 22), 30),
]
total = 0
for name, start, end, per_week in log:
h = hours_in_window(start, end, per_week)
total += h
print(f"{name:34} {h:4} hours")
print(f"{'Total inside 2026':34} {total:4} hours")
print(word_check("draft " * 162))
Output: Robotics club, build season 49 hours; Bus-times app for my school 89 hours; Part-time job, grocery store 266 hours; Math help for Grade 9 students 78 hours; Summer camp counsellor, 2025 0 hours; Total inside 2026 482 hours; then 162 words, 12 over the 150-word limit. The activity log is invented for this example.
How each activity in our invented log was clipped (ours; checked by hand against the program)
Activity
Counted from
Counted to
Days counted
Hours
Robotics club, build season
1 Jan 2026 (started 8 Sep 2025)
27 Mar 2026
86
49
Bus-times app for my school
2 Feb 2026
28 Aug 2026
208
89
Part-time job, grocery store
29 Jun 2026
31 Dec 2026
186
266
Math help for Grade 9 students
1 Jan 2026 (started 1 Oct 2024)
31 Dec 2026
365
78
Summer camp counsellor, 2025
Outside the window
Outside the window
0
0
What the clipping catches
Two of the five activities started before 2026. Counted naively, the math help that began in October 2024 would contribute more than two years of hours instead of one; the robotics season would include four months of 2025. Both errors inflate the chart, which is exactly what Waterloo’s 12-month rule is there to prevent.
The summer camp from 2025 returns zero. That is correct for question 5 even though the experience was real, and nothing stops a student from mentioning what it taught them in another answer, in their own words.
Why this is a coding lesson too
Clipping a range to a window is a pattern that appears everywhere in programming: calendars, billing periods, sensor logs, game timers. The two lines that take a max of the starts and a min of the ends are the whole idea, and the off-by-one question (does the end date count?) is the classic place to get it wrong.
Students who write a tool like this for their own use have also done something worth knowing about themselves: they turned an annoying task into a program and tested it. If that is true of your teen, it belongs in their own words, not ours.
Our advice
Presenting genuine activities: four honesty tests
This advice is ours. It is about choosing and checking material, never about wording, and it applies to any student, whether or not they study with us.
Four tests to run on every activity before it goes in the chart (ours)
Test
The question to ask
If the answer is no
Evidence
Could you show a teacher, coach or employer who would confirm this activity and roughly these hours?
Lower the hours to what you can stand behind, or leave it out
Ownership
Can you explain, without notes, what you personally did, as opposed to what the group or the course did?
Describe only your part, or choose a different activity
Change
Can you name one thing you could not do before and can do now because of it?
It may still be worth listing, but it will not carry an answer
Specifics
Is there a detail only you would know: a bug, a mistake, a decision, a number?
Spend ten minutes recalling the activity before writing about it
Keep a ledger, starting now
The most useful thing a Grade 11 or Grade 12 student can do this month is start a plain activity ledger: date, activity, hours, and one line about what happened. It costs two minutes a week. In January it turns question 5 from guesswork into arithmetic, and the one-line notes are where specific details come from.
For coding projects, the commit history in a Git repository is a ledger already, with dates attached. Our Git and GitHub course for teens teaches students to keep one properly.
For students who code
Because links are not reviewed, a project has to survive being described in a sentence or two. A useful private exercise: explain the project aloud to someone who does not code, in under a minute. If that is hard, the difficulty is understanding, not writing, and the fix is more time with the code.
That is where our classes help, and only there. Students build, trace and debug their own programs, so they can explain them. The writing about it stays theirs.
For Math and Computer Science applicants
The Supplementary Information Form and contests
Faculty of Mathematics applicants, including Computer Science, have a second form alongside the AIF.
What the SIF asks
Waterloo says the Supplementary Information Form “asks about any Waterloo mathematics contests you’ve participated in, such as the Euclid Contest and/or the Canadian Senior Mathematics Contest.” It repeats that taking part in those contests is not required for admission, while one of them is a condition for certain Faculty of Mathematics scholarships.
CEMC, which runs those contests, says on its How contests work page that “It is not possible for students to individually register for a contest”: a teacher at the student’s school does it. Tutoring companies, including us, cannot do that. Our Waterloo math contests page describes the contests themselves.
Software Engineering is different
Software Engineering sits in the Faculty of Engineering, with its own supplementary form. Waterloo says applicants need experience in a programming course or self-study and “a demonstrated interest in solving open problems, debugging code, testing code, and learning new software languages.”
That sentence reads like a description of good programming habits, and it is a fair checklist for any student who codes: do you debug systematically, do you test, have you learned a second language? Building those habits is our everyday work. Whether to apply, and what to say, is the student’s.
Ten weeks to a finished AIF, for a February 2027 deadline
This schedule is ours, counted back from February 15, 2027, the date Waterloo lists for programs other than those in its next rows; no row names Math programs, so that date applies to them. Engineering applicants should count back from February 1, 2027 instead.
A ten-week AIF schedule for a Faculty of Mathematics applicant (ours)
Week starting
Task
Done when
7 December 2026
Read Waterloo’s questions in full and note the limits
Each question copied into the student’s own document
14 December 2026
Update the activity ledger; run the hours check
Every activity has dates and hours inside 2026
21 December 2026
Recall specifics for each likely topic, no drafting yet
One page of notes in the student’s own words
4 January 2027
First drafts of questions 1 and 2, by the student
Both drafts exist, any length
11 January 2027
First drafts of questions 3 and 4, by the student
All four drafts exist
18 January 2027
Student cuts each answer to the limit
Word and character counts within the limits
25 January 2027
Student checks every fact against the ledger
No claim the student cannot stand behind
1 February 2027
Student proofreads in a word processor with spell check
Clean copies ready to paste
8 February 2027
Paste into the portal, preview, screenshot, submit
Submitted, with a copy saved
15 February 2027
Waterloo’s deadline for Math programs
Already done a week earlier
Every task in the schedule is done by the student. A parent’s role is the calendar: knowing which week it is and whether the task is done. Waterloo’s page recommends preparing answers in advance so spelling and grammar can be checked, and reviewing them because nothing can be changed after submission.
Where your teen is with their projects
Four stages from coursework to work of their own
Our stages for students who code, drawn from years of teaching teens. They describe ownership of work, which is what any honest description of an activity rests on.
Stages of project ownership (ours)
Stage
What you would notice
1. Follower
Completes assigned exercises and tutorials, changing details but not the design
2. Adapter
Takes a known project and extends it with a feature nobody asked for
3. Originator
Starts from a problem of their own and builds a first working version
4. Owner
Maintains a project over months, fixes reported bugs and can explain every decision
For parents
Ask which project your teen would explain to a stranger, and why. The answer tells you which stage they are at better than any certificate.
Stage 3 is where most students need a nudge. A teacher who asks what problem they want to solve, then helps them shrink it to something finishable, makes the difference.
For students
Keep a short log for each project: what you tried, what broke, what fixed it. That log is your memory when you need specifics months later.
Finish small things. A finished tool that three classmates use beats an abandoned game engine in every honest description.
The catalogue
Nine more courses for teens who want work of their own
Each course runs live with a regular teacher, in a group of fifteen to twenty or one to one, and each ends in something the student made.
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Fees
Fees
Try one class without paying. From then on you pay by the month for eight live lessons, the amount is labelled with its currency code, and there is no contract: stopping after any month is fine.
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Your questions
The Waterloo AIF: common questions
What is the Waterloo AIF?
The Admission Information Form is an online form in the Waterloo applicant portal. Waterloo says it lets applicants share their interests, experiences and abilities beyond grades, and the information is also used for scholarships in some programs. It has four short-answer questions and an activity chart.
Which Waterloo programs require the AIF?
On 22 October 2026 Waterloo listed all Engineering programs except Architecture, all programs in the Faculty of Mathematics, including Computer Science, and Computing and Financial Management. Arts, Environment, Health and Science programs do not use it.
When is the AIF deadline for 2027?
Waterloo's page gave February 15, 2027 for programs other than those listed in the next rows of its table; none of those rows names Math or Computer Science, so that date covers them, and February 1, 2027 for Engineering. A student who applies to both Engineering and a Math program must submit by February 1, 2027 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time.
How long are the AIF answers?
Waterloo lists a 150-word limit for each of the first four questions. The fifth question is a chart of activities with the hours spent between January 1, 2026 and December 31, 2026. Waterloo also says some questions have a character limit that includes spaces and punctuation.
Can I use ChatGPT or another AI tool to write my AIF?
Waterloo says the questions are about you and that no one, including ChatGPT, knows you better than you do. If AI is used to create answers that are untrue, incorrect or plagiarized, Waterloo reserves the right to deny admission or withdraw an offer. Students under 18 also need a parent's permission to use ChatGPT at all.
Can a tutor or parent write or edit my AIF?
No. Waterloo says you must complete and submit the AIF on your own, and that an offer can be revoked if it believes someone else wrote it. We never write, draft or edit any part of an application.
Can I change my AIF after submitting it?
No. Waterloo says you cannot edit or add information after submitting, and you cannot view the submission afterwards, so it suggests taking a screenshot first. Before submitting, the AIF can be saved and returned to.
Will Waterloo look at my GitHub or portfolio link?
No. Waterloo's FAQ says information in links, such as links to awards or portfolios, will not be reviewed. Describe any project in words inside the form, within the limits.
How does Waterloo review the AIF?
Waterloo says trained reviewers and an artificial intelligence system both score it, a second human scorer reviews the form if their scores differ significantly, and identifying information is removed first. It says the data is not sent to any third-party AI service.
How do your classes relate to the AIF?
Only indirectly. We teach coding and math live online, and students build projects of their own that they understand. We do not discuss or review application answers. What a student writes, and whether to mention our classes at all, is their decision.
When can my teen take classes?
Weekdays or weekends, flexible: choose your batch, or for a very personalised plan choose 1-on-1 at your convenience, weekend mornings or weekdays. Each slot is fixed in your province's own clock and rechecked when daylight time starts or ends.
Elsewhere on this site
Related pages
Other pages for teens in Canada aiming at a computing degree.
Let us know your teen’s grade, any project they are working on and the language they use. We spend the first class on their own code, so bring something unfinished if they have it.
Lessons happen live on video with teachers based in India, so nobody travels and nobody comes to the house. Families in Canada usually reach us fastest on WhatsApp.
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