Do Grade 11 marks matter for Ontario universities?

Grade 11 marks matter for one thing: an early conditional offer. Universities start sending offers between November and January, before most Grade 12 final marks exist, so the first round is built partly on Grade 11 finals and Grade 12 midterms. If your Grade 11 marks are strong you can hear back early.

They do not matter for being refused. Waterloo puts it plainly: if your Grade 11 marks are not as high as you would like, it uses your Grade 12 grades when it makes its decisions, and you will not be disadvantaged if your Grade 11 marks are not in its admission range. McMaster says applicants will not be refused based on Grade 11 grades.

An early offer is conditional. It lists the Grade 12 marks and courses you must still finish with, and it can be withdrawn in June if you miss them.

The University of Ottawa spells its three rounds out. Round 1, mid-November to the end of January, uses your best five final grades from Grade 11 and Grade 12 (3U/3M and 4U/4M courses: U is university preparation, M is university or college preparation, and 3 or 4 is Grade 11 or 12). Round 2, mid-February to mid-April, uses Grade 12 interim and final grades. Round 3, from mid-May, uses six Grade 12 grades only. It also says it does not deny admission during the first round.

Lakehead names its December round as the early round, normally based on Grade 11 marks; its March round normally uses Grade 12 first-term finals and its May round second-term midterms. Nipissing makes Grade 11 offers to select programs if you have completed at least four Grade 11 U/M courses, and from March it calculates averages from at least three Grade 12 U/M final grades.

Laurier describes three scenarios: your best five 3U/M courses; your best six 3U/M and 4U/M courses with at least three at the 4U/M level; or your best six 4U/M midterm or final marks. Which one applies depends on what your school has sent. Guelph uses Grade 11 marks only to fill gaps when fewer than six 4U/M marks exist, and falls back to Grade 11 entirely only if no 4U/M courses are completed or in progress.

Waterloo: it can use Grade 11 marks and midterm or predicted Grade 12 grades to make a conditional offer, but it says it does not have an early admissions process in the usual sense, and most of its offers come in May.

McMaster: Grade 11 grades may be used as part of the preliminary review when Grade 12 grades are not yet available, and applicants will not be refused based on Grade 11 grades. The University of Toronto makes conditional offers on the basis of your available Grade 11 and 12 marks, provided you are enrolled in all the required Grade 12 courses.

Queen's reviews applications on a rolling basis and makes conditional offers on available grades, which can include Grade 11 marks when Grade 12 marks are not yet available. Western uses the combination of Grade 11 and Grade 12 grades it has at each offer round, and says it will also consider your overall Grade 11 performance. York uses Grade 11 and 12 marks from the previous year or semester to offer conditional admission to strong applicants. TMU (Toronto Metropolitan University) says Grade 11 results may be used in the early admission process, with offers stipulating the Grade 12 results you must achieve.

McMaster is the most restrictive: Grade 11 is a preliminary review only, and Midwifery needs the Grade 11 prerequisite at 85% if the Grade 12 course is still in progress on February 1.

Windsor's early offer has its own rule: you need a Grade 11 average 10% or more above the program's Grade 12 requirement, with the prerequisite courses taken in Grade 11, and programs with a supplementary application are excluded.

Laurentian makes early conditional offers only to students at semestered schools, with a Grade 11 average at or above the program's requirement. Western's Nursing program lists Grade 11 math as a possible prerequisite that will not be used in your admission average. Waterloo Architecture uses Grade 11 and 12 marks to decide who reaches the interview and portfolio stage.

You lose the early round, not the year. Every school re-reads your file in each later round on the Grade 12 marks that have arrived, and you never need to re-apply. uOttawa, Lakehead, Nipissing and Laurier all describe rounds that run into May on Grade 12 marks alone, and Waterloo and Western make their largest round in May after second-semester midterms.

What matters from here is the six Grade 12 U or M courses in your average, including a 4U (Grade 12 university preparation) English, and the specific prerequisite courses your program names. Pick the six you can score highest in, and do not drop a prerequisite to protect your average: schools such as McMaster, Guelph and Laurier always count the required courses in the six.

Once you have marks, the program finder on this site checks them against every program's requirements and the average each school publishes.

Ontario Tech, Trent, Algoma, OCAD University (Ontario College of Art and Design University) and the Université de l'Ontario français do not mention Grade 11 marks on their admissions pages. That is not a no; they simply do not say. Ontario Tech asks for a midterm or final mark in every prerequisite before it considers you. OCAD says offers rest mainly on the portfolio or writing sample.

We could not read Carleton's admissions pages on 21 October 2026 (the site was down for maintenance), Brock's (its site refused our request) or Hearst's (a certificate problem). Carleton's site answered when we tried again on 30 October 2026, but its pages say nothing about Grade 11 marks. Ask these three directly, or check their pages yourself.