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Canadian universities and their programs

Where the figures for canadian universities and their programs come from, how they were collected, and what checking every source link found. Used on /ca/universities, /ca/programs, /ca/compare and /ca/program-finder.

Last updated October 31, 2026.

How the figures were collected

The Canadian university data covers 23 Ontario universities program by program and 28 universities in other provinces for an Ontario applicant. Each school is one file with a checked date, and every figure in it names the page it came from.

  • Programs, admission ranges, required courses, supplementary steps and co-op: each university's own program pages for Ontario high school applicants, copied as written ("low to mid 90s" stays "low to mid 90s"). The published range is what the school chooses to publish, often a minimum to be considered, and the pages say so. Where a school gives its range in words ("mid 80s"), rankings and the program finder read it as a range (low 80s is 80 to 83, mid 84 to 86, high 87 to 89); the page still shows the school's words.
  • Application deadlines: the calendar at /ca/deadlines takes every dated extra step (tests such as Casper, portfolios, auditions, supplementary forms) from each program's own admissions page, and every date is read on that page again before it is shown. A date no longer on the page, or a page that refused our reader, stays off the calendar and is listed with no date and the reason. Every Ontario university program also gets its date to apply: the program's own page where it prints one next to words about applying (re-read by scripts/apply-check.py, so a document or scholarship date is not mistaken for it), else the school's own dates page for Ontario high school students (the quoted words must still be on it), else the date at least five of the school's other program pages agree on, else the common date as a university states it, marked for checking. The dates every applicant has (accept by, hear back by) and the months each school sends offers come from the universities' own pages too, re-read the same way; the Ontario Universities' Application Centre's own site refused our reader (an HTTP 403 "forbidden" answer) and is not used.
  • Supplementary applications: the workspace at /ca/supplementary takes each extra step on the calendar and adds what the school publishes about it: what it is, its exact questions, its word, character, time or piece limits, its fee, and what the school says it looks for, each quoted word for word from the school's own pages. A script (scripts/supp-check.py) finds every question and quote on its page again before the data is rebuilt (scripts/gen-supplementary.py), and anything not found is left out. Steps whose pages refused our reader (Brock, Laurentian and the University of Ottawa, and some McMaster program sites whose robots.txt asks crawlers to stay away) show only their date and a link to the school. Practice links are only the school's or the test maker's own. The plan of dates for each step is our suggestion, worked back from the due date. Drafts a student writes stay in their browser and never reach us.
  • Support and other ways in: each Ontario university and college page, and the comparison at /ca/support-and-access, shows the school's office for students with a disability, its Indigenous admission pathway and Indigenous student centre, its access and upgrading programs, and its mature student rule, each quoted word for word from the school's own website. A script (scripts/support-check.py) finds every quote on its page again before the data is rebuilt (scripts/gen-support.py), and anything not found is left out; where a school's site refused our reader, only the name and link are shown, and the page says so. “None found” means we did not find one on the school's pages, not that the school has none.
  • Entering averages: Common University Data Ontario (CUDO), section B3, published by the Council of Ontario Universities and read from its public report tool. The council's own CUDO page refused our reader, so it is not linked. For each Ontario university and program group, the share of new full-time first-year students from an Ontario high school whose entering average fell in each band, and the overall average, for the fall 2022 entering class, the newest the council publishes. It is who enrolled, not a cut-off, and a program group holds several programs, so a program page labels it as the group's figure. Universities in other provinces, colleges and Algoma, Hearst and the Université de l'Ontario français are not in CUDO. Windsor's own CUDO page was read separately as a check and matched except for two typing errors on that page.
  • Tuition: each university's fee schedule for the current academic year, first year, tuition only, for a student from Ontario (the out-of-province rate at universities outside Ontario, with the school's own residents' rate shown separately). Books from the school's own estimate. Residence and its guarantee, compulsory fees and entrance scholarships from the school's pages. Where a school moved or took down a page after it was read (a handful at Laurentian, Nipissing, Algoma, Brock and Ottawa), and for tuition history, the Internet Archive's copy of the school's own page is cited and marked as an archive copy.
  • Graduation and employment rates, retention: the performance tables each Ontario university must publish for the ministry, or the Council of Ontario Universities' CUDO tables; outside Ontario, the university's own institutional report, with the cohort year shown. Employment outside Ontario is a labour-force rate, not comparable to Ontario's survey, and the comparer says so.
  • Pay after graduating: Statistics Canada table 37-10-0281-01, median employment income of bachelor's graduates two and five years out, by field and province. It is published by field for a whole province, never by university, so every school in a province shows the same figure for a field and the page says so.
  • Rent: Statistics Canada table 34-10-0133-01 (the Rental Market Survey of CMHC (Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation), October 2025), the average two-bedroom rent in the school's city.
  • Student satisfaction: the share of senior students rating their experience good or excellent in the National Survey of Student Engagement, from each university's own published report. Participation and year vary by school and are noted.
  • If you don't get in: college-to-university transfer agreements from ONTransfer (the Ontario Council on Articulation and Transfer), and each university's own bridging, access and mature-student routes, with their pages.

The University of Alberta, the University of Winnipeg and St. Francis Xavier refused our reader on the pages this research needed (admission requirements, programs and fees), so they are not on the site rather than described from third parties. Brock, Carleton, Laurentian and the University of Ottawa refuse some pages but not all: their figures come from their own pages that did answer, from Internet Archive copies where the site's robots.txt allows crawling, or from government and council tables, and a figure no allowed page gives is left blank.

In numbers

Pages with sources4,040
Citations21,650
Distinct source links7,813
Sites cited196

Every link, checked

Checked October 31, 2026: one request per link, as "ClaudeBot (research for career.help)", robots.txt honoured, no retries. A site that refuses automated visitors is recorded as refused, not retried under another name.

Reachable7,244
Moved (redirects)19
Refused automated check507
Not reachable43

The full result for this part, one line per link, is in the downloadable spreadsheet: check-2026-10-31.csv (all parts, with the page that cites each link in the inventory file beside it).

Links that did not answer or refused (550)

Each with the page that cites it. "Refused" means the site blocks our link checker; the figure was read when it was collected, from the page itself or from a dated archived copy, and a person opening it in a browser is noted where that happened. "Not reachable" links are being replaced or removed.

Every site cited (196)

Most cited first: every site with three or more links, and the first two hundred in any case. The rest are sites cited once or twice (a regulator's page, one school's calendar); every one of their links is on the page that cites it and in the spreadsheet above.

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