Ontario Tech applications up 33%
Oshawa university sees province’s largest increase, as experts cite interest in STEM careers
Ontario Tech University has had the greatest jump in applications of any university in the province for the fall 2022 semester, revealing what experts say is an increasing interest in STEM and health-care professions.
Preliminary numbers from the Ontario University Application Centre showed that Ontario Tech enrolment applications from Ontario high school students increased by 33.4 per cent compared to numbers from January 2021. In raw numbers, the institution received a total of 10,317 applications by the Jan. 13 deadline, compared to 7,734 in 2021.
“Student interest has shifted over the last number of years with an increasing number of students choosing STEM and health-care professions,” said Steve Orsini, president and CEO of the Council of Ontario Universities. Ontario Tech University could not be reached for comment.
Last year, universities across the province saw a surge in applications from students hoping to enrol in health-related fields, with nursing programs alone seeing a 73 per cent jump for the 2021 academic year as COVID-19 cases continued to increase.
Meanwhile, the biggest drop in Ontario was from troubled Laurentian University in Greater Sudbury, which saw applications from high school students plunge by 43.5 per cent.
Last February, the northern Ontario school announced it was facing imminent bankruptcy and a drop in applications was anticipated.
“My sense is that the drop is largely based on uncertainty,” said Glen Jones, former dean of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. “How much faith do you want to put in an institution that seems to be going through a tremendous struggle right now?”
Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice issued a ruling Jan. 26 on the court fight between the insolvent university and the provincial auditor general, Bonnie Lysyk, that the school will have to hand over some privileged information to the Ontario legislature. Lysyk is conducting an investigation to find out why the university declared insolvency.
Ontario’s new French-language university, Université de l’Ontario français, saw the second biggest drop in applications at 26.3 per cent, receiving only 14 applications compared with 19 applications from Ontario the previous year. Including applications from outside the province and abroad, the university received a total of 47 applications in 2021.
According to Jones, the small university is positioning itself differently than larger universities, attracting individuals looking for specialized Frenchlanguage training who may already have undergraduate degrees.
Despite the small number of applicants, the institution is able to stay afloat thanks to the federal and provincial governments’ commitment to spending $126 million over eight years for the university.
Overall, applications to Ontario universities saw an 8.4 per cent increase this year compared to the same period in 2021, with students on average applying to more institutions than before. OUAC received a total of 511,893 university applications by the January 2022 deadline, up from 472,238 applications last year.
The number of applicants also increased by 1.6 per cent, with a total of 91,241 students applying this year, up from 89,818 the previous year. The data suggests that applicants are applying to more universities than usual, according to Jones.
“In the context of COVID, you have this cohort of individuals who have spent so much of their high school experience online and want to move on with their lives. So, they are cautiously applying, trying to ensure there is a space for themselves,” Jones said.
Several universities across the province also witnessed a noticeable jump in applications including the University of Guelph at 22.1 per cent, Trent at 16.7 per cent and OCAD at 15.9 per cent.
Final admission numbers for the fall semester will be released in the spring, which will include figures for out-of-province and international students and when students confirm which post-secondary school they will be attending.
Numbers are likely to shift, according to Jones.
“It’s all preliminary and these numbers will change,” Jones said. “It all depends on how this works out and what COVID looks like in the fall and what kind of environment we’re going to be heading into.
“Hopefully this is an exciting time in the context of what has been a dismal last couple of years.”