What Ontario's rising high school grades mean for university admissions

Tyson Hamilton has a 96 per cent average and was president of his high school student council, but the Grade 12 student did not get admitted into business degree programs at the University of Toronto, Queen's or McMaster. 

While Hamilton received offers from seven other university programs and is excited about his choice to enrol in a dual degree program at Western University this fall, he wonders why programs would reject an A-plus student. 

"If a 96 isn't good enough, what is?" said Hamilton in an interview. "Where does it stop? Is everyone going to be needing 100 averages to get into these programs?"

His rejections are the result of a trend that reveals an increasingly larger number of students with high grades competing for Ontario's most coveted post-secondary spots. 

The average Grade 12 marks of students enrolling in first-year programs at Ontario universities have been rising steadily upward, according to data compiled by the Council of Ontario Universities. 

The data also shows growing proportions of students entering university after obtaining Grade 12 averages in the 95-plus and 90 to 94 ranges. 

The trend is particularly apparent in the highly competitive university programs of business, engineering and biological sciences, but is also evident among students choosing social sciences and liberal arts. 

"I think the issue is right now, there's no [marking] consistency across schools." he said. "A 96 at one school might be worth a low 90 at another school." 

The data raises questions about why the marks are rising and what it means for students trying to gain admission into Ontario's most competitive university programs. The answers are complex and nuanced. 

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the grades of Ontario high school students had increased gradually but steadily for years. It's a trend that has accelerated since 2020. 

"In the pre-COVID years, there's reason to think it might actually reflect higher achievement," said Kelly Gallagher-Mackay, an associate professor at Wilfrid Laurier University who studies educational inequality. 

Gallagher-Mackay attributes the rising grades to a combination of effort within Ontario's school system to improve equity of outcomes, moves to end streaming of students into applied courses, and shifts in immigration that brought more families who prioritized academic achievement. 

The jump in marks since the pandemic began, however, is so dramatic that it can likely only be explained by additional factors. 

Toronto District School Board data shows the average Grade 12 student's mark rose from 71 to 77 in a two-year period after the pandemic began.