Applying to Ontario Universities From BC: OUAC 105 Guide

First, the name: 105 is now “Group B”

For years the Ontario Universities’ Application Centre ran two undergraduate forms: the 101 for current Ontario high school students and the 105 for everyone else. OUAC has since merged them into a single Undergraduate application and renamed the groups. Current Ontario high school students are Group A; everyone else, including every BC student, is Group B (Am I a 101 or 105?). Ontario students and counsellors still say “105,” so when you see it, read it as “the out-of-province version.” It is the same application you will fill in.

One application, all Ontario universities. You list program choices in order; the universities each see what you chose at their school. OUAC does not admit anyone. It collects the application and, for Group B, that is nearly all it does; the grades part is on you.

Fees and dates for Fall 2027 entry

OUAC publishes the fee on its undergraduate fees page. The structure is a base fee covering your first three program choices and a smaller fee for each additional choice; the tentative amounts OUAC listed for 2027 were $159 and $51, but OUAC states tentative fees can change before the cycle opens, so confirm on the page before you budget. Some universities charge their own supplementary application fee on top, paid to the school, not to OUAC.

The 2027 application opens in late September 2026. OUAC’s key dates page makes a distinction BC students miss: there is no single OUAC deadline for Group B. Each university sets its own, sometimes by program. January 15, 2027 is the date by which OUAC aims to deliver data to universities for applications submitted by then, and it is the working deadline most schools quote. Competitive programs often set earlier dates for their supplementary parts; the full lists for U of T’s deadlines, Waterloo’s deadlines, Queen’s deadlines and Western’s deadlines show each one, with the dates that apply to students outside Ontario, next to your BC dates at UBC and UVic. The other date to write down is June 1, 2027: the earliest date an Ontario university may require a student to respond to an offer. OUAC states this for Ontario high school students; in practice the same date governs most offers, but read your own offer letter.

How your BC grades get to Ontario

This is the part that goes wrong. Ontario students’ grades flow to OUAC automatically from their schools. Yours don’t. OUAC is explicit that Group B applicants “are responsible for forwarding your official transcripts to your selected universities,” sent directly to each university with your OUAC reference number on every document (Transcripts, Group B).

For a BC student that means ordering transcripts through the StudentTranscripts Service with your BCeID, one per university, and then also uploading interim marks where the school asks. Waterloo, for example, tells BC applicants that while BC will send marks electronically, they “will not arrive in time for you to be considered for admission,” and asks you to upload a transcript with second-semester midterm marks as soon as it exists (Waterloo, BC requirements). Assume every school works like that. Check each university’s applicant portal in January for what it wants from you, and treat “we will get it from the Ministry” as false until a portal says otherwise.

How Ontario reads a BC transcript

Ontario universities compute an admission average from your best Grade 12 courses, including the required ones. Waterloo states it directly: “your admission average will be the average of your top six Grade 12 courses or equivalents including the courses which are required for the program.” Waterloo also notes that Applied Design, Skills and Technologies courses do not count toward the six, with Economics 12 and Financial Accounting 12 as exceptions. Other schools publish their own versions; the shape is the same.

Compare that to UBC, which reads all of your academic Grade 11 and 12 courses with extra attention to the degree-related ones (the core vs overall guide has the full mechanics). The consequence: a BC student with six strong Grade 12 academic courses and a messy Grade 11 can be a 92 to Waterloo and an 86 to UBC. The reverse also happens, which is why students with a rough Grade 12 elective sometimes find Ontario kinder. Neither system is “harder.” They count different things.

Then the supplementary applications arrive

Almost every Ontario program that BC students apply to from a distance adds a second stage after OUAC: written questions, a recorded video interview, or both, usually on a platform called Kira Talent. Each has its own deadline, its own portal, and often its own fee. The Ontario supplementary applications guide lists every program with format and dates; the ones BC students most often hit:

The deadlines cluster between late November and mid-February, several of them before OUAC’s January 15 working date. The deadline timeline puts them in order. If you have never recorded a timed answer to an unseen question, read the Kira Talent practice guide before your first one; BC has no equivalent (Sauder’s interview is invitation-only and rare), and the format is the whole test.

The two calendars, side by side

UBC dates are from its dates and deadlines page. The practical collision is December and January: UBC’s Personal Profile, two or three Ontario supp apps, first-semester finals, and transcript ordering all land in the same six weeks. Students who treat Ontario as “the backup” and start its supp apps in January routinely miss a video deadline they didn’t know existed.

Vocabulary translation for a BC reader

A BC student’s Ontario checklist

1. September: pick the Ontario programs and, for each, find its supp-app page and write down the deadline and the fee. Do this before OUAC opens, because several portals open in October and the earliest deadlines are in November.
2. October: submit OUAC as soon as you have your choices. There is no advantage to waiting and the supp-app portals often need your OUAC reference number before they will let you in.
3. November to December: record the video supp apps first, written ones second. The videos cannot be redone and the written ones can be drafted between exams.
4. Late January: the day first-semester finals post, order transcripts through StudentTranscripts Service to every Ontario university on your list, and upload an interim transcript to every portal that offers an upload.
5. February to May: check each portal weekly. Ontario schools ask for documents by email and portal, and a missing midterm upload silently stalls a file.
6. Before June 1: hold the Ontario offer against UBC’s. UBC’s acceptance date is May 1 or June 1 depending on the offer; Ontario will not require an answer before June 1. Do not pay a deposit in April because a friend told you to.

Where to go from here

If “supp app” is still an abstraction, the definition guide explains what one contains and how much weight it carries next to marks. The Ontario supplementary applications hub is the table of every program, format and date to plan your December around. And the core vs overall guide shows why the same transcript scores differently in the two provinces, so you can guess which of your applications is the real long shot. Then rehearse the part BC never trained you for: AcceptMe’s custom interviews put you on camera with an unseen Ivey- or Waterloo-style question, a prep window and an answer clock you set, and hand you the transcript with the coach’s notes.