Supplementary Application Examples: Annotated Sample Answers
Official program pages list the requirements and show no examples. The example pages that do exist are single-program and behind a form. This is a library: six annotated sample answers, one for each kind of question Canadian supplementary applications ask, each written at the real character or word limit of a program that asks it, each followed by the notes a good reader would leave. The answers are AcceptMe’s own, written to the formats, not any program’s submitted essays.
How to use this page
Do not copy anything here. Readers at every program have seen enough applications to recognise a borrowed sentence, and several programs check. Use the examples for two things: to see what a full-scoring answer at the real length looks like, since most applicants have never seen one, and to learn the notes, so that you can read your own draft the way a reviewer will. The six question types below cover nearly every prompt in the Ontario supp app guide and the UBC Personal Profile.
1. The activity question, 1,500 characters
Asked by UBC (“tell us about an activity and what you learned”), Queen’s Commerce (the PSE essay), Sauder and McMaster Arts & Science in near-identical forms. Limit here: 1,500 characters including spaces, which is about 250 words.
I have run the sound desk for our school’s drama productions since Grade 10, which means I am the person nobody notices until a microphone dies. Last November it did, in the second act, on the lead. I had about four seconds. I killed her channel, brought up the two shotgun mics at the front of the stage, and rebalanced the other seven actors so she could be heard from the floor, then spent the intermission re-taping a spare pack to her belt while she ran lines at me. Nobody in the audience knew. What I learned is not “stay calm,” because I was not calm. It is that the four seconds went well because of the eight weeks before them: I had labelled every channel, I knew which mics could cover the stage, and I had a spare pack charged because a teacher two years ago told me to and I did it every night without ever needing it until I did. Since then I run a checklist before every show and I have started teaching the Grade 10 who will replace me to run it too, because the thing I actually built was not a fix, it was the habit that made the fix possible.
- Works: a real situation with a clock in it, a specific action (which channels, which mics), and a number of people affected.
- Works: the reflection rejects the cliché (“stay calm”) and replaces it with something the applicant could only know from doing it.
- Works: ends on what changed, and on someone else benefiting, which is UBC’s leadership criterion in one line.
- Tighten: “which means I am the person nobody notices” is charming and costs 60 characters; keep it only if the limit allows.
- Note: no introduction, no “throughout high school,” no closing summary. The first sentence is already inside the story.
2. The challenge question, 1,500 characters
“Describe a challenge you faced and what you learned” is on UBC, Sauder, McMaster and Laurier forms. The trap is spending the whole answer on the challenge and none on the learning; the second half is half the marks.
In Grade 11 I failed the first unit test in physics with a 48, which was the first mark under 80 I had ever received, and my reaction was to hide it: I did not tell my parents and I did not go to the teacher, because I assumed asking meant admitting I was not a physics person. The second test was a 61. That was the week I changed my mind, mostly because my lab partner, who had a 90, told me she went to every lunch help session and I had assumed she just got it. I went to the next one and discovered the problem was specific: I was memorising formulas and could not tell which one a question wanted. The teacher had me write, for every problem, one sentence about what was happening physically before touching the math. It was slow and it felt like cheating. My third test was an 84 and the final exam was an 88. The learning is not that hard work pays off. It is that I had been treating ability as a fixed thing I either had or did not, and treating asking for help as evidence that I did not. I still notice that reflex, in new things especially, and now I treat it as the signal to go to the help session that week rather than in a month.
- Works: the numbers (48, 61, 84, 88) make the arc checkable and take no characters to explain.
- Works: the challenge has a cause the applicant found (formula matching, not physics), which is what “substance” looks like.
- Works: the reflection names a belief that changed, and says what the applicant does now. That is the second half of the question, done.
- Fix, if reused elsewhere: this is a resilience story; do not also use it for “a time you failed” on the same application. Spread the stories.
3. The why-this-program question, 250 words
Laurier BBA, Ivey AEO and most scholarship forms ask a version of it, at 150 to 300 words. Rankings, prestige and “always dreamed” lose. One specific, checkable thing about the program wins.
I want to study business because of a spreadsheet. In Grade 10 I started reselling refurbished bikes with a friend, and after about twenty sales I built a sheet to work out why some months we made money and some months we did not. It turned out the answer was which bikes we bought, not how we sold them, and that single discovery changed what we did more than anything I have learned in a classroom. I want four years of that: finding the number that explains the thing. The reason it is this program is the first-year case course. I have read two of the cases on the public list, and what struck me is that they do not tell you which number matters; you have to find it, and then argue for it out loud in front of people who found a different one. That is the exact skill I have been doing badly on my own, with a spreadsheet and a friend who agrees with me too easily. I also noticed that the co-op stream starts in second year rather than third. I would rather test what I am learning against a real employer early and find out I am wrong in year two than in year four. I do not know yet which part of business I want. I know how I want to learn it, and this is the program that teaches it that way.
- Works: the moment (the spreadsheet) is small, true and specific, and it is the applicant’s, not the program’s brochure.
- Works: two program-specific details (the case course, co-op timing) with a reason for each. Check both against the program’s own page before submitting; if either is wrong, the whole answer is.
- Works: admits not knowing the specialty. Readers trust that more than a five-year plan.
- Tighten: “more than anything I have learned in a classroom” is a mild dig at school that adds nothing; cut it.
4. The contribution question, 150 words
Waterloo’s AIF asks short-form versions of “what will you contribute” and “tell us about something you did outside school” at about 150 words each, read against your marks. There is no room for a warm-up sentence.
I would bring the habit of writing things down for the next person. At my part-time job at a hardware store I noticed that new hires were being trained by whoever happened to be on shift, so everyone learned the till a different way and half of them learned it wrong. I wrote a one-page guide with photos, tested it on the next two hires, fixed the three steps they got stuck on, and the manager now gives it to everyone. It took me two evenings. I expect first-year engineering to be full of things that are hard the first time and obvious the second, and I would rather be the person who writes the one-page guide for the design team, the lab bench or the study group than the person who assumes everyone else already knows. It is not glamorous. It is the thing I have actually done.
- Works: one action, one result, one honest scope (“two evenings”). At 150 words that is the whole budget.
- Works: connects the habit to the program concretely (design team, lab bench) without pretending to know what first year is like.
- Fix: Waterloo reads for reasoning and specifics; “it is not glamorous” is a good line but the sentence before it already says so. Cut one.
5. The teamwork question, 1,500 characters
Sauder, Laurier and UBC ask a version of “describe a time you worked with people different from you” or “a group you contributed to.” Readers want your specific role, the friction, and what you did for the group rather than for yourself.
Our Grade 12 economics group project had four people: two who wanted the top mark, one who wanted it done, and one who had missed the first two weeks with mono and said almost nothing. I was one of the top-mark two, and my first instinct was to split the work three ways and let the fourth person coast. What I did instead, after the first meeting went badly, was ask her what she had done for the last project she was proud of; it turned out she had built every chart for her chemistry group and hated writing. So I rebuilt the plan around that: she owned every figure, the person who wanted it done owned the timeline and the submission, and the two of us who wanted the mark wrote and argued. We got a 94. The part I think about is that the fourth person’s charts were the reason the teacher called our analysis the clearest in the class, and that I nearly planned her out of the project because she had not spoken in a meeting. I now assume the quiet person has a skill the group has not asked about yet, and I ask before I assign anything. It has made me slower at the first meeting and better at every one after.
- Works: the applicant’s own bad instinct is in the story. Readers score honesty about your own part higher than a story where you were right from the start.
- Works: the other people have wants and a skill. A teamwork answer with no other people in it is a solo answer.
- Works: the result belongs to the group (“we got a 94,” her charts), the change belongs to the applicant.
- Tighten: the last sentence is good; the one before it says the same thing. Pick one.
6. The position question, 1,500 characters
McMaster Health Sciences and a few scholarship applications ask you to take and defend a position on a scenario or a proposal. There is no right answer; balance instead of a position scores nothing.
A friend has decided to stop taking a medication her doctor prescribed. I would ask her one question before anything else: what changed? Not “why,” which invites a defence, but what was different this week. In my experience people stop medication for a reason that is specific and often fixable, a side effect they are embarrassed about, a cost, a comment from someone, and the reason is not the thing they say first. So I would listen to the first answer and then ask again. What I would deliberately not say is anything that sounds like the doctor: not “you should really,” not the risks, not a statistic I half remember. She has heard that, and my saying it again would just confirm that telling me was a mistake. The one thing I would push on is whether the doctor knows. If she has not told them, I would offer to sit with her while she sends the message, because the decision is hers and the information is theirs, and the worst outcome is not that she stops; it is that she stops and nobody who could adjust the dose knows. The objection to my approach is that it is slow, and if the medication is one where stopping suddenly is dangerous, slow is wrong. I would find that out first, and if it is, I would say so plainly and once.
- Works: a position in sentence two, with a mechanism (“what changed” versus “why”) that shows thinking rather than warmth.
- Works: answers both halves of the prompt (say, and deliberately not say), which most applicants miss.
- Works: raises the strongest objection to its own position and adjusts. That move is what McMaster means by self-awareness.
- Note: no personal anecdote is needed here; the reasoning is the evidence.
What the six have in common
- The first sentence is already inside the answer. None begins with the question restated or a sentence about high school being a journey.
- Each has at least one number or a checkable specific. This is the line first drafts fail most often, in essays and in interview runs alike: the result is “I did a really good job” and the reader has no way to weigh it. “It led to a really happy customer” or “a 100 on the assignment” is the same claim with the weight put in.
- Each contains a moment where the applicant was wrong, unsure or slow. Readers trust those answers because nobody invents them.
- The reflection is one thing, specific, and states what the applicant does now.
- None ends with “and I will carry this with me into university and beyond.”
Where to go from here
The program-specific guides have the actual prompts and limits: UBC Personal Profile, Waterloo AIF, McMaster Health Sciences and the rest through the Ontario hub. For a 200-word limit specifically, the U of T Trinity College applicant profile guide has a worked answer at that length. The stand-out guide takes three ordinary drafts and rewrites them line by line. And when your own draft exists, paste it with its question into AcceptMe’s essay coach: you get a verdict and notes pinned to your sentences in exactly the form above, works, tighten or fix, two reviews free, and the words stay yours.
Keep reading
- How to Make a Supplementary Application Stand Out Three ordinary drafts rewritten line by line: the activity list in disguise, the challenge with no learning, and the why-this-program brochure.
- How to Get Feedback on Your Supplementary Application Who can read a supp app draft in Canada, what each reader catches and misses, what the programs allow, and a sample draft with a good reader's notes.
- Supplementary Applications in Ontario: Every Program Compared Every Ontario business and engineering program with a supplementary application: what each asks, the video and written timings, and all the deadlines.