Waterloo AFM Interview (SAFAA) Paused for 2027: What Counts

The short version for Fall 2027 entry

The School of Accounting and Finance publishes its admission requirements on Waterloo’s Aspiring Professionals site. At the time of writing, that page carries a note headed “New this year” that reads: “We are not running the SAFAA online interview or trait assessment. Therefore, admissions to AFM and SFM are based solely on grades.” The same page lists the application deadline as February 1, 2027 and the document deadline as February 15, 2027.

So for this cycle, as it stands: no video interview, no written supplementary questions, no trait assessment, no assessment fee, and no AIF either, because the Admission Information Form is only required for Engineering, Mathematics and Computing and Financial Management. AFM sits in the Faculty of Arts. Your application is your marks.

What “based solely on grades” means in practice

Waterloo lists the AFM admission average as mid-80s, with a minimum of 75 in each of Grade 12 U English, Advanced Functions and Calculus and Vectors, across six 4U/M courses. The page adds the sentence every Waterloo program carries: averages depend on the number of applications and the number of spaces. Without the SAFAA there is nothing else to separate two applicants at 87, so expect the effective line to sit above the published range and to be decided late, when final marks are in.

• Your top 6 is the whole game. The three prerequisites are in it by rule. Pick the other three for the marks, not the story; nobody is reading a story.
• Mid-year marks matter more than usual. With no supplementary component to wait on, Waterloo can make early decisions on strong mid-year averages. Sixty percent of your Grade 12 is graded before the February deadline. That is the interview now.
• Financial Accounting and Data Management are recommended, not required, and Waterloo says explicitly that not taking them won’t affect your chance of admission. Take them if you’ll score well; skip them if they would drag the average.
• AFM or SFM, not both. You choose one. Sustainability and Financial Management is the same school and the same assessment rule; pick the one you’d actually attend, since both will now be judged on the same number.

One vocabulary note: when Waterloo applicants say “deferred,” they usually mean re-routed to a program they didn’t apply to, not a delayed decision. Waterloo does make alternate offers across faculties; if an Arts offer arrives instead of AFM, that is what it means, and the program you were offered is a real one with its own transfer routes.

What the SAFAA was, in case it returns

The SAF Admissions Assessment ran online after you submitted your OUAC application, for an extra fee, and Waterloo told applicants to set aside about 90 minutes. It had two parts.

Part one: the interview

• Three recorded video questions, 90 seconds to answer each, assessing, in Waterloo’s words, your ability to communicate in a “clear, concise, organized, and professional manner.” The questions were published in advance on the SAFAA instructions page, which made this the one Ontario video interview you could fully script.
• Two written questions, used for scholarship eligibility and to explain any repeated courses. Not a timed essay; a short typed box each.

Part two: the trait assessment

A 78-item survey scoring your potential in leadership, collaboration, adaptability and problem solving. There was nothing to prepare for it and the honest advice was to answer it honestly, because the instrument is built to notice when you don’t.

In the most recent cycle it ran, the SAFAA was due in mid-February, about two weeks after the application deadline. If it comes back for a later cycle, expect the same shape: three known video questions, 90 seconds each, one attempt.

Practice questions in the SAFAA format

These are AcceptMe’s practice questions, written to the style the SAF interview used: personal, about motivation and work habits, with no case or technical content. They are not Waterloo’s questions. They are still worth running at 90 seconds, because the Ivey, Schulich and Queen’s Commerce interviews ask the same kind of thing without telling you first.

1. Why accounting or finance, and why now? Tell us about a moment that made it real rather than a list of reasons.
2. Describe a time you had to explain something with numbers in it to someone who didn’t want to hear it.
3. Tell us about a job, paid or unpaid, where you were trusted with money or records. What did you change about how it was done?
4. What is the hardest thing about working in a team for you personally, and what do you do about it?
5. Describe a time you noticed a mistake nobody else had caught. What did you do in the next hour?
6. Co-op means interviewing for jobs from first year. Tell us about a time you were rejected and what you did the following week.
7. Tell us about a commitment you kept for more than a year. What kept you there after the novelty went?
8. Ninety seconds: what should we know about you that your transcript doesn’t say?

A worked answer at 90 seconds

Ninety seconds is about 200 spoken words. Question 3 is the kind the SAF interview leaned on, and it is answerable in that space if you skip the preamble.

One situation, one decision, two numbers, one sentence of reflection. Nothing about “passion for finance” and the reader hears it anyway.

What to do with the time you got back

1. Protect the top 6. If a fourth 4U course is dragging the average and it isn’t a prerequisite, talk to your guidance counsellor about the options before the semester one deadline to drop, not after.
2. Add CFM if the marks are there. Computing and Financial Management is the Math-faculty cousin of AFM, admits in the low-to-mid 90s, and requires the Math AIF. You can hold it alongside AFM or SFM.
3. Spend December on the interviews that still exist. Most AFM applicants also hold Ivey, Schulich, Queen’s Commerce or Rotman. Those all record you.
4. Keep the SAFAA page bookmarked. If the note changes, you want to know in January, not second-hand in February.

Common questions about AFM in a grades-only year

Do I still fill in an AIF?

Not for AFM or SFM. Waterloo’s AIF page lists the programs that require the form: all Engineering programs except Architecture, every Faculty of Mathematics program, and Computing and Financial Management. Arts programs, which is where the School of Accounting and Finance sits, are not on it. If you also applied to a Math program or to Engineering, you complete the AIF for that application, by February 15, 2027 for Math and February 1, 2027 for Engineering, and it is read for that program, not for AFM.

Is the co-op interview the same thing as the SAFAA?

No. The SAFAA was an admissions assessment. Co-op interviews happen after you are enrolled, with employers, through WaterlooWorks, and they are live conversations rather than recordings. What the two have in common is that both ask you to talk about yourself clearly for a minute and a half, which is why the practice above is not wasted even if the SAFAA never returns.

Is there anywhere to put my ECs?

Not on an AFM application this cycle. With the SAFAA off and no AIF, there is no field for activities, awards or work experience, and Waterloo has said the decision is on grades. That feels unfair to a student with a strong record and an 86, and there is nothing to be done about it except to send that record where it is read: the business programs with a supp app, and the scholarship forms at the schools you’re applying to.

What about CFM and ScFM?

Computing and Financial Management is a Faculty of Mathematics program taught with the School of Accounting and Finance. Waterloo lists its selection range as the low to mid 90s, requires the AIF, and says the Euclid or Canadian Senior Mathematics Contest is not required for admission but is required for some Math scholarships. You can hold CFM alongside AFM or SFM. Science and Financial Management is the Science-faculty pairing; its requirements are on its own program page and should be checked separately, because the grades-only note on the SAF page is written about AFM and SFM.

Before you close this tab

If Schulich is on your list, its four-video, one-written Kira format is the closest thing to what the SAFAA used to be, and that guide has the timing and practice questions. If you’ve never used Kira, the Kira Talent guide explains what the practice questions do and don’t tell you about the real ones. If you want to know how a grades-only program like AFM compares to the ones that read a supp app, the no-supp-app list shows which Ontario programs decide on marks alone so you can build a list with a safety on it. Then take the salon story above, put it in AcceptMe’s Story Bank as your initiative story, and run it against an unseen Schulich-style question with a 45-second prep window and a 90-second clock, because that interview is still happening.