Waterloo Engineering AIF and Video: Sample Answers and Prep

Waterloo Engineering is explicit that a decision is never made on grades alone. The Admission Information Form (AIF) and the online video interview are mandatory, and an application without them is denied. Here is what each asks, how they are read, and practice questions for the interview.

By the AcceptMe team 9 min read Updated

The two parts

The Admission Information Form

Five questions, filled in through your applicant portal. Questions one to four have a 150-word limit each; question five is your activities outside the classroom for the calendar year. Past forms have asked why you’re interested in engineering and your specific program, what you hope to accomplish at Waterloo, and about paid work and accomplishments not covered elsewhere. Waterloo says the AIF is read for initiative, leadership, time management, people skills, and a range of interests and involvement.

The online video interview

Not live. A pre-recorded question plays, you get preparation time, then you record your response. For most engineering programs it’s one standard question; prep is roughly 30 seconds to a minute and the answer window roughly one to one and a half minutes. Two program extras: Software Engineering applicants also answer a written question listing and explaining their programming-language experience, and Systems Design applicants get a second video question used for scholarship consideration. Waterloo says the whole thing takes under 20 minutes.

Deadline for Fall 2027 entry: February 1, 2027 for the AIF, the video interview and all documents. Waterloo’s wording is that an application without a completed AIF by the deadline is denied. Confirm on Waterloo Engineering’s admissions FAQ. If Waterloo is one of several engineering schools on your list, put every engineering application deadline in one plan: the AIF, the video and the other schools’ dates in a single timeline. Every other Waterloo date, from the OUAC application to residence, is on the Waterloo application deadlines page.

How Waterloo reads the AIF

A hundred and fifty words is one short paragraph. The applicants who do well treat each box as a single specific claim with evidence, not a summary of themselves. Waterloo’s own tip page says it wants to hear why you want to study engineering and what excites you about the program, and that it values depth in a few things over a list of many.

  • “Why this program” should name something a student who hadn’t looked closely couldn’t name: a course, a co-op pattern, a design team, a lab. Then say why that fits you, with one piece of evidence from your life.
  • Accomplishments want a number or a concrete outcome. “Led the robotics team” is a role. “Redesigned the gripper in the last two weeks and we placed fourth of thirty” is an accomplishment.
  • Paid work counts. Waterloo runs on co-op. A part-time job that taught you to show up, deal with customers and fix a mistake is evidence of exactly what a co-op employer wants.
  • The alternate-choice question is honest, so be honest. If you’d take your second choice, say so and say what you’d do with it. If you wouldn’t, a considered reason is better than a diplomatic non-answer.

The video question

Waterloo’s advice is to practice interview-style questions out loud and to communicate clearly without filler words. The question is usually personal rather than technical: an accomplishment you’re proud of, why engineering, a time you worked through a problem. With under a minute to think, the prep window is for choosing a story and your last sentence, not composing. Ninety seconds is enough for a full story if the setup is one sentence.

Fifteen practice questions in the Waterloo format

AcceptMe’s practice questions, written to what Waterloo says it reads for: initiative, self-taught skills, co-op readiness, honest reflection. Not Waterloo’s questions. Run one at a time on a short prep timer and a 90-second clock.

  1. Pick one accomplishment from the last two years you are genuinely proud of and walk us through it: what you actually did, and the concrete result.
  2. You ranked this engineering program first. Why this one rather than a neighbouring one like Mechatronics, Systems Design or Electrical? What have you done to test the fit?
  3. Your first co-op term could start in first year. What would you bring to an employer right now, and what would you say in that first co-op interview?
  4. Suppose you are offered your alternate choice instead of your first. How would you respond, and how would you make the most of it?
  5. Tell us about feedback that was hard to hear. What did you actually change afterwards?
  6. Walk us through a typical school week. Roughly where do the hours go, and what would have to give if your course load doubled?
  7. Describe something technical you taught yourself outside any class. How did you learn it, and where did you get stuck?
  8. Tell us about a time you had to explain a technical idea to someone who knew nothing about it. How did you know they understood?
  9. What do you do purely for fun, and what would we learn about you from watching you do it?
  10. Describe a time you missed a deadline or fell short of a goal that mattered. What do you do differently now?
  11. Tell us about something you designed, built or made. What problem was it solving, and if you rebuilt it tomorrow, what would you change first?
  12. Describe a time you and a teammate strongly disagreed about the approach. How did you reach a decision, and was it right?
  13. In your own words, what does a practicing engineer in your chosen field actually do day to day, and which parts appeal to you most and least?
  14. Tell us about a time you noticed a classmate struggling and stepped in. What did it cost you?
  15. Five years from now you’re finishing your degree with several co-op terms behind you. What kind of problem do you want to be working on, and what step have you already taken toward it?

A worked answer

Sample answer to question 11, about 85 seconds

Last summer I built a plant-watering system for my grandmother’s balcony, because she was away for six weeks and her tomatoes had died the year before. It was an Arduino, a soil moisture sensor, a small pump and a relay, running off a phone charger. The hard part wasn’t the electronics, it was that the sensor readings drifted as the probe corroded, so after two weeks it was watering constantly. I fixed it by switching to a capacitive sensor and adding a hard cap of one watering per day, which was a hack, but it worked, and the tomatoes lived. If I rebuilt it tomorrow the first thing I’d change is that I’d log the readings from day one. I only figured out the drift by noticing the soil was soaked; with a log I’d have seen the trend in the first three days and saved a week. That’s the thing I took from it: measure first, then fix.

Mistakes specific to Waterloo

  • Leaving the AIF to the last week. It’s five short boxes, but good 150-word answers take several drafts each.
  • Being general about many things. Waterloo’s own advice is to be specific about one. Pick.
  • Treating the video as a formality. It’s required for admission, it’s one take, and it’s the only time the reviewers hear you.
  • Reading the 150-word answers aloud in the video. Reviewers have the AIF. Use a different story, or go deeper on the same one.
  • Missing the Software Engineering written question or the Systems Design second video because you didn’t check which links your portal shows.

The video interview guide covers the recorded, one-take format in general, and the STAR method examples guide is how to build the stories. If U of T Engineering is your other application, the U of T Engineering Online Student Profile guide covers its three timed videos and the EngSci profile guide what differs for Engineering Science; Software Engineering applicants have an extra form of their own.

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