Fall 2026 may see a bumper crop of undergraduates at most Ontario universities given the recent application statistics from the Ontario Universities’ Application Centre. As of April 8, 2026, there were 600,912 applications from Ontario Secondary School Students (OSSS) and 205,044 applications from All Other Applicants (AOA) (a mix of out of province, mature students and international applicants) for a total of 805,956 applications. Applications from OSSS were up 2.2 percent from last year while AOAs were up 9.1 percent suggesting that some measure of recovery is underway in terms of international students applications. Of course, these are the number of applications, and one can apply to multiple universities. If one looks simply at the number of applications, total applicants in the 2025 cycle totalled 159,310 whereas for 2026 the individuals total 168,919 for an increase of 6 percent. The growth in individuals applying is even more pronounced when it comes to AOAs which have grown 12.4 percent as opposed to 2.3 percent for OSSS.
Figure 1 plots the ranked percentage change in undergraduate applications by Ontario Secondary School Students by institution. The largest increases (not shown here due to scaling issues) were for Université de l’Ontario Français (166.7 percent) and Université de Hearst (11.1 percent). However, there were only a total of 20 applications to Hearst and 88 to l’Ontario Francais. Notwithstanding these two, the fastest growing OSSS applications were for Nipissing (9.9 percent), Western-Huron (8.5 percent), Guelph (8.2 percent) and Lakehead (6.3 percent). There were also declines in applications with the largest being OCAD (-9.9 percent), Western-Kings (-9.7 percent), Algoma (-8.2 percent) and Waterloo (-3.5 percent). It should be noted that application increases and declines do not necessarily automatically translate into enrolment changes as with each applicant making three or four applications, what matters is the conversion rate of applications into bums in seats. As well, even with a decline of 1 percent, a university like U of T should have no problem filling up its ffirst-year entry slots given it has received over 68,000 applications and first year intake is about 17,000 students.
Figure 2 plots the ranked percentage change for the All-Other Applicants category and here the largest increases are Hearst, Algoma, Toronto and Carleton, while declines only affected Nipissing (-3.8 percent) and Western King’s (-17.5 percent). Finally, Figure 3 plots the percentage changes in total university undergraduate application statistics. While L’Ontario Francais and Hearst are at the top here, their extremely low application totals effectively move us to the next top performer which is Guelph at 8.6 percent followed by Western-Huron (8.1 percent), Queen’s (7.7 percent), Carleton (7.5 percent) and then Nipissing and Lakehead at 7.5 percent and 7.3 percent respectively. Declines mark Trent, Windsor, Waterloo, OCAD and Western-Kings.
As noted, while the number of application statistics are important, the conversion to bums in seats is more important and the chief indicator there is whether the application is a first, second or third choice and those statistics do not appear to have been posted yet. However, what is important is that the growth in applications this year has been quite good despite the challenges. The total number of applicants is up 6 percent even though the provincial government announced the end of the tuition freeze and a reorientation of the Ontario Student Assistance Program towards loans as opposed to grants. However, the Ontario economy has slowed considerably, and post-secondary attendance tends to rise during tougher economic times. The ultimate test is not the number of applications, but what actual enrolment will be come September. Still, it looks a lot better than one might have expected.
