By Shane Dingman
Ryerson is the only Metro university to have a decrease in applications from Ontario high school kids, but no one’s losing any sleep over the decrease.
Ryerson had 393 fewer Ontario high schoolers apply for first-year undergraduate positions. Only 74 applicants had Ryerson as a first choice and 77 listed Ryerson as a second choice.
Ian Marlatt, director of communications, admits he isn’t into demographics, but he’s not concerned over the drop. “This figure accounts for less than half of our applications.”
Marlatt said Ryerson generally has over 25,000 applications for the 3,800 available first-year undergraduate positions. This year only 11,930 applicants are straight out of high school. The rest of the applicants are either mature students or transfers from other universities. “I’m not sure of our ranking, but I’m pretty certain Ryerson has one of the largest applicant pools. We are one of the most transferred-to schools in Ontario.
The number of secondary school students applying for full-time first-year positions decreased by 2.5 per cent across Ontario, which would be a small worry to most administrations. Still, Marlatt points out “the overall quality, marks and so forth, of applicants for most programs [at Ryerson] is going up.”
A recent Maclean’s survey indicated that while Ryerson has fewer books in its library than almost every other university, it has been pegged as a “Leader of the Future.” That, coupled with Ryerson’s career-focused programs, creates an applicant pool that isn’t even dented by fewer bright-eyed and bushy-tailed high schoolers. After all, last year the number of applications for Ryerson’s continuing education programs topped 44,000 making it the most popular university division in Canada.
Leave a Reply