Writing Essays for Canadian University Undergrad Applications [A Complete Guide for International Students]
- kaushal984
- Apr 15
- 26 min read
Updated: Apr 30
Most students approaching Canadian university applications assume they work like one of two things they already know. Either like the UK, with a centralised portal, a personal statement, and grades doing most of the heavy lifting. Or like the US, with a Common App equivalent, supplemental essays, and holistic review. Neither assumption is right.
Canada does not have a single national undergraduate application portal. Ontario uses OUAC. British Columbia uses EducationPlannerBC. Each province runs its own system. Unlike UCAS, most of these portals do not require an essay at all. Academic cutoffs and course selection do a lot of the sorting, and for many strong Canadian universities, McGill included, your grades are essentially your application.
But the universities that do require written components have formats that do not closely resemble anything else you have encountered. The UBC Personal Profile is a set of short-answer questions focused on who you are, your activities, and your academic context. The University of Toronto Engineering application includes a video response component that almost no content online addresses adequately. Waterloo has an Admissions Information Form that is more detailed and more scrutinized than most students realize. These are not Common App supplementals with a Canadian flag on them. They are different instruments that reward different things.
This guide covers all of it. If you are applying to Canada from India, the UAE, or Singapore, alongside or instead of the US and UK, read this before you write a word.
How Canadian University Undergrad Application Essays Differ from Common App and UCAS
If you are applying to more than one destination, this section will save you the most time and the most wasted drafts.
The Common App personal statement asks for a narrative. 650 words of continuous prose about something real from your life. The goal is for a reader who has never met you to understand something essential about you that your grades and activities list cannot show. The format rewards reflection and self-awareness above almost everything else.
The UCAS Personal Statement asks for an argument. Three structured questions about why you want this subject, how your education has prepared you for it, and what you have done outside the classroom to develop beyond it. The goal is to prove that you are academically ready and genuinely motivated for the specific field you have chosen. The format rewards evidence of subject engagement over personal narrative.
Canadian application essays, specifically the UBC Personal Profile, the U of T Engineering Online Student Profile, and the Waterloo AIF, ask for accounts. Specific experiences, described concisely, with clear evidence of what they involved and what they revealed. The format rewards precision and self-knowledge over narrative arc or academic argument.
The most important practical implication: do not adapt your Common App personal statement for the UBC Personal Profile, and do not repurpose your UCAS Q1 for a Canadian short-answer question. They are different instruments serving different evaluation purposes. An essay built to show the arc of who you are over 650 words reads as overblown in a 2,000-character UBC response. A tight academic case for your subject interest reads as cold and impersonal where UBC wants a specific, grounded story about what matters to you.
A few other structural differences worth knowing before you start:
Register: Canadian essay responses generally land in a more direct, less formal register than UCAS statements. You are not building a case; you are answering a question. The tone should be clear, honest, and grounded.
Character limits, not word limits: Canadian short-answer questions are constrained by character count. The precision this requires is different from both the Common App's 650-word essay and UCAS's 4,000-character total. Practice writing to a character count before you start drafting.
What counts as relevant: Canadian questions frequently foreground who you are as a person, what you do outside the classroom, and how you have handled difficulty. UCAS weighs academic preparation most heavily. The Common App is relatively agnostic about topic. Know which you are writing for.
Grades still dominate: Even at UBC and U of T, the written components sit inside a process where your predicted or final grades have already done significant filtering. A strong Personal Profile cannot compensate for a profile that does not clear a program's academic threshold. The essays matter within the context of a file that already meets the bar.
A note on Indian school writing habits that work against you here
CBSE and ICSE train students to begin essays with broader context before getting personal. That instinct, opening with 'Leadership is one of the most important qualities a person can develop...' before anything specific about you, produces openings that close a reader's interest immediately in the Canadian context. There is no framing required. The first sentence should be about something that actually happened. Similarly, grand closing statements about lessons learned ('This experience taught me the true value of perseverance') are a school essay convention that Canadian short-answer responses do not reward. End with something specific, not something universal.
With that being said, let's look at the application essay requirements of some coveted Canadian Universities and what you should do to deal with them.
University of British Columbia (UBC): Personal Profile
The UBC Personal Profile is the primary written component of the undergraduate application and, for international applicants, the part of the application where the most ground is gained or lost. It consists of a set of short-answer questions, each with its own character limit ranging from 500 to 2,100 characters (approximately 50 to 500 words depending on the question). These are not one long essay broken into parts. Each question needs a standalone response.
A few things to understand before you start:
Character limits vary per question. Some questions allow up to 2,100 characters (roughly 350 words). Others allow only 500 characters (roughly 80 words). Read the limit on each question before you start drafting. A response calibrated for the wrong length is immediately obvious.
The questions you are asked depend on the degree you apply to. Most students applying to standard undergraduate programs will answer the five core questions listed below. Sauder Commerce applicants have two additional program-specific questions.
UBC collects your activity information as part of the profile itself, not in a separate activities section. Use the activities questions to reflect meaningfully on what you have done, not to produce a list.
Two references are required as part of the profile. One must be able to speak to an activity or experience you describe in your written responses. For high school applicants, one must be a school official. Begin thinking about this early, because the reference requirement affects which experiences you choose to write about.
So finally, let's look at the questions that you need to deal with as mentioned on the UBC application page:
And now, before we move on to our commentary on the questions, let us also look at what UBC states about how they evaluate your personal profile:
Now, here is what we have to say on the Personal Profile:
The Core Questions: What Each Is Really Asking
The following questions appear for most undergraduate applicants. Exact wording is taken from the official UBC admissions page.
Q1: Tell us about who you are. How would your family, friends, and/or members of your community describe you? If possible, include something about yourself that you are most proud of and why.
Typical character limit: up to 2,100 characters
What it is really asking
Three things at once, and most students only answer one of them. The first is how others perceive you, not how you perceive yourself. The second is what you are proud of. The third is the connective tissue between those two: what does the thing you are proud of say about who you actually are?
The word 'proud' is doing real work in this question. Pride implies ownership, judgment, and values. A response that describes an impressive achievement without showing why you are proud of it, and what that reveals about what you care about, answers the wrong question.
The instinct for many students from India, the UAE, and Singapore is to pick the most objectively impressive item on their record: the national rank, the competition win, the leadership title. Resist this. The most resonant responses pick something that reveals something specific about the student's values or thinking, which is not always the thing that looks best on paper. An accomplishment that seems modest from the outside can carry a powerful response if you can articulate precisely why it mattered to you. An objectively impressive achievement can produce a flat response if you are only describing it from the outside.
Do's and Don'ts
Do:
Answer all three parts of the question. Who you are, how others describe you, and what you are proud of.
Choose something that genuinely mattered to you, not something that sounds good
Show why you are proud specifically. What values or standards does this accomplishment reflect for you?
Use concrete detail: what actually happened, what was difficult, what the stakes were.
Don't:
Open with context or background. Start with the experience, then provide brief framing if needed.
Write about the accomplishment as if you are writing a press release.
Confuse impressive with meaningful. A reader who has spent months reading Personal Profiles can tell the difference.
End with a generic lesson. End with something specific, a detail, a realization, a consequence, that is only true for you.
Q2: What is important to you? And why?
Typical character limit: up to 2,100 characters
What it is really asking
This is the most open question in the set and, because of that, the one students most often get wrong. The most common failure is giving an abstract answer: 'Family is important to me because...' or 'Education is important to me because...' These responses tell a reader almost nothing. What UBC wants to understand is not what general category of thing you value, but a specific version of that value and where it comes from.
A strong response to this question is built from a specific experience or moment that made something important to you, not from a belief you already held. The 'why' is what earns the answer. Students who can trace their answer back to something concrete and personal, rather than stating a value and then explaining it in the abstract, produce far more memorable responses.
Do's and Don'ts
Do:
Choose one thing and develop it fully rather than listing several things briefly.
Ground the answer in a specific experience or moment that made this thing important to you.
Be specific enough that only you could have written this response. If a different student with a different life could have written the same answer, it needs to be more specific.
Don't:
Choose the most admirable-sounding answer. Choose the most true one.
Write an essay that begins as a personal reflection and drifts into a general argument. Stay grounded in your own experience throughout..
State the value and then define it. Show where it came from.
Q3: Describe up to five activities you have pursued or accomplishments achieved. Please outline the nature of your responsibilities within these activities.
Activity categories: club, family/community responsibilities, creative or performing arts, work/employment, athletics, volunteer, service to others, other
What it is really asking
This is your activities inventory, but it is not meant to read like a list. UBC specifically asks you to outline the nature of your responsibilities within each activity, not just name what you did. The emphasis is on what you actually did within the activity, not on the activity's description or prestige.
Note the category 'family/community responsibilities.' This is not a generic addition. It is there because UBC explicitly recognizes that many students, particularly those from lower-income backgrounds or from families where they carry real household responsibilities, have contributions that do not show up in the conventional extracurricular categories. A student who has helped care for a younger sibling, managed household logistics, or contributed to a family business has activities worth listing here.
Do's and Don'ts
Do:
List up to five activities, but do not manufacture activities to fill the spaces. Three genuine entries are better than five thin ones.
Describe your specific responsibilities within each activity, not what the club or organization does.
Include things that are not conventionally impressive but that involved genuine effort, responsibility, or commitment.
Use the family/community responsibilities category honestly. Caring for a sibling or contributing to a family business counts.
Don't:
List activities you were nominally involved in. If you cannot describe your responsibilities within it, question whether it belongs here.
Default to a resume format. The questions ask for context and responsibilities, not a timeline of memberships.
Q4: Tell us more about one or two activities listed above that are most important to you. Explain the role you played and what you learned in the process.
Typical character limit: up to 2,100 characters. Note: a reference is required who can speak to this response.
What it is really asking
This is where the activities list earns its place. UBC is asking you to go deeper on the activities that actually meant something, not to describe them again from the outside. The key phrase is 'what you learned.' UBC is not primarily interested in what you achieved within the activity. It is interested in what the experience changed or developed in you.
The reference requirement attached to this question matters in a practical sense: choose activities where you have a credible, accessible reference who can speak to your involvement. A teacher, a supervisor, a coach, an employer, or a community member. Not a family member.
Students who write about their 'most impressive' activity often produce weaker answers here than students who write about an activity that involved genuine difficulty, real responsibility, and honest reflection. The activities that taught you the most are not always the ones with the best headlines.
Do's and Don'ts
Do:
Focus on one activity if your reflection on it is genuinely strong, or two if both carry weight.
Describe the role you played specifically, not the activity's purpose or structure.
Make the 'what you learned' explicit. This is not a place for implied lessons.
Choose activities for which you have a credible reference lined up.
Don't:
Repeat what you already said in the activities list.
Write a leadership essay without describing a specific moment or decision. The role you played needs to be concrete.
Choose the most prestigious activity if it is not the one that most genuinely shaped you.
Q5: Additional information about your academic history and future academic plans.
Prompt examples: How did you choose your courses? Are there life circumstances that affected your academic decisions? What have you done to prepare for your intended area of study?
What it is really asking
Two separate things, and many students either over-answer this or leave it blank. If your record accurately reflects your ability and you have a clear and straightforward academic path, a brief factual account is sufficient. If it does not, this is the place to say so clearly and factually.
The prompt's examples are telling. 'Are there life circumstances that affected your academic decisions?' is not a throwaway line. This is UBC specifically inviting you to contextualize anything in your record that might otherwise raise questions: a grade dip, a curriculum switch, a disrupted semester, a subject choice that looks unusual without context. Students who have a genuine story to tell here and leave this section sparse are leaving useful information off the table.
The second half of the prompt, what you have done to prepare for your intended area of study, is also underused. This is your opportunity to name super-curricular activities, self-directed learning, relevant work experience, or anything else that shows you have gone beyond your school syllabus in preparation for your intended program.
For CBSE and ICSE students specifically
UBC admissions staff review applications from around the world, but they are not always uniformly familiar with the CBSE and ICSE systems. A single clear sentence contextualizing your curriculum, for example noting that CBSE is a centralized national curriculum covering specific subjects at the Class 12 level, is worth including. One sentence. You do not need to explain the Indian education system in detail.
Do's and Don'ts
Do:
Use this space to contextualize anything in your record that needs explanation. A grade dip, a school transition, an unusual course choice.
Describe specific things you have done to prepare for your intended area of study beyond standard coursework.
Keep a matter-of-fact tone. This is not the place for apology or defensiveness.
Don't:
Leave this blank if there is genuine context to give about your academic record.
Use this as a space for a second personal essay. Factual, focused, and forward-looking.
Program-Specific Questions
Sauder School of Business (Bachelor of Commerce)
Sauder applicants are required to answer two additional questions on top of the standard five, and the screenshot from the official page which contains the questions has been attached below:
Both questions have a character limit of 1,500 characters.
The problem/unfamiliar situation question is asking for a specific case, not a general account of how you approach difficulty. Choose one situation. Describe what made it unfamiliar or difficult, what you specifically did (not what you thought about doing), what the outcome was, and what you actually learned from it as opposed to what you think you should have learned. The distinction between a genuine insight and a performed one is visible in a 1,500-character response.
The community impact question is a two-part question, and many students answer only the first part. 'How are you positively impacting your community' asks for a current, concrete, specific thing you are doing. 'How do you plan to leverage your UBC Sauder experience to enhance these efforts' asks you to show that you understand what Sauder's BCom actually involves, and how that specific education will extend or develop what you are already doing. Generic answers about 'using business skills to make an impact' do not satisfy the second half of this question.
Do's and Don'ts
Do:
For the problem question: make the specific decision or action the center of the response, not the context.
For the community question: show genuine knowledge of what Sauder's program involves. Name something specific.
Don't:
Answer the community question with a description of a club or service project you were nominally involved in.
Write a response that could apply to any business school anywhere in the world.
Faculty of Applied Science (Engineering) and Other Programmes
Some faculties include additional context questions specific to the program. Check the requirements for your specific degree on the UBC admissions portal and within your EducationPlannerBC application before you assume you are only completing the five standard questions. The safest approach is to select your program in the portal and read through the complete question set before you begin drafting anything.
What International Applicants Consistently Get Wrong
Three patterns come up repeatedly among students from India, the UAE, and Singapore:
Over-philosophical openings: CBSE and ICSE students in particular are trained to begin written responses with a broader contextual statement before getting personal. 'Community is the foundation of human progress...' or 'Leadership shapes the course of history...' are the kinds of sentences that open countless school essays and signal immediately to a UBC reader that what follows will be generic. Start with something that actually happened. The first sentence should be specific, concrete, and about you.
Treating the character limit as the target. Students fill every available character, including with sentences that do not add information. A 1,600-character response to a 2,100-character question is entirely acceptable if the content is strong. Padding to reach the limit produces responses that are visibly padded.
A too-narrow definition of what counts as an activity. In many Indian and UAE school environments, 'activities' defaults to competition wins, academic achievements, and formal certificates. UBC's questions are far broader than that, and the students who write about something less formal and more genuinely theirs often produce the strongest responses. Regular tutoring of a younger sibling, a self-started project, care-giving responsibilities, a sustained personal creative practice: any of these can carry a strong Profile response, provided the reflection is honest and specific.
Using AI to Write your Undergrad Application Essays?
With the growing availability of AI tools (ChatGPT, Claude, etc.), you might be tempted to use them to write essays including Common App essay, UCAS Personal Statement, UC PIQs, or supplemental essays. Is that a wise approach? How low should your AI Detection score be? What do Universities have to say regarding this issue? Click the button to know more
University of Toronto (U o T)
Faculty of Engineering: The Online Student Profile
U of T Engineering is among the most competitive destinations for international STEM applicants from India, the UAE, and Singapore. The written component of the application, called the Online Student Profile (OSP), is mandatory. If you do not complete it, your application is not considered. Understand what it contains before you open it.
What the Online Student Profile Includes
We are attaching the screenshot from the official page for your reference:
The OSP has several sections: program choice, an applicant timeline, academic profile, extracurricular activities, the Personal Profile, and document submission. The section that requires the most preparation is the Personal Profile.
Extracurricular activities are entered as a structured listing, not as a narrative essay. For each activity, you describe your role, your responsibilities, the time commitment, and the duration. You also provide a reference for each activity (a teacher, employer, coach, or supervisor, not a family member). These descriptions are read carefully. Write them as specific, first-person accounts of what you actually did within each activity, not as descriptions of what the organization does.
The Personal Profile: Four Questions, One Written, Two on Video
The Personal Profile is the most distinctive element of the U of T Engineering application and the part most students are least prepared for. It contains four questions:
Q1: Terms confirmation.
Q2: A 300-word written response. You have 10 minutes to prepare and type your answer.
Q3: A 2-minute video response. You have 2 minutes to prepare, then record.
Q4: A 3-minute video response. You have 2 minutes to prepare, then record.
The questions are not disclosed in advance and are not published publicly. Based on available sample questions, they are engineering and problem-solving focused. You may be asked to discuss an engineering concept or idea that interests you, describe qualities that make you a strong candidate, explain how you approached a significant mathematics problem, or design a basic experiment to test a hypothesis. The questions are designed to assess reasoning and communication skills, not to find a right answer.
The written response follows the same principles as any short-answer application question: be specific, be honest, show your thinking rather than just your conclusions. The video responses are a different matter entirely.
The Video Response: A Complete Preparation Guide
What the video response is
You see the question for the first time in the portal. You have two minutes to prepare. You then record your response in the browser, with limited or no retakes. One response is two minutes long; the other is three minutes. The finished videos are watched by U of T Engineering admissions staff as part of the review of your application.
This is not a live interview. There is no interaction. No one is watching in real time. It is a recorded monologue in response to a question you see for the first time, under mild time pressure, and it is the closest thing in undergraduate admissions to a genuine assessment of how you think on your feet.
What It Is Testing
The video response is not testing whether you are a polished presenter. Admissions staff are experienced at watching these. What U of T Engineering says explicitly on its FAQ page is: 'you will be assessed on the content of your answers.' A student who delivers a precise, honest, slightly imperfect response will consistently outperform a student who memorizes and recites a polished script.
What the responses are assessing:
Can you organize your thoughts quickly when you cannot over-prepare?
Can you explain technical or conceptual ideas clearly under mild pressure?
Do you come across as genuine, composed, and capable of thinking through a problem in real time?
The questions are engineering and reasoning-focused, not generic personal qualities questions. You may be asked about a mathematical problem you found challenging, an engineering concept that interests you, or a scenario requiring you to design an experiment. The engineering focus is deliberate.
How to Prepare: A Step-by-Step Approach
Step 1: Know your engineering interests before you open the portal.
You cannot prepare specific answers for questions you have not seen. What you can prepare is the raw material. Before you open the OSP, have clear answers to the following in your head: Which engineering concept or field genuinely excites you and why? What is a challenging mathematics or science problem you have solved recently and how did you approach it? What two or three qualities do you believe make you a strong candidate for engineering at U of T, with specific evidence for each?
These are not a complete list of possible questions, but they cover the territory that sample questions suggest. Thinking through each of them carefully, out loud, before you open the portal means you are not meeting the subject matter for the first time when you are being recorded.
Step 2: Structure your response in the preparation window.
In your two-minute preparation window, do not try to write a full answer. Use the first 30 seconds to identify the core of what you want to say, then note three things you want to cover in order. Speak to those three things, in order, and stop.
A structure that works for both the two-minute and three-minute responses: state your position or answer directly (20 to 30 seconds); develop it with a specific example or explanation (the bulk of the remaining time); close with one sentence that ties the response together. The three-minute response gives you more time for the middle section. Do not use it to add more points. Use it to go deeper on fewer.
Step 3: Speak to the camera, not past it.
This sounds obvious. It is surprisingly difficult when you are nervous. Before you begin recording, take one breath, sit up, and find the camera lens. The admissions reader watching your video is a person. Speak to them the way you would speak to someone across a table.
Step 4: Do not apologize or recover visibly.
If you misspeak, keep going. If you lose your train of thought for a moment, pause, collect yourself, and continue from where you were. A composed pause is far better than visible panic or an apology and restart. U of T's own FAQ page addresses the question of camera nerves directly: 'please do your best to be yourself.' That is not just a reassurance. It is a description of what the evaluators are looking for.
Step 5: Record a trial run before the real thing.
Before you open the actual OSP, record yourself on your phone responding to a practice engineering question for two minutes. Watch it back. The first time you watch yourself respond to a prompt on video is always uncomfortable. That discomfort should happen during practice, not during your U of T Engineering application.
A note for students who do not speak English at home
The video response is among the clearest indicators of your genuine English communication ability in the entire application, and admissions staff know this. A response in clear, direct, slightly accented English is entirely appropriate. What does not work is a memorized script recited without feeling. Speak in your own voice. The FAQ page explicitly notes that you will be assessed on the content of your answers, not on broadcast-quality delivery.
For further guidance on on how to go about completing the Online Student Profile, you may refer to the explanatory video provided by the University which is embedded here:
Other U of T Faculties
For Arts and Science, Rotman Commerce, and most other U of T undergraduate programs, admission is primarily grade-based. There is no significant written component required beyond the standard application information.
InkStudio's written application support for U of T is specifically relevant to Engineering applicants. If you are applying to another U of T faculty that has a written component, check the current program requirements on the U of T admissions portal and reach out if something falls within our remit.
McGill University
McGill deserves an honest treatment here, because it generates significant anxiety among international applicants who assume that a highly ranked research university must have a hidden essay component they are missing.
For the vast majority of programs, Sciences, Engineering, Management, Arts, Law, Education, McGill's undergraduate admissions is primarily grade-based. Your academic record, your curriculum rigor, and your subject selection do most of the work. There is no personal statement or essay required for standard faculties.
A few exceptions worth noting:
The School of Social Work and some professional program streams may include brief written components. Check the specific program page on the McGill admissions portal.
Desautels Faculty of Management (B Com) may include short reflection questions in certain application streams. These requirements can change year to year, so verify current requirements directly before you start writing.
Faculty of Music requires an audition and may include written components related to musical background and intent.
For the overwhelming majority of McGill applicants, InkStudio's essay support is not the thing you need. Focus your written application energy on UBC, U of T Engineering, any Waterloo AIF, and your US and UK applications. If you are applying to a McGill program that does require a written component, the same principles apply as throughout this guide: specific, honest, concrete evidence over abstract claims.
Other Canadian Universities Worth Knowing
Not every Canadian university with an application requirement is worth covering in detail. Most are not, because grade-based admissions is the norm. The following are the institutions where there is genuine written content for international applicants to prepare.
University of Waterloo: Admissions Information Form (AIF)
The Waterloo AIF is the most substantive and most underestimated written component in Canadian undergraduate admissions after the UBC Personal Profile. It is required for nearly all Engineering, Mathematics, and Computer Science applicants, and it is read carefully in a process where admission rates for international students to programs like Computer Science are extremely competitive.
The AIF is not a personal statement. It is a structured form covering four main areas:
Extracurricular activities: Detailed descriptions of each activity. Your role, your responsibilities, estimated hours per week, duration, and a brief description of what you did and what you contributed. These descriptions are read, not skimmed.
Work and volunteer experience: Similar format: role, responsibilities, hours, and a brief account of what you actually did.
Short-answer questions: These vary by program. Engineering applicants are typically asked about their interest in their chosen engineering discipline. CS applicants may be asked about their interest in computing and problem-solving. Short in format, but evaluated carefully.
Context section: An optional space to explain anything in your record that needs context: a grade dip, a school transition, a medical situation, a gap in activities.
What the AIF is really testing
Whether the extracurricular and academic profile you have reported is real, specific, and developed over time, not assembled at the last minute for the purpose of an application. Waterloo's evaluation teams are experienced at reading AIF submissions from thousands of applicants. Generic activity descriptions and vague short-answer responses do not compete with specific, grounded ones.
Common mistakes:
Writing activity descriptions that describe the organization rather than your role within it. 'FIRST Robotics is a competition for high school students...' is not an activity description. 'As the lead programmer for our drivetrain system, I was responsible for...' is.
Leaving the context section blank when there is genuine context to give. If something in your record needs explanation, a semester where grades dipped, a curriculum transition, an unusual school environment, the context section is where that information belongs.
Treating the short-answer questions as formalities. For competitive programs like CS and Systems Design Engineering, the short-answer responses are part of what separates applicants who are otherwise similar on paper.
For IB students applying to Waterloo
The IB program is well understood by Waterloo admissions. You do not need to explain the curriculum. However, your predicted HL grades matter enormously. For CS and the most competitive engineering programs, the academic threshold is high and the AIF responses cannot compensate for a weak academic profile. The AIF rewards students who have a genuine, developed interest in their field and can demonstrate it with specific evidence.
Queen's University: Smith School of Business
For most Queen's undergraduate offerings, admission is primarily grade-based and no essay is required. The exception is Smith School of Business (Commerce), which has a supplemental application that includes short essay questions.
The Smith supplemental typically covers your reasons for choosing Commerce, your extracurricular engagement, and aspects of your personal development. The questions are not unusual in format, but the Smith supplemental is competitive and the written responses are evaluated carefully.
Apply the same principles here as throughout this guide: specific over general, honest over performed, concrete evidence over abstract claims about your qualities. Smith's supplemental is not the place to demonstrate that you have done thorough research into the Smith brand. It is the place to show that you have a genuine, specific, developed interest in business supported by real experience.
Do: Demonstrate specific interest in business, academic, extracurricular, or professional, with concrete examples.
Don't: Write a response that could have been produced about any business school by any business-interested student.
Western University: A Note on Ivey AEO
This is worth including specifically because it creates confusion for international applicants who are planning their university path with business in mind.
Ivey Business School at Western operates an Alternate Entry Option (AEO) process. AEO is a designation students apply for during their first year at Western, not during the undergraduate admissions process. If you are accepted to Western and complete your first year with strong grades, you apply for AEO entry to Ivey, which involves essays and assessments at that stage.
For first-year admission to Western, most programs are grade-based with no essay requirement. If you are applying to Western with the intention of pursuing business through Ivey, understand that the written competition happens after you arrive, not before. This is a fundamentally different structure from Sauder at UBC or Smith at Queen's.
Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU): Creative and Professional Programs
TMU (formerly Ryerson) has supplemental requirements for a number of programs, including Architecture, Interior Design, Film, and other creative fields. For these programs, a portfolio and/or written statement is a significant part of the application. Check the current program-specific requirements on the TMU admissions portal; these vary considerably by program and change from year to year.
For the majority of TMU programs, admission is grade-based and no written component is required.
Working with InkStudio on Your Canadian Applications
InkStudio works with students on the written components of university applications. For Canadian undergraduate applications specifically, that means:
UBC Personal Profile: All five standard questions, program-specific questions for Sauder Commerce, and the additional information section. We work through each question individually: profile gathering, first draft, substantive revision, final polish.
U of T Engineering: Extracurricular activity descriptions for the OSP, the written Personal Profile response, and structured preparation for the video response component including practice questions, response frameworks, and feedback on your practice recordings.
University of Waterloo AIF: Activity and work experience descriptions, short-answer question responses, and the context section.
Queen's Smith School of Business supplemental: Short essay questions and strategic framing.
Other Canadian written components: If your program has a written requirement that falls within our remit, reach out and we will tell you whether and how we can help.
We do not advise on program selection, academic requirements, visa processes, or admissions strategy. Our work is entirely focused on the written components of your application.
If you are building your Canadian university application and would like InkStudio's support on your UBC Personal Profile responses, U of T Engineering Online Student Profile, or another Canadian written component, leave your details below and we will be in touch.
Frequently Asked Questions about the Canadian University Undergrad Application Essays
Do Canadian universities accept the Common App?
A small number do, but most major Canadian universities, including UBC, U of T, McGill, Waterloo, and Queen's, do not. Each institution has its own application portal. Ontario universities use OUAC; UBC uses EducationPlannerBC. Check the specific application route for each university on its admissions page.
Can I use my UCAS Personal Statement for a Canadian application?
No. The UCAS Personal Statement is a structured academic argument in 4,000 characters, written to show subject readiness and intellectual motivation. Canadian short-answer questions ask for specific personal experiences described concisely and honestly. A UCAS-style response to a UBC Personal Profile question will read as over-formal and misaligned with what the question is asking. Write each component for its own format.
How should CBSE and ICSE students frame their academic background in Canadian application essays?
Briefly and factually. Canadian admissions staff are familiar with Indian curricula at institutions with large international applicant pools. You do not need to explain the CBSE or ICSE system in detail. A single sentence noting your board and the subjects you studied is sufficient context. Spend your available characters on what you did and what it meant, not on explaining the system you studied under.
Does UBC read all Personal Profile responses, or only some of them?
UBC reviews the Personal Profile as part of a holistic review process for applicants who meet the academic threshold for their programme. All submitted responses are read by trained readers who compare profiles across thousands of applications.
How long should each UBC Personal Profile response be?
Each question has its own character limit, ranging from 500 to 2,100 characters. Work within the limit for each question and do not assume all questions have the same ceiling. Responses should be as long as they need to be to fully answer the question with specific evidence, and no longer. Padding to reach a character limit is visible and counterproductive.
Is the U of T Engineering Online Student Profile really mandatory?
Yes. The OSP, including the Personal Profile with its written and video components, is a mandatory part of the U of T Engineering application. The university's own page states clearly: if you do not submit your Online Student Profile, your application will not be considered for admission.
What if I completely freeze during the U of T video response?
Take a breath, pause for two or three seconds, and continue from where you were. A composed pause is entirely normal and entirely acceptable. What hurts a response is visible panic, an apology and restart, or a response that trails off without finishing. U of T's own FAQ page says: 'We understand that some students may be nervous on camera. Please do your best to be yourself.' If you have practiced speaking through engineering topics before opening the portal, the risk of freezing is significantly lower.
The Waterloo AIF seems very detailed. How much time should I allow for it?
Significantly more than most students budget. The activity descriptions alone, done well, take several hours if you are being specific and honest about each one. The short-answer questions require their own preparation. Budget at least two full working sessions for the AIF, and do not leave it to the final week before the deadline. Waterloo's deadlines for Engineering and CS programs are early, and the AIF is not a form you can complete in an hour.
My grades are strong. Do I really need to put serious effort into the written components?
For the universities covered in this guide, yes. At UBC, the Personal Profile is a genuine differentiator in a competitive applicant pool and is used for entrance scholarship consideration as well. At U of T Engineering, the Online Student Profile is mandatory and taken seriously in the review. At Waterloo, the AIF is a meaningful part of the application for CS and Engineering. Strong grades get you to the stage where the essays are read. They do not make the essays irrelevant.
Do Canadian universities consider demonstrated interest, the way some US universities do?
No. Demonstrated interest, attending information sessions, opening emails, visiting campus, is not a formal factor in Canadian undergraduate admissions in the way it functions at some US institutions. Write your essays because the written components are evaluated, not as a signal of enthusiasm for the institution.
I am applying to both the US and Canada. Can I work on both sets of applications at the same time?
You can, and many students do. What you cannot do is recycle content effectively between them. A Common App personal statement and a UBC Personal Profile serve different purposes and should be written separately from scratch. The UBC deadline of January 15 falls after most US Early Decision and Early Action deadlines, which helps with sequencing. The Waterloo AIF recommended deadline of December 2 falls in the middle of US application season. Start Canadian materials earlier than feels necessary.
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