UW compsci/engineering reference

[kamikami]

I'm going to apply to university in a few weeks or so, and I have a few questions about computer science at waterloo.

Do you need a teacher's reference in addition to your AIF for computer science? Do you need one for the engineering programs at UW?
How does it work? Do you have to hand in the reference letter with the AIF or is there a spot on the AIF for your teacher to write something?

thanks

[[Gandalf]]

No idea about engineering programs, but if you're filling one out for CS, you'll need a teacher's recommendation. Basically, you choose whether to print out your AIF, let the teacher fill out the necessary info, and then have them send it in for you or you fill it out online, giving your teacher's email, and they are sent an email requesting to fill out the AIF online. Either way, the point is for you not to be aware of what they say about you.

What they fill out is basically a rating of you from 1 to 5 in different areas or some such. They also have room for additional comments.

Hope that clears things up for you.

[endless]

i just did this about an hour ago. you need to have your advanced function or calc. teacher's email and at the bottom of the aif there is a spot for the teacher's name and email and they receive the form to fill out and send back. if the teacher would prefer to do it on paper rather than email, you will print it off and they fill it out and mail it to the university. its really quite simple, just let your teacher know and get the email first and all will be good.

(btw, this was for cs at waterloo, not sure about the faculty of engineering(dif. aif), but the fac. of math is all on the same aif)

[Horus]

my advanced function teacher is horrible with english, she said she would have failed english back in grade 12, but luckily you don't need english to graduate back then...

I'm kinda worried about her not knowing what to write on AIF, or write stuff with horrible grammar...

I wonder why they would need the teacher's reference...

[jbking]

The teacher's reference adds to what the school can know about the student in some terms that may not quantify well into grades, e.g. how well does the student learn new concepts, think in terms of algorithms, communicate well.

Don't forget that it is a Waterloo specific thing, where they adjust your grade and Descartes scores and want to round out how well a student would you be.

I remember back in my day when there was a requirement that if you didn't have at least 80% in your English OAC you had to write this English test. Fortunately, I didn't have to do that since I had an 84 in OAC English.

(OAC = Grade 13 = 5th year high school course that used to exist in Ontario in them olden days)

(Edit added test and OAC bits)

[Fozmik]

When does the AIF need to be completed for Comp Sci? It says "It is recommended that you complete your AIF within 3 weeks of receiving your acknowledgement email. March 6, 2009, is the final deadline for submission." What is the acknowledgment email? Is it the email titled "Your next steps in UW?s admissions process"? I got this email on Dec 4.

Do I really need to complete the AIF now or can I wait until semester 1 is over so I can put some of my marks on there.

[endless]

i'm pretty sure it refers to that first email when you applied. i talked to my teacher about it and he said he had already done a few so i decided to just send mine in now. they will get your marks when they become available, and they do most of their acceptance mid april so we aren't even going to be looked at until april for us doing the euclid contest. Unless you are mid 90 average and wanting early admission, it doesn't really matter when you send it in, but they don't want any lates so they tell us 3 weeks.

[Prabhakar Ragde]

Acceptances go out from UW in batches, the last batch being in mid-April. There is a heck of a lot of work for admission committees to do before that, so don't annoy them by leaving your application incomplete.

Your school sends out marks via OUAC and UW (and everyone else to whom you applied) gets them automatically, so you don't need to talk about them on your AIF. --PR