Does anyone know when Euclid scores come out? Impatient mom here. 
@mathmomvt They say 4-6 weeks after the contest, but I recall receiving them near the end of April. Waterloo starts a big roll out of admissions the first week of May.
They’re out! Is there any way to predict what scholarships might be offered based on results (American student)?
http://www.cemc.uwaterloo.ca/contests/past_contests/EuclidResults.pdf
I think generally scores above 80 are used to recommend Math students for the advanced versions of the basic classes. They give about 200 Math Faculty scholarships per year, but they are based on more than the Euclid, and not everyone taking the Euclid will be applying. But it looks like 83 or above would put you in the top 211 students taking the Euclid this year, so with strong grades and AIF, I’d assume you’d get something from the faculty of math. There are other University-wide entrance scholarships based just on grades, as I’m sure you know.
One thing I did find out is that they won’t look at your grade 11 Euclid score for anything, apparently. That’s what they told us when we visited. So for my DS this year was just practice. @m0mr0cks , is your student already admitted?
@mathmomvt, DS is a junior this year. Thanks for your response; I know very little about the Waterloo admissions process. My understanding is that there is a sort of “rolling admissions” for students with high stats? Hopefully, DS will fall into this category ( 97+% averages, several years of post calculus courses, likely NMF, 36 ACT, EC’s, etc.). He learned about the Euclid (and Waterloo) just a few days before the school registration deadline and did zero preparation. He hasn’t received his score yet, but found his name on the results list, so knows the range. The hope is that he can have a plan in place well before May. It will be disappointing if he has to retake the Euclid next April and wait for acceptance. He is a student athlete and would likely have to commit to a US school before then. It will be interesting to see how the timeline works out.
@m0mr0cks the Canadian admission process is very late compared to the US one – typically they don’t even start making the bulk of their admission offers until mid- to late May. They do know that American students need to know before May 1 at the very latest, and they “try” to give you a decision by then. From what I understand, even the “early” admissions offers at Waterloo are very late – like starting in late March. And I suspect that even with an early admission offer, scholarship offers (if we’re talking about faculty of Mathematics, including CS) will wait until after the Euclid is written, though they did say that when they are trying to do an early decision for somewhere, they can grab their paper and score it early – that is, they don’t have to wait for all scores to be completed and distributed to know your kid’s score. They were pretty adamant that they would not offer scholarships based on an 11th grade score, although it seems silly to me, since if their 11th grade score is high enough to warrant a scholarship, most likely their 12th grade score would be even higher. Although they denied that they would look at any reason, I suspect that for admissions (but not scholarship consideration), a high grade 11 Euclid score would help solidify an otherwise strong application.
What is your DS hoping to study there? (Mine is interested in CS co-op)
He should contact an admissions officer for the faculty he is interested in and ask whether there is a possibility of getting a decision by the date he would need one. And when he applies he needs to remind them when he needs his decision by. They did say they would try to get people a decision if they need one for a certain date, and having acceptances to American schools of similar caliber helps nudge things along.
Are the athletics at Waterloo of an appropriate caliber for your student athlete son? My recollection is that sports are not their forte, to put it gently. But maybe there are a few where they are stronger.
@mathmomvt, thanks for the information. The delay relative to US schools is troublesome, but I understand the need to work within their system. True, sports may not be the forte, but I would be just as happy to see the focus on his schooling. His sport is a great social outlet for him, and I think that’s a big reason he doesn’t want to give it up. He’s interested in a math/CS co-op; I don’t recall the exact program title. It sounds like our kiddos might connect somewhere down the line!
Off topic, but DS visited UWaterloo in August. We met with the international admissions representative, and unfortunately, they are unable to accept 529 plans at this time. This is a dealbreaker for us, sadly. Unless the status changes, UWaterloo is off his list.
Check with your 529 Plan. I believe you can take a distribution for qualified educational expenses and make the payment yourself.
Oh wow, I just checked here and they are not listed. That’s going to be a problem for us as well! ugh!
@mathmomvt @m0mr0cks It may be that due to co-op, and students changing from student to employed status every 4 months, it is too difficult to support 529 and FAFSA documentation. D16 is a Waterloo student (Canadian). She has a Canadian source of funding (not OSAP or similar) that she only gets if she is a full time student. It stops every time she is on co-op.
@mathmomvt just checking in to see if you have any new information. We visited UWaterloo in August and were told that the November CSMC would be accepted this year for the first time to qualify for departmental scholarships. DS took the CSMC and did well, but the website still shows only the Euclid as the qualifying exam. Update: I just spoke with a Waterloo admissions representative who confirmed verbally that either the CSMC or the Euclid taken senior year can be used to qualify for admissions and math department scholarships. I’m on hold now with the financial aid office re: FAFSA/ 529 usage update. Waterloo has applied to reinstate their status so 529 $ can be used. Fingers crossed!
That’s good news about the CSMC – my S took it as well and did quite well on it, we didn’t think it would count for scholarships, but figured it might help him get an early decision out of them. Also good news about the 529 $. Keep in mind that you only pay tax and such on the earnings in your 529 account. For us that is minimal compared to the amount of money we will save by him going to school in Canada if he goes there, so they’re still high on our list even if the 529 thing doesn’t work out. But good to know that that is in process in case it makes sense to hold those $$ for future years and pay from other funds freshman year. Has your S completed his application? Mine has done the main app but not the AIF though he has promised to do so in the next couple of weeks.
@mathmomvt the international admissions rep responded to my questions about 529 plan reinstatement. It seems that there is a sort of “provisional” reinstatement and it is at the discretion of the 529 account institution whether to approve the tax free release of the funds. She was able to provide a school code to use when phoning our 529 account administrators. I think my DS is still working on his AIF. I can’t wait for the whole process to be over!
@m0mr0cks I’m with you on wishing it were over already. The provisional thing sounds good. As long as there is a school code, we should be good. (You don’t need your 529 administrator to send the money directly to the school – you can also take a withdrawal to pay qualified expenses, I’m pretty sure. At least with our plan you can.)
Waterloo admissions update: DS called the American admissions representative last week and was told that the decision would be released this month. His CSMC scores from November were accepted for consideration so he is not retaking the Euclid. He has some solid choices, so I don’t know how high Waterloo is on his list at this point, but it will be nice to have all of the options on the table.
My DS received an offer on Friday from CS co-op (with a decent Math scholarship) so it appears that they did indeed use his CSMC scores. (We were surprised to get the offer before he has a grade 12 English mid-term grade, since English is only a 2nd semester class for him.) I think he will re-write the Euclid this week anyhow. We don’t know if they might increase his scholarship if his Euclid score is better, and he likes doing the contests anyway. He has not yet gotten a decision from Software Engineering, but CS was his preference in any case. Waterloo CS is among his top choices, so we will visit again over spring break. (Unfortunately, they will be in exams, so it’s not an ideal time to visit, but nothing we can do about that.)
Good luck to your DS as well!
My son is waiting for a Math decision from Waterloo and wondering if asking for a decision before May 1 (the deadline for some US offers) might hurt his application or chances for scholarships. He is writing the Euclid on Wednesday.
When we visited last year, they told us that if an American applicant was a competitive candidate they could pull his/her Euclid and score it at the top of the pile to get an idea if the student would be scholarship-eligible. Of course they won’t have the exact average/percentile until they get them all scored, but I bet they get a good idea pretty early on in the scoring how the numbers are going to fall out. I think he should definitely contact them and ask if it will be possible to get a decision by May 1. They did tell us that they “do their best” to give admission decisions for Americans by May 1, but they don’t guarantee it.
As an aside, my DS got a nice card today with his snail mailed copy of his admission and scholarship offer, hand-written by a student who had obviously read his AIF and commented on several of his interests.
@mathmomvt, congratulations to your DS! My DS spoke with admissions earlier and was told he could expect a decision in March (in math faculty). When April came, he called again, and was told they needed a request for an early decision in writing along with an offer from a US school. He was pretty late getting his AIF submitted. He sent the email along with his Caltech acceptance letter:).