45 Facts You May Not Know About the OUAC

  1. In 1963, a study was published on the “needs and design of a centre for applications for admission to the universities of Ontario”. It was proposed that, “If possible the centre should be located away from a university”.
  2. Toronto, Hamilton, Waterloo and Guelph were proposed locations for the OUAC back in 1971. The OUAC was located near the University of Guelph after Herb Pettipiere, as folklore alleges, outlined it as a requirement before accepting the position of Executive Director.
  3. In 1971, the starting wage for an OUAC programmer was $8,400 per annum. Academic and administrative department head secretaries made $4,283 per annum.
  4. The 101 and 105 division/application names were based on the form numbers assigned by the printing company to the original printed application forms.
  5. The OUAC's total operating cost for 1971-1972 was $325,450, $124,000 of which contributed to company salaries and benefits. By 2011, OUAC operations and fund balance requirements cost approximately $10 million.
  6. Allegedly, the address for the OUAC's first official location - at the former Omark Canada building - is so hard to find because Herb Pettipiere didn't want the address to be known to students; mail was sent to a P.O. Box.
  7. 135,361 undergraduate applications were processed during the OUAC's first operating year.
  8. In the beginning, the undergraduate application fee was just $4. When OMSAS joined, application fees were $10. TEAS applications were $7 when they first began.
  9. In 1972, the Communication "Division's" tasks consisted of sending information to Ontario secondary schools in the form of a poster that said: "Applying for Admission to an Ontario University?" and an outline of the application procedure.
  10. According to the OUAC's 1972-1973 operational procedures manual, the OUAC's list of documents consisted of a whopping eight forms to be filled out by Grade 13 students.
  11. In its annual brief to the provincial committee on university affairs in 1973, one particular university said that "the Centre serves no useful purpose." It later conceded that point.
  12. In 1975, the first year the OUAC processed OMSAS applications, there were 11,006 applications.
  13. In 1979, the first year for TEAS applications, there were 11,855 applications.
  14. In 1982, the bulk of applications from Grade 13 students indicated a renewed interest in the sciences, engineering, and job-oriented university programs.
  15. In the early paper application years of the OUAC, applications were photocopied on a Xerox 8200 photocopier. Imagine having to photocopy 70,000 undergraduate applications forms!
  16. Before the OUAC had computers and data terminals onsite, punch cards were used as part of the undergraduate application process. An IBM 125 key punch machine then read the data, processed it and printed out a paper report.
  17. In the days of paper applications and endless mail, the OUAC received mail from all over the world, making it a stamp collector's paradise.
  18. At the 20th anniversary lunch on February 13, 1992, Director Greg Marcotte ended his speech with the following: "All of us at the Centre look forward to being of service to you and your applicants for the next twenty years at least!" Quite humorous, in hindsight, now that the OUAC is celebrating its 45th.
  19. In 1997, when the OUAC began to process Law School applications, 11,961 were submitted.
  20. The first two-day Ontario Universities' Fair (OUF) was held September 13-14, 1997 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre with an estimated attendance of 30,000 people. The OUF has since grown to host more than 130,000 students, parents and educators each fall.
  21. When Rehabilitation Sciences joined the OUAC's application process in 2000, 2,367 applications were submitted.
  22. In 1999, the OUAC's submission, "Ontario Universities' Electronic Transcript System (OUETS): A Model of an Electronic Standardization Initiative," won the Postsecondary Electronic Standards Council's (PESC) Best Practices Competition - an internationally recognized prize in the area of electronic standards initiatives.
  23. In 1999, the OUAC Safety Committee was born after a delivery person was injured on the premises.
  24. In anticipation of the OMSAS deadline in 2001, the OUAC's internet bandwidth was increased fourfold. Despite this increase, there were so many applicants using the online application that the system became congested. The OUAC's bandwidth was increased another threefold as a result.
  25. In 2003, during the double cohort year when the last group of Grade 13 students graduated at the same time as Grade 12 students, the OUAC received 86,000 online applications in 60 days.
  26. In 2009, the OUAC processed 85,244 applications for 101 applicants and 54,773 applications for 105 applicants, handled 32,562 calls, and answered 13,551 applicant email messages.
  27. By 2011, approximately 99% of all applications received by the OUAC were completed online.
  28. The OUAC website received more than 6.5 million visits from 215 countries in 2011.
  29. By 2012, the OUAC had processed more than 14 million applications, filed by more than 4.5 million applicants.
  30. In 2012, the application fee for 101 applicants was $125 and $130 for 105D applicants.
  31. The OUAC's Barracuda Spam Firewall has blocked 12,350,512 messages (approximately 1,417 per day) that are legitimate spam since the OUAC started using it in October 2004.
  32. The application processing fee and other contract work are the OUAC's only source of funding, which contributes to an annual revenue of more than $50 million; OUAC operations and fund balance requirements cost approximately $10 million and the balance of revenue is distributed to the universities to cover a portion of their recruitment and admissions costs.
  33. More than 200,000 individual applicants annually file approximately 600,000 application selections.
  34. By 2012, the OUAC employed 60 full-time and approximately 10 part-time employees.
  35. The OUAC uses 75 desktop PCs, several high-speed printers and a combination of VMware, Linux, Microsoft Windows and IBM POWER servers for application processing and various associated services.
  36. All of the OUAC's external forms and publications are bilingual; one quarter of OUAC full-time employees are fluently bilingual.
  37. The OUAC produces more than 20 bilingual publications each year. These widely-distributed publications include application booklets, forms, newsletters, posters, brochures and bookmarks.
  38. The OUAC prints many of its annual publications and envelopes on FSC-certified paper stock. Each year, the OUAC increases the number of publications that bear the FSC logo.
  39. The OUAC uses biodegradable poly mailers for large documents. These are large, plastic envelopes that contain an additive that allows them to biodegrade after two years in a landfill, thereby reducing the burden of persistent plastics in the environment.
  40. When the OUAC moved to its Research Lane location in 2001, the custodian collected eight bags of garbage per day. Now that staff recycles, he collects only two bags per day.
  41. In 2016, we began phishing training to assist OUAC staff in recognizing bogus/phishing emails. For some organizations, untrained employees are the weakest link in information security.
  42. As of summer 2017, we had just over 6-million logins to the AMS during its first cycle!
  43. In the first year of offering online references for OMSAS, OLSAS and ORPAS, we received just over 36,000 documents online. That is a lot less mail to open a year!
  44. Since OUETS started processing electronic transcripts, more than 1,693,214 transcripts have been sent through electronically.
  45. By 2017, the OUAC employed 75 full-time and approximately 10 part-time employees.