> I'm convinced good students don't need good universities as much as good universities need good students. I get the same internships and job opportunities as someone that went to UofT and I'm studying much of the same curriculum.

In Engineering+Accounting+Actuary+Nursing I agree.

> The higher level of competitiveness is hurting the best universities during that acceptance phase. Ontario universities are no longer able to differentiate between the best and average.

Same thing in California, and that's largely because faculty hiring and infrastructure just didn't keep pace with the amount of students declaring Engineering+Accounting+Actuary+Nursing majors (Accounting+Actuary+Nursing face the same problems as STEM fields), which meant admissions need to be much more competitive because you can only teach so many students.

I assume it's a similar story in Ontario due to decades of austerity in the province.

> Even so, because the acceptance phase no longer differentiates, a lot of good students that would beat the second phase are caught in the first filter.

Yep. Because infrastructure didn't scale.

> Waterloo is an exception because it has introduced math competitions across the province as a way to identify "A+++" students, but only Waterloo benefits from that

Yep, the Euclid is basically a soft requirement now for Waterloo CS admissions.

Honestly, Ontario should just ditch "autonomous" universities and merge them under a single "University of Ontario" system and simplifying cross-system course transfers.

Ontario should also force Colleges to stop giving Bachelors degrees and convert them either into Community Colleges to transfer to a University or convert larger Colleges into Universities.

This is what Quebec does, and most state systems in the US (California, Texas, New York, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, etc).

There is no reason for UWaterloo or Wilfrid Laurier to be two different universities despite being a couple blocks away from each other.

Same for UT, UT Scarborough, York, TMU/Ryerson, etc all in GTA

To add on, I’ve worked with a lot of current and past Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) students at an aerospace industry non-profit. I do not see a difference with their quality of work and dedication between them and University of Toronto (UofT) students. Several of these students went on to land engineering and research internships at the Canadian Space Agency or work at a well-known aerospace company.

The main advantage that UofT has for its undergraduates is related to funding. UofT’s engineering design teams tend to be better-funded than TMU’s, though TMU’s engineering design teams still perform very well—proudly outperforming UofT’s teams in certain years despite the funding gaps. In addition, some TMU students I’ve spoken with mentioned that UofT has more research opportunities. The name of the university also has a positive impact on admissions for students applying to graduate school. These advantages are not a reflection of the students who attend, but rather UofT’s ability to raise funds.

There is also a disadvantage I’ve seen at UofT. The TMU engineering students I’ve known have mentioned getting extensions approved easily for assignments and homework, to pursue professional opportunities such as hackathons and conferences. That is generally unheard of, from my experience in a STEM program at UofT. Policies are strictly outlined (with some leniency in many courses, such as dropping the lowest assignment mark), and I generally have not seen professors grant exceptions to these.

But the main difference I’ve seen between TMU people and UofT people is university pride. I’ve met several people who were proud to go to TMU and succeed, whereas I haven’t seen that at UofT (with the exception of UofT’s engineering department). I’m satisfied with the opportunities I’ve gotten due to attending UofT—especially as I was involved with its on-campus work program and an engineering design team there—but I haven’t met many UofT people fiercely proud of their school, in contrast to the TMU people I’ve met.

In any case, I am happy to work with people from either school. Work experience and personality has mattered more to me than the name of the university that a person went to, and both TMU and UofT offer great opportunities for students to gain relevant experience—though these are up to the students to pursue, outside of their required classes.