Guide for Ontario parents
How the Top 6 Average Works for Ontario University Admission
Every Ontario student applying to an Ontario university is assessed on the same number: the average of their best six Grade 12 U and M courses. Almost everything else in Grade 12 — which courses to take, which mark to worry about, whether to retake something — follows from how that number is built.
What the Top 6 actually is
Ontario universities calculate an admission average from a student’s six best Grade 12 U-level or M-level course marks. Grade 9, 10 and 11 marks are not counted. Neither are Grade 12 courses at the C or O level.
The critical detail most families miss is that the six are not simply the six highest marks on the transcript. Programme prerequisites must be included in the six, whether or not they are your best marks. An engineering applicant must count MHF4U, MCV4U, SCH4U and SPH4U, plus ENG4U. That leaves exactly one free slot, and it means a weak mark in a required course cannot be dropped — it drags the whole average.
Which courses to use for the free slots
Once prerequisites are counted, the remaining slots should be filled with the strongest available U or M marks. Courses that students commonly use here include MDM4U, BOH4M, HSB4U, CGW4U and CLN4U — not because they are easier, but because they reward organised, consistent work rather than a single difficult examination.
Taking a seventh or eighth Grade 12 U course is a legitimate hedge. If one goes badly, it drops out of the six.
How conditional offers work
Most offers issued in the spring are conditional. They are based on interim marks and are honoured only if the final average holds. A student who receives an offer at 91 and finishes at 86 can have it revoked, and this happens every July.
If a final mark is going to fall short, contact the university admissions office rather than waiting. Institutions vary in flexibility, but they respond much better to a student who tells them in June than one they discover in July.
If a mark is holding you back
Repeating a Grade 11 or 12 course is normal and widely done. Under Ontario Student Record guidelines, all attempts appear on the transcript, but only one earns the credit — the higher mark — and universities assess on the highest mark achieved.
The practical question is timing. A course retaken in the summer after Grade 12 arrives too late for most first-round offers. Retaking during Grade 12, or upgrading in a fifth year, both work; a summer scramble usually does not.
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