Declaration of personal experience

No. Although admission is not guaranteed, applicants who can be admitted on the basis of their marks alone will be admitted solely based on these marks. However, we understand that academic results are not the only way for applicants to demonstrate that they are ready for university. Inclusive admission aims to widen admission to applicants whose admission average is below the required average by allowing them to highlight other aspects of their personal experiences that may be relevant. 

Fill out the Declaration of Personal Experience if you expect your mid-year average to be lower than the minimum average for admission to the program to which you have applied.

No.

No. You can only submit one Declaration of Personal Experience per admission term.  

Your Declaration will be evaluated once we have received all your mid-year marks, and only if we see that your admission average is lower than the minimum average for admission to the program(s) you have applied for.

Only Canadian students and students with permanent resident or refugee/protected person status can use the declaration. 

Submit a Declaration of Personal Experience as soon as you apply for admission. There’s no deadline, but any declaration received after an admission decision has been issued isn’t considered.

For Ontario high school students, if you haven’t received an admission offer by the end of March (for the Fall session), submit a Declaration of Personal Experience if you have something to share with us about your strengths as a potential student.   

We will not be sending any feedback on the evaluation of the Declaration of Personal Experience. The amount of time required to evaluate an application for admission is subject to a number of factors. The University of Ottawa sends out its admission decisions as soon as possible once evaluations are complete. You can track the progress of the evaluation of your application for admission in the admission portal, which you can access through uoZone.

Faculty staff members.

The Declaration of Personal Experience must be submitted in time to be considered during the evaluation of your admission documents. Declarations submitted after the University has issued a denial of admission will not be considered.

Answer the questions briefly and honestly; highlight aspects of your experiences that show why you are confident that you will succeed at university.

The form asks questions about how you spent your time outside of school, along with open-ended questions about your personal experiences and how they affected your decision to pursue university, and the impact of your circumstances on your marks.

Our approach to evaluating applications for admissions aims to take into consideration all of an applicant’s qualities to gain a general idea of their ability to succeed in university. No specific weighting is given to the answers given in the Declaration of Personal Experience.

Yes. Submitting a Declaration of Personal Experience does not guarantee admission. However, you may be offered admission to a program other than the one you applied for.

Yes. The University of Ottawa has a full range of free services to help students succeed. In certain cases, applicants admitted on the basis of a Declaration of Personal Experience may need to comply with certain conditions during their first year to help them adjust to life at university and to ensure their success (i.e., receive academic help, a reduced workload, remedial courses for certain subjects, etc.). These measures will be set by the faculty members when the student is admitted and will be specific to each case.
Our research shows that students who make use of academic support services in their first year are less likely to drop out in second year than those who do not take advantage of such services. The University of Ottawa’s academic support offers a range of free services, including:

• mentorship
• tutoring (in math, chemistry, physics and philosophy)
• the Academic Writing Help Centre
• counselling and coaching
• academic accommodations (support services) that are granted under certain circumstances. 

No. The Declaration has no effect on the calculation of your admission average, which is used to determine eligibility for the automatic admission scholarship. 

No. Students who are eligible for admission on the basis of their academic marks alone will not be penalized by the information provided in their Declaration. Those who would have automatically been denied admission now have a chance of being admitted.  The University of Ottawa is committed to providing its students, faculty members and support staff with a knowledge and leadership environment that fosters equity, diversity and inclusion. Moreover, the panel of experts that evaluate the declarations have been trained to be aware of unconscious cognitive biases so that they can overcome barriers to inclusion and build a more equitable and inclusive university community.

The evaluation committee may request proof or check some of the information provided in the declaration (i.e., ask for a medical certificate). A Declaration of Personal Experience that is false, or for which supporting documents cannot be provided, may be excluded from consideration during the admission process.

No. If you submit a new application in the future, you will also need to submit a new Declaration of Personal Experience.