As Ontario high school grades keep rising, graduating students worry about their university future

mayan Duckworth-Pilkington spent the number one 2 weeks of jan interred in her textbooks, studying. 

Until she submitted her final advanced functions exam, the Rosedale Heights School of the Arts senior didn’t realize how much time and effort she was putting into her studies.

“The pressure is higher than ever to do well,” she explained over text message. “People aren’t sleeping well, eating well or getting leisure time.”  

At the time of writing her exams, Duckworth-Pilkington said she had an average of 96 per cent. She’s a peer tutor, co-president of a leadership club, an editor for the school paper, and a production head for her school’s musical theatre program.

Despite that, she’s not sure if she’s going to get into the university program of her choice. 

The numbers paint a stark picture of what it’s like to be a graduating student in the province right now, as university admissions ramp up and education experts call for an overhaul of both the high school grading system and the university admissions process. 

It’s not just higher grades that are being given out to more students, according to Sachin Maharaj, an assistant professor of educational leadership, policy and program evaluation at the University of Ottawa who teaches about grade inflation. 

Maharaj says grades in high schools tend to cluster at two different ends: around the cutoff grade for a passing mark, which is 50 per cent, and at the higher end, in the A+ range.

“There’s increased pressure on teachers to get students to pass their classes either by helping them learn more, or by artificially inflating their grades to get them above the cutoff mark so that they achieve the credit," said Maharaj. 

“All of the incentives in the system are for teachers to do that.”

On the other side of the grading spectrum, there’s an incentive for schools to give out high grades so they can report that their students are getting into prestigious programs, says Maharaj. 

“It's really this arms race that there's no way to climb down from,” Maharaj said. “If some people are doing it, you're just hurting yourself and your students if you don't also do it.”

But it’s also increasing anxiety, with hundreds of graduating students taking to online forums to voice their stress.

“90s everywhere else except 1 [prerequisite] - am I cooked?” reads one Reddit user’s post from earlier this month in the group r/OntarioGrade12s. 

“Can’t rlly enjoy this break because most of the programs I applied to require mid-80s, some require 90s. My avg is oscillating between 83-86 throughout the year. So [right now], it's a struggle to sleep at night,” reads another post from over the winter break. 

Monika Ferenczy, a senior education consultant and owner of Horizon Education Consulting, says she’s encountered that kind of stress from students much more frequently over the last few years in her practice.

“Many students want to redo a course to get a higher average,” she said. “One of the options is to do that online or in the summer because they feel that they can do better.”

Ferenczy says she’s also noticed parents of students as young as Grade 7 calling her to ask how their kids can get into competitive post-secondary programs. 

“[They’re] saying, ‘what do I need to do now so I can get into medical school?’ That is really very new,” she said.   

The latest data from the COU also shows a sharp increase from 2020 to 2021 in the number of high school students that entered university with an average of 95 per cent or higher. 

For schools like OCAD University and Toronto Metropolitan University, the number of students with such a high average more than doubled in that timeframe. And in 2021 alone, almost half of the Grade 12 students admitted to Waterloo and McMaster all had averages of 95 per cent or higher. 

The numbers mirror what Ferenczy sees in her practice. She says that grade inflation has been ongoing for years, but it really became pronounced during the COVID-19 pandemic.

It’s gotten so pronounced, Ferenczy says, she now has students considering going into college first, so that they can apply to university as mature students with a post-secondary transcript — where the admissions criteria is different. 

“It’s dysfunctional,” said Ferenczy. “The grade inflation issue will continue, and I don't know where it's going to end in terms of who is going to shut this down.”

In a statement, Ontario's Ministry of Colleges, Universities, Research Excellence and Security said the government is currently consulting with institutions, students and stakeholders on admissions as part of its Supporting Students and Children Act. The act, passed in 2025, requires public colleges and universities to have merit-based admissions policies and to publicize their admissions processes, according to the ministry.

Maharaj says admissions processes need to become more transparent so that students can set reasonable expectations for when they apply, but it’s not the only possible workaround. 

“I think eventually, if the trend keeps going in this direction, we're going to see the introduction of a standardized assessment that's used for university admissions,” he said.

Ferenczy says the onus should be on universities to tackle the problem. 

“It's been the same process for almost 50 years, so nothing has really changed and followed in terms of evolution in an admissions process,” she said. 

“In the past, parents would want their children to go to the same universities — their alma mater that they went to. That’s not a reality now. … It’s not about where I’m going to go, it’s who’s going to accept me.”

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