Quick Tips for Getting Into Western AEO

Krishan Karia

The Western AEO designation to the Ivey Business School is one of the most unique undergraduate business programs to enter out of high school. Although the application can seem intimidating from a glance it becomes much more manageable when broken down. As a whole the application is weighted 50% for marks and 50% for the supplementary application.

In order to put together your best top 6 average the best advice I could give is to maximize the courses you fast track (take in advance to your grade 12 year) by taking them in years prior or in summer/online school.

Next, for the supplementary application there are 2 extra-curricular based essays, 1 prompt-based essay, and activity/experience lists. For your extracurricular essays it is best to structure it based on the 5 key words given “teamwork, initiative, achievement, commitment and breadth” ensuring to have a clear supporting fact or situation for each. For example, to fulfill the teamwork element briefly talk about a scenario where you demonstrated this quality, or for the achievement element mention a distinction or ranking you received in the activity.

Moving on, with the recent addition of an essay prompt question the most important thing is to focus on being unique in your answer and doing your research. In my case, I did research by reading through Ivey Business articles related to the essay question to gain further clarity on what was being asked for and hinting at proof of this by name dropping authors or quoting the content.

Finally, the list sections of the application are meant for brief descriptions of other activities, but overall is not as significant. A few additional activities for each section is more than enough assuming they show a diverse set of extracurriculars and work experiences.