Ivey AEO, Queen's Commerce, Schulich, Sauder, Rotman Commerce and HEC Montreal Compared

Two different entry models

Canadian business schools that admit direct from high school split into two groups. Schulich (York), Rotman Commerce (University of Toronto) and Sauder (UBC) put you straight into the business faculty in first year. Ivey (Western) uses a two-stage model called Advanced Entry Opportunity (AEO), where you pre-qualify from high school but do not formally join the Ivey HBA program until after two years of prerequisite coursework at Western. Queen's Commerce also admits directly from high school into the Smith School of Business. HEC Montreal runs on a different track entirely, since its Bachelor in Business Administration (BAA) is a French-language program with its own admission process through Quebec's CEGEP or equivalent system.

Ivey AEO: pre-qualify, then confirm

Ivey's AEO is conditional pre-admission. You apply to Western through the Ontario Universities' Application Centre and submit a separate Ivey supplemental application with essays, an activity list and a video interview through Kira Talent, typically 20 to 30 minutes long, according to Ivey's AEO admission page . Ivey looks for a low 90s average across your best six Grade 12 courses, including English, plus a university-level math course, and weighs leadership and extracurricular activity alongside grades. You then spend two years completing prerequisite coursework at Western while holding your conditional seat, and must meet progression standards to keep it. About 75% of each Ivey HBA class arrives through AEO rather than the standard second-year application.

Schulich BBA: grades plus a supplementary weighed equally

York's Schulich School of Business admits its BBA class using two equally weighted criteria: your Grade 12 academic record and a supplementary application assessing leadership, teamwork, resilience and empathy, per Schulich's own admissions page . Ontario applicants need ENG4U and MHF4U at a minimum 70%, plus MCV4U or MDM4U, among their top six courses. Recent cutoffs have landed around the low 90s, though meeting a minimum average does not guarantee a seat since the supplementary component carries equal weight. Students choose up to two specializations, from eleven options including Finance, Marketing and Business Analytics, starting in year three.

Queen's Commerce, Sauder and Rotman Commerce

Queen's Commerce, UBC Sauder's Bachelor of Commerce and the University of Toronto's Rotman Commerce program share a broadly similar shape to Schulich: direct admission from high school, a competitive academic average, and a supplementary application layer beyond grades alone. All three are consistently among the most selective undergraduate business admissions in the country. Exact admission averages and supplementary application formats shift from cycle to cycle, so treat any number you see outside the school's own current admissions page as a rough guide rather than a target. Confirm the live requirements directly on each school's admissions site before you build a course plan or application timeline around a specific figure.

If you don't get admitted directly from high school, most of these schools accept a small number of internal transfer applicants after a year in another faculty at the same university, though seats are limited, competitive, and governed by a GPA threshold and application window set by each school individually. Treat internal transfer as a genuine backup route, not a guaranteed second chance, and check the specific policy directly with the business school rather than assuming it works the same way everywhere.

HEC Montreal: language changes the comparison

HEC Montreal's BAA is not a like-for-like comparison with the five English-language programs above. Teaching is primarily in French, and the school offers a bilingual study option alongside the standard French-language track, according to HEC Montreal's bachelor's program page . If you are an anglophone Canadian applicant considering HEC, your French proficiency matters as much as your academic record, since even a bilingual stream still runs core coursework in French. Confirm current language testing and stream details directly with HEC admissions before applying, since this is not a program you can complete without working French.

How to actually choose between them

Start with geography and language fit before you compare prestige. If French is not workable for you day to day, HEC Montreal is out regardless of how strong your grades are. From there, decide whether you want to lock in a direct business seat in year one (Schulich, Sauder, Rotman Commerce, Queen's) or you are comfortable with the AEO model's two-year conditional period at Western before your HBA seat is confirmed.

None of these six programs will admit you on grades alone. Every one layers a supplementary evaluation, whether that is an essay set, a video interview or an activity list, on top of your transcript. Start that supplementary work early, since a rushed essay or interview undoes an otherwise strong academic file. Draft essays around specific stories rather than general claims, and rehearse any video interview component out loud before you record it, since a hesitant delivery reads worse than an average slightly below the published range.