Don't be foolish. "I can assure ..more than marks"
You have no idea how little you know about Engineering & CS at Waterloo.
This is an academic setting where
you actually have to pass a rigorous academic program marks matter very much. Merit does not include your ability to MSOG or play the skin flute. This is Engineering and Computer Science, NOT B.A. nor B.Sci programs. No one cares how well you throw a football. Those that argue marks don't matter likely
don't have them and seeking to justify something to themselves for failing. Those essays and interviews as part of the admission process matter very very little for
programs that matter.
To Waterloo Engineering (and CS which piggy backs on them), marks DO matter. That is why the track the marks out of all the high schools ("Grade Adjustment Tool") and decrement the schools by 10%/20%/30% where the kids do poorly at University.
What also matters to them is how well you do on their Fermat and Euclid (and many others) contests. Guess what, marks are very highly correlated to how well you do on these tests.
...and guess what, if you haven't heard of the SHAD program, YOU Have no idea about their admissions process.
Thus, its NOT my definition of merit,
it's theirs.
They've been doing it for YEARS and the Torstar finally found out about it.
The controversial adjustment factor helps the university sort applications for a highly competitive program. But what does it tell us about grade inflation?
www.thestar.com
Here is the tool for 2020 so you can look up how grade inflation is being adjusted for...get your kid out of an easy high school and put them into a high school where marks actually mean something.
https://www.reddit.com/r/OntarioUniversities/comments/kr7n54