Counsellors’ Online Services (COLS) is available to school officials at all Ontario high schools. Through COLS, you can maintain academic data on file at the OUAC to counsel and support students as they apply for admission to Ontario universities.
COLS Functions (by Section)
Expand each COLS section to view helpful tips, important info and how-to videos.
Academic Information
In Academic Information, you can:
- Update all academic information for your students. (Related: Creating a Student Account)
- Add, delete or update multiple courses at one time, resulting in easier maintenance.
- Review any errors or warnings related to a student’s information. These errors and warnings may be the result of making manual changes or processing an Ontario Student Transcript (OST) file during a given collection period.
- Search for errors and update course or diploma information.
COLS is available throughout the summer for academic updates, including the OSSD indicator.
Video: How to View and Change Academic Info
Watch this video to learn how to check the status of and view student files in the Academic Information function.
How to View and Change Academic Information video transcript
Application Information
You can view all application information for students at your school who have applied to university.
Student Checklist
This function is a tool to help you check the status of your students’ Undergraduate applications.
The Student Checklist is an Excel file you can download that shows all students who have added your school to the Education section of their Undergraduate application. This includes students who have submitted or not submitted an application and students whose grades have or have not been matched to their application. With the Excel file format, you can easily sort the information.
The checklist will be helpful to schools who do not send electronic grades files to the OUAC as it will allow them to easily identify the students they need to create a student account for to manually add their grades.
Here’s how to interpret the information in the checklist:
The status is “Unsubmitted” or “Unmatched”
This means the student has started their Undergraduate application but has not yet submitted it.
The status is “Submitted and Matched”
This means the student has submitted and paid for their application, and grades on file for the student have been matched.
The status is “Submitted and Unmatched”
The student has submitted their Undergraduate application but grades on file for the student have not been matched.
Some reasons for this include:
Timing
They submitted their application just before you generated the student checklist and the application has not yet been picked up by our auto-matching job, which runs 3 times a day (5 am, noon and 6 pm).
No Student Account
A student account was not created automatically through a grades file. You can manually create one in order to add academic information for a student.
Discrepancies
- There are discrepancies between the personal information the school sent to the OUAC and the personal information the student added to their application.
- The most likely discrepancies are first or last names and the student adding their SSSN to their application instead of their OEN.
- For the SSSN versus OEN situation, students can amend this information in their application. (Note: They must submit the amendment.) They will then be picked up in the auto-matching process. Our processing team has an error report that we check regularly for submitted and unmatched applicants. We will be able to manually match those cases of discrepancy and may need to reach out to the COLS Administrator at the school to verify the information. We will also be able to manually match the SSSN versus OEN cases.
Incorrect OSSD Answer
- The student did not answer the OSSD question correctly and thus has not been identified as a current Ontario high school student.
- You will be able to identify them easily, as their OEN will be blank in the checklist, or by their OUAC Reference Number.
- The OUAC Reference Number range for current Ontario high school students is 000001–124999.
- The range for those who are not current Ontario high school students is 140000–339999.
- These students need to log back in to their application and amend their response to the OSSD question to “Yes”, provide their OEN, re-select their program choices, and submit.
- The fees already paid will be automatically applied to the new fees.
- Once the student submits their application, they will go through our grades-matching process and any grades on file for them will be matched.
Adult Students
- The student is an adult student and does not meet the criteria for a current Ontario high school student.
- The OEN column will be blank for the student in the checklist.
- Their date of birth will be another indicator.
- For the 2025 cycle, adult students are students born before January 1, 2004.
- As their grades are not provided electronically to the OUAC, the student will need to request an official transcript either through eTMS or by contacting the school directly.
Send OST Files
This function allows you to transfer demographic and grades data to the OUAC for potential university applicants. You can send a .zip file or select multiple files at once.
How to Send an OST File to the OUAC
- Click “Browse” to select a file from your computer.
- Click “Upload File(s)”.
- Wait for your file to appear in Pending Files with a “Received” status.
- Click “Process All Received Files Now” at the bottom of the screen.
Important: If you do not click “Process All Received Files Now”, we cannot process your file.
Video: How to Send OST Files
Watch this video to learn how to send your OST files to the OUAC.
Search OST Files
This function allows you to:
- search the processing status of all grades files you send to the OUAC, including test files.
- view the raw data sent in your file.
- view a file summary that includes the number of records, and the number and type of errors and/or warnings.
- determine exactly where these errors and/or warnings occurred within your file by providing you with line and position numbers.
Video: How to Search OST Files
Watch this video to learn how to search the OST files you send to the OUAC.
Test OST Files
This function allows you to test your grades file for any collection period before sending it to the OUAC. It helps you reduce errors before submission.
Note: All test files are purged nightly.
Reports
The Reports section features 3 reports:
- Applicant Status Report
- Enter your selection criteria to create a report.
- Search by the same program groupings used in the Undergraduate application.
- Available in Excel and HTML.
- Insufficient Credit Report
- View the status of your students’ 4U/M courses.
- Courses Not Updated Report
- The report lists students with courses without a final grade that were reported before the selected Start Date but were not subsequently updated through a grades file or manually through COLS, as of the current date.
- Available in Excel and HTML.
- Make any required updates in Academic Information.
- Tip: Run this report in February or March to check for dropped courses that still show in students’ OUAC accounts.
Video: How to Generate Reports Using COLS
This video will help you generate different reports to manage student information: The Applicant Status Report, the Insufficient Credit Report and the Courses Not Updated Report.
Test Application
Use the Test Application in COLS to view the Undergraduate application.
- You need to create an OUAC account first to access the test application.
- Complete the application as if you are a Grade 12 student.
- Add OEN 999999998 in the Education section.
Important: Do not submit the test application.
Additional COLS Processes
More helpful tips and how-to videos about how to use COLS.
Creating a COLS Student Account
We have replaced the previous Create a PIN option with a new functionality called “Create a Student Account”. This new functionality is now part of the Academic Information option.
When you search for a student in Academic Information with no results, you will be able to create a student account for them.
- While most student accounts are created when a school sends an electronic file to the OUAC, there are situations where you might need to manually create a student account.
- After creating a student account, you will be able to add the student’s academic information through Academic Information.
Note: Students will now only be able to view the academic information their school has sent to the OUAC in their Undergraduate application after they submit.
Contact us for more information.
Video: How to Create a COLS Student Account
This video will show you how to manually create a student account using COLS.
Logging In to COLS
Video: How to Log In to COLS
This video will walk you through how to log in to COLS using your username and password.
Registering Users in COLS (for the COLS Administrator)
Watch this video to learn how to reactivate an existing user, register a new user, deactivate a user and modify user information in COLS.
Video: How to Register Users in COLS
Troubleshooting Error Messages: Clearing Your Cache
Issue: You receive an error message when using COLS.
Solution: Clear your browser cache. This forces your browser to retrieve the newest copy available from a website, which doesn’t always happen automatically.
Video: How to Clear Your Cache
This video will show you how to clear the cache in your web browser if you experience errors when using COLS.