Postsecondary Information Event Calendar
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Overview
The OUAC, in consultation with the Standing Committee on Student Recruitment, maintains the Postsecondary Information Event (PIE) Calendar. The PIE Calendar is a resource for Ontario guidance counsellors for the current recruiting season.
If you are an Ontario guidance counsellor, you may use the PIE Calendar to coordinate events in your region and plan joint events with other counsellors.
Note: Some Ontario universities are bilingual, so attendees may have an opportunity to speak one-on-one with university representatives in French.
We look forward to working with you to ensure a successful recruitment season!
Plan Your Event
- Your school must be willing and able to accommodate all Ontario universities.
- Plan early and be as transparent as possible with the schedule. University representatives should know well in advance everything about your event (e.g., arrival and set-up time, duration, format, parking and unloading of materials, and refreshments, if provided).
- If your PIE overlaps with a normal mealtime, consider providing refreshments and/or snacks to the university representatives.
Tips:
- Choose your event date and register early to ensure that your PIE will be attended by as many university representatives as possible.
- Communicate with other local schools to see if they are considering hosting a PIE. If possible, collaborate with them to host an event.
- Consider starting a hosting rotation with local schools to ensure that each school receives equal exposure to university representatives over time.
Select a Date for Your Event
- Review the PIE Calendar to see which dates are available.
- If there are already 5 events booked during the time (e.g., morning, afternoon or evening) you would like, consider another time or date.
Select a Format for Your Event
Most PIEs fall into 3 event formats: Fairs, panels and presentations.
Fairs
Fairs provide each participating university with a table to set up materials and answer questions. A gymnasium, atrium and/or library is optimal for a fair.
Things to consider:
- If multiple schools are attending, stagger student attendance to ensure all students have an opportunity to speak with representatives.
- Fairs allow students to roam, discover universities they are not familiar with and ask questions. However, students may not discover as much about a university as they would in a presentation format.
- The ideal length of a fair is 2-3 hours, depending on how many students are invited to attend.
Panels
Panels feature short 3- to 5-minute overviews of each university. They provide an “at-a-glance” summary of unique and exciting features. They also provide students with the opportunity to hear from all universities in attendance, even those they may not have originally considered.
Things to consider:
- The volume of information shared in this format can be overwhelming for the audience.
- An ideal panel format would be 3 minutes per university representative, followed by a 1-hour fair.
Presentations
Presentations provide each participating university their own separate room, and sessions are scheduled in a back-to-back format. Students choose which university presentations they want to attend.
Things to consider:
- The ideal length of a session is 30 minutes.
- In a presentation, students receive an in-depth overview of the university. University representatives may also use audio/visual aids to better tell their story.
- This format tends to favour the larger and more local universities, while the smaller ones or those farther from the location tend to be ignored.
Register Your Event
- Complete and submit the event registration form.
- We will add your event to the PIE Calendar, then confirm your event with you and the universities.
- Once an event is registered, it will be posted for other counsellors to use in their planning process.
Contact Information
- Ontario universities’ contact information [PDF]
- Contact the OUAC if you have questions.