Human Rights & Equity OfficeSince 1999, the Applicant Equity Census has been administered to all students applying to undergraduate and graduate programs at Queen's University. The Census asks applicants to voluntarily indicate whether they identify as an Indigenous person, a person with a disability, and/or a racialized person. It also seeks to determine the overall economic makeup of applicants by asking for information on family gross income, the level of parental education and the size of the applicant's home town. Responses are not used in the admission selection process; rather, the collected information is utilized for planning purposes in the pursuit of educational equity.
From its inception, the Census has been coordinated by both Equity Services and the Office of the University Registrar. In 2001 and 2002, the Applicant Equity Census was conducted in hard-copy form with applicants returning the Census to the University by mail. The response rate in these years did not yield statistically significant results. Although the Council of Ontario Universities also completed a mail-in survey in 2001, these results were not viable at the institutional level. Beginning in 2003, the Census was sent electronically to undergraduate applicants. This dramatically improved the response rate.
Queen's University has broadened the scope of the Census over the years. In 2007, the Faculty of Law and Faculty of Education also were incorporated into the process. Now, applicants to all programs at Queen's receive the same Census.
Visit Applicant Equity Census to view the Census results by year.
Student Applicant Census Report 2022 (PDF 686 KB)
Student Demographic Data 2022
Student demographic data used in the table below are results pooled across multiple surveys such as the Student Applicant Census and OUAC, other than the data provided for women, which is derived from PeopleSoft. The return rate for the pooled surveys is 42.4% for undergraduate students; that means the percentages reported are on only those students that responded to the surveys and may not be fully reflective of the student population.
| Queen’s Students, 2022 | Women | Racialized Persons | Indigenous Peoples | Persons with Disabilities | 2SLGBTQI+ | Return Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arts and Science | 65.6% | 20.2% | 2.2% | 6.6% | 15.0% | 45.2% |
| Smith School of Business | 45.9% | 34.8% | 1.1% | 5.7% | 8.4% | 29.1% |
| Engineering and Applied Science | 27.3% | 19.1% | 2.1% | 4.5% | 8.1% | 49.8% |
| Education | 77.7% | 19.2% | 9.2% | 10.7 | 11.9% | 18.1% |
| Health Sciences | 69.9% | 41.0% | 4.3% | 4.8% | 12.7% | 47.3% |
| Law | 54.4% | 34.5% | 2.1% | 10.7% | 12.6% | 54.9% |
| School of Graduate Studies | 61.5% | 32.2% | 2.7% | 9.9% | 14.3% | 46.2% |
| Total | 57.9% | 25.8% | 2.6% | 6.9% | 13.0% | 42.4% |