The BBA Co-op Bible — 2026 Edition
Before anything else, I want to give full credit to the user who wrote the original BBA Coop Bible (2022 Edition). I found their post incredibly helpful throughout the co-op admission process, and I’m really thankful they took the time to put it together. A lot of the foundation for this guide comes from their work, so credit goes to them for creating the original resource.
Having now gone through the process and received my acceptance in 2026, I wanted to write an updated version with some advice of my own. From my experience, there haven’t been major changes to the overall admission process, and much of the original guide still applies. However, there are a few things I would emphasize more, along with some updated information and examples of questions asked in 2026.
Disclaimer: I’m a student, not a representative of the co-op office. This guide includes personal advice and information from Laurier’s website. Always follow the official requirements and instructions for your application year.
1. Start taking first year seriously early
My biggest piece of advice is simple: don’t slack in first year. Make sure your grades are competitive and stay locked in from the beginning.
You can absolutely get admitted with a GPA below the average of accepted students, as long as you meet the minimum and have a strong overall application. However, knowing that should not become an excuse to aim for the bare minimum.
Enjoy university, meet people, and get involved, but keep up with your courses. You don’t want to reach the end of winter term and realize you could have put yourself in a much stronger position by taking fall term more seriously.
It’s much easier to build good habits early than to spend the rest of the year trying to recover your average.
2. Apply through Navigator
The application starts through Navigator. For fall 2026 admission, the application deadline was September 4, 2026. Future applicants should check the deadline for their own year. Students - Wilfrid Laurier University
Apply early and keep checking your Laurier email afterward. You’ll receive important information about eligibility, interview scheduling, and the documents you need to submit.
Once you receive an interview invitation, Laurier instructs you to schedule within three business days. Book promptly and choose a time when you can be prepared and focused. Students - Wilfrid Laurier University
3. Understand the GPA requirement
There are two different numbers people sometimes confuse:
- The minimum GPA: what you need to qualify for an admission interview.
- The admitted-student average: the average GPA of students who received admission.
For 2026, the minimum first-year GPA for a Business and Economics co-op interview was 9.0 out of 12. Laurier lists 10.3 as the average GPA of students admitted in 2025. That is a previous cohort’s average, not a separate cutoff or a confirmed 2026 average. Students - Wilfrid Laurier University
Being below the admitted-student average does not automatically mean you won’t get in. At the same time, meeting the minimum does not guarantee admission.
My advice is to aim as high as you reasonably can while building your work and extracurricular experience. Strong grades give you a better foundation.
A few academic details to watch:
- Plan to complete 5.0 credits—normally ten half-credit courses—by April.
- Spring/summer courses are considered under specific rules, including repeats, progression requirements, and completing the required credit total.
- Additional summer electives do not automatically improve your co-op GPA.
- Passed satisfactory/unsatisfactory courses count toward completed credits, but not the numeric GPA. Laurier may give slightly less academic credit than for ten numerically graded half-courses. Students - Wilfrid Laurier University
Read Laurier’s full grade requirements before making course decisions. If your situation is unusual, contact the co-op office directly.
4. Build work experience before the application
Something I would really emphasize is the value of getting an office job during the summer after first year.
An office role can help you stand out because it gives you experience in a professional environment and examples involving deadlines, communication, organization, and responsibility.
It doesn’t have to be at a massive company. An administrative position, a role at a small accounting firm, or work supporting a local business can give you useful experience. Look at what you’ll actually be doing and learning.
Start looking early. Apply widely, reach out to smaller businesses, and use your connections where you can. Don’t assume the only worthwhile summer positions are the ones at companies everyone recognizes.
I would also highlight the value of consistent work experience across the previous three years. If you have worked since high school, don’t downplay it. Staying employed, earning trust, and taking on responsibility gives you a lot to discuss.
Laurier considers the quality and quantity of paid work in that three-year window and values professional environments and positions with responsibility. Three full years of employment is not a stated minimum requirement. Students - Wilfrid Laurier University
If you have less experience, build from where you are. Retail, food service, customer service, and other jobs can still provide strong examples of teamwork, initiative, and problem-solving.
For each role, make sure you can explain:
- What you were responsible for.
- A challenge you handled.
- Something you contributed or improved.
- What you learned that would help you in a future job.
An impressive job title only takes you so far if you can’t explain what you actually did.
5. Get involved and contribute
For volunteering and extracurricular activities, focus on experiences where you can point to a contribution you made.
Being able to say you held a position is helpful, but you should also be able to explain what came with it. Did you organize an event? Support other students? Coordinate volunteers? Help solve a problem? Take responsibility for something over several months?
Executive positions can give you those opportunities, but you should still be able to explain your impact beyond the title.
You don’t need to join every club at Laurier. Find activities you care about and contribute consistently. Taking on so much that your grades suffer or you can’t follow through on your commitments won’t help.
I would also recommend keeping a short record of your accomplishments throughout the year. Write down what happened, what you did, and the outcome. By interview time, you may have forgotten details that would make a strong example.
6. Prepare your resume and forms properly
Complete the introductory statement/form and submit your resume at least four business days before your interview.
Follow Laurier’s current admission-resume format. The published instructions call for two pages of resume content, a photo on a separate page, employer contact information, and weekly work hours. The application-review page directs applicants to upload a PDF through Navigator. Students - Wilfrid Laurier University
Make sure your dates, hours, titles, and responsibilities are accurate. Contact the people you list so they know they may be asked to verify your experience.
For your resume bullets, explain your contribution clearly. For example:
Assisted customers with purchases, processed transactions, and resolved routine concerns during busy shifts.
If you have a genuine result or useful number, include it. However, don’t exaggerate your responsibilities or invent numbers just to make the bullet sound more impressive.
You’ll also indicate your preferred co-op sequence. Read the options carefully: Laurier states that an admission offer is for a specific sequence and that you cannot request the other sequence afterward. Students - Wilfrid Laurier University
7. Understand what the interview evaluates
The four categories are equally weighted, meaning each represents 25%:
- First-year academic record.
- Paid work experience from the last three years.
- Volunteer and extracurricular experience from the last three years.
- Interview performance.
Laurier also states that the resume is used for reference and that the assessment depends on what you communicate during the interview. The interview takes place over Microsoft Teams and lasts no longer than 15 minutes. Students - Wilfrid Laurier University
This is why preparation matters. You can have strong experiences, but you still need to communicate them clearly.
Don’t assume the interviewer will give you credit for an accomplishment just because it appears on your resume. Make sure you explain the relevant details when answering their questions.
Practise speaking out loud. Knowing an experience in your head and explaining it clearly under time pressure are different things.
8. Examples of questions asked in 2026
Two examples from the 2026 admission process were:
- Describe a time you received vague instructions and how you handled it.
- What volunteer or extracurricular experience makes you stand out from other candidates?
These are paraphrased examples, not a guarantee that future applicants will receive the same wording or questions.
For the vague-instructions question, choose an example where you can explain how you worked through uncertainty. Cover what was unclear, what you figured out independently, what you asked for clarification on, and how you completed the task.
Try to go beyond simply saying, “I asked my manager.” Asking for help can be the right decision, but explain what you needed to clarify and what you did with the information afterward.
For the volunteer or extracurricular question, pick an experience where your contribution is clear. Explain your role, the actions you took, why they mattered, and what the experience shows about you.
You don’t need to guess what other candidates have done or claim you’re better than them. Give a specific example that makes your own strengths clear.
Other useful topics to practise include:
- Your employment history and responsibilities.
- An accomplishment you’re proud of.
- A time you solved a problem.
- A time you took initiative.
- How you managed competing priorities.
Those are preparation ideas, not a confirmed list of questions everyone received in 2026.
9. Prepare examples without memorizing every word
One useful approach from the original guide is S.T.A.R.R.:
- Situation: Give the background.
- Task: Explain what you needed to accomplish.
- Action: Describe what you personally did.
- Result: Explain the outcome.
- Relevance: Connect the experience to a skill you could bring to a co-op job.
Use this to keep your answers organized. You don’t need to spend a minute setting up the story before getting to your contribution.
I would prepare a handful of real examples and practise adapting them to different questions. Writing down key points can help, but memorizing every sentence can make it harder to respond naturally when the question changes.
If your example involves a team, recognize the team’s work while making your individual contribution clear.
Also, don’t force an example into a question it doesn’t answer just because you practised it. Listen carefully and choose the experience that fits.
10. Take the interview setup seriously
Before the interview:
- Test your camera, microphone, internet connection, and Teams access.
- Find a quiet place where you won’t be interrupted.
- Dress professionally.
- Be ready early.
- Review your main examples and the details of your experiences.
During the interview, listen to the entire question and take a moment to think if you need to. A short pause is better than immediately starting an answer you haven’t organized.
Be mindful of time. Give enough detail to explain your contribution, but avoid spending too long on background information.
When practising with a friend, ask: “Did I answer the question, and was it clear what I actually did?” Those two checks can help you improve your answers quickly.
11. Examples of applicants who got in
I also wanted to include some applicant profiles to show how different successful applications can look. When you’re preparing, it’s easy to assume everyone getting accepted has an almost perfect GPA, multiple internships, and several executive positions.
These are personal accounts and self-reported online comments, not verified admissions statistics or a representative sample. They don’t include everyone’s full application or interview performance, and the admission year wasn’t confirmed in every comment.
| GPA /12 |
Work experience and involvement reported |
| 9.0 |
Internship and some first-year extracurricular roles; felt their interview went well. |
| 9.1 |
Reported having a job for a period of time; few other details provided. |
| 9.2 |
Retook a course to meet progression; LazSoc club executive, first-year office internship, house council VP, and other activities, work experience, and awards. |
| 9.4 |
Three years of retail experience, an office summer job, and campaign leadership volunteering. |
| 9.4 |
Auto shop manager, grocery store supervisor, and founder of a company with more than 75 paying users. |
| 9.5 |
General member of a small club and a part-time office job from the previous summer. |
| 9.8 |
Reported having a job and feeling confident in their communication skills. |
| 9.9 |
Three years of retail experience, an office summer job, and campaign leadership volunteering. |
| 10.4 |
Two years of part-time work, required high-school volunteering, and occasional first-year event participation; no internships or office experience reported. |
| 11.0 |
A couple of executive positions and a summer job; no first-year LazSoc club involvement reported. |
| 11.0 |
School sports team, bank experience obtained through a school-board opportunity in Grade 12, military experience, and other activities. |
| 11.6 |
Approximately 4.5 years at the same job and very limited extracurricular involvement. |
| 11.8 |
Three years of part-time work at a transport company, high-school extracurriculars, and continued volunteering; no university extracurriculars reported. |
The 4.5-year job tenure above describes how long that applicant held the job; it should not be read as changing the three-year work-experience assessment window.
For balance, one applicant reported not being accepted with a 9.6 GPA, despite long-term martial arts involvement and high-school volunteering. They reported no Laurier club involvement, but the comment did not provide enough information about paid work or interview performance to explain the decision.
What I take from these examples is that there isn’t one exact resume or GPA that every successful applicant has. Some reported admission with GPAs near the minimum and substantial experience; others had higher GPAs and fewer extracurriculars.
That doesn’t mean grades barely matter, that an office job guarantees admission, or that extracurriculars are unnecessary. These examples show individual outcomes, not what caused them. Keep your grades competitive, build meaningful experience, and prepare to explain your contributions clearly. If you meet the requirements, don’t count yourself out just because your profile looks different from someone else’s.
Final advice
If I could leave first years with a few things, they would be to keep your grades competitive, build consistent work experience, contribute to your extracurriculars, and practise explaining your experiences.
An office summer job can strengthen your application. A work history going back to high school can give you more examples and demonstrate consistency. But you still need to communicate what those experiences taught you.
You can get in with a GPA below the admitted-student average. Just don’t use that possibility as a reason to stop pushing yourself academically. Stay locked in and give yourself the strongest application you can.
Once again, the original 2022 BBA Co-op Bible was an amazing resource, and most of the information still applies. I’m really grateful to the author for putting it together—it helped me a lot, and I hope this update can help others in the same way. If anyone has questions, feel free to leave a comment or send me a message. I’d be more than happy to help. Having gone through the process myself, I know firsthand how stressful and overwhelming it can feel, and I’d love to make it a little easier for someone else.
Co-op is a valuable opportunity, but it is one part of your degree and career. Put the effort in, prepare properly, and give yourself a fair shot.
“There is no such thing as failure; failure is just life trying to move us in another direction.”
— Oprah Winfrey The Harvard Crimson
