What is a cohort in college or university?

These words get mixed up, so here is the simple version:

• Cohort: everyone who started your program in the same intake. For example, all students who started a nursing program in September 2026.
• Class: a single course, like Intro to Psychology. Students from many programs can be in the same class.
• Section: one group within a large course. A first year biology course might have six sections of 200 students each.

The key difference is time. A class ends when the term ends. A cohort stays together for the whole program.

Some programs are built around cohorts, and others are more flexible.

Programs that usually run as cohorts:

• College diploma and certificate programs, where most students follow a set timetable each term
• Nursing, education, and other programs with placements
• Professional programs like engineering, where first year courses are largely set
• Co-op programs, where your group moves between study and work terms on the same rotation
• Graduate programs such as master's degrees and MBAs

Programs that are more flexible:

• Many arts, science, and general degrees at university, where you build your own schedule and see different people in each course

Even in flexible programs, schools often create smaller groups on purpose. Residence floors, first year learning communities, and orientation groups all work like informal cohorts.

Your cohort becomes the people you study with, compare notes with, and figure things out with. That has real effects:

• Support when it gets hard. The students beside you are dealing with the same deadlines and the same tough courses at the same time.
• Honest answers. Your cohort, and the cohorts one or two years ahead of you, know which courses are hard, which professors are great, and what nobody tells you during orientation.
• Friendships and connections. Many people meet close friends, study partners, and future colleagues in their cohort.
• Belonging. Feeling like you are part of a group makes the first months of college or university less lonely.

The catch is that you usually do not meet your cohort until you arrive. Most of the big decisions, like which program and which school, happen before you know anyone who has actually been there.

What students like about cohorts

• A built in community from day one
• A clear path through the program with less guesswork about which courses to take
• Group projects and study groups are easier to organize

What can be harder

• Less flexibility if you want to change your schedule or take time off
• If you fall behind a term, you may join a different cohort
• Small groups can feel intense if you do not click with people

Neither setup is better for everyone. It depends on how you like to learn and how much structure you want.

When you compare programs, ask the school, or better yet ask current students:

1. Is this program run as a cohort, or do I build my own schedule?
2. How big is each intake?
3. Do students in the same year take most courses together?
4. Are there learning communities, residence programs, or peer mentors for first year students?
5. What do students one or two years ahead wish they had known?

That last question is the one brochures cannot answer.

This is why we built Cohorts. It is a free app for Canadian students in grade 11 and 12, college, and university that connects you with students who are in the programs you are considering, and with peers one or two years ahead who have already been where you are.

You can explore more than 21,000 programs across more than 350 Canadian colleges and universities, and hear from real students about what a program is actually like.