But then the intern experience counts for nothing in terms of "years of experience" for stupid HR departments and most companies usually refuse to give a better than new grad offer to wloo coop grads. Others who instead finished school in 3 years without internships and then started working already have a promotion at that point. I don't recommend anyone talented go coop, just do the normal program, grind leetcode and maybe do one internship if it leads to a good return offer.
Also one big reason some Waterloo grads hit the ground sprinting is because Waterloo attracts talent with high cognitive ability and interest in tech. Be careful not to confuse that with the coop program (which may have its own benefits, but would not work nearly as well without talented students).
From big company recruiting I've seen like here at Amazon they definitely do at least consider it inferior to "real" experience. SDE2 is not given for new coop grads or returning interns with 2 years exp, but you can get SDE2 if you worked at another place full time or at AMZN for 1-2 years. It's pure BS.
Here is an example for you of explicitly requesting non-intern experience:
> BASIC QUALIFICATIONS
· 2+ years of non-internship professional software development experience
They hit the ground _sprinting_.