@shawbridge I agree with those who equate Toronto and McGill to high-quality U.S. flagships. I think you can go to Michigan or Wisconsin or North Carolina and come out wanting to be the best in the world at what you do, or at least among the best. (You probably have to go to Harvard to have the hubris to want to be THE best.) My daughter’s high school best friend went to McGill and had a dream experience; when she applied to PhD programs, she pretty much ran the table of top programs in her field. (And later learned that being one of the best in the world at what you do still doesn’t guarantee you a job that doesn’t involve moving someplace you don’t want to move.) A friend of my other kid went to Toronto and was accepted directly out of college into a top-5 PhD program. My nieces’ college friends include a number of impressive, high-achieving men and women.
My sister-in-law is demonstrably one of the best people in the world in her specialty, and except for occasional sabbaticals she’s been at Toronto since she was 21. (She turned down MIT to follow her draft-dodging then-husband there, but it wasn’t that big of a quality difference between the departments.)
At the same time, McGill and Toronto educate a broad range of students; there are plenty of people there who just want their tickets punched so they can get a decent job that’s not too demanding.
My issue was more with my nieces’ K-12 experience in their Toronto public schools. It was certainly better than the (terrible) median public school experience for students where I live, but not at all up to the standard of the academic magnet schools they would likely have attended if they were here, or like the public schools their mother went to in Ithaca and suburban Ohio that prepared her to grow up to be a famous scholar.