I recently posted a thread regarding my older son DS’19’s options for university here in Canada. For him I wish we had the same range of good quality universities that you have in the US. I agree that U of T, UBC, McGill are equivalent to a state flagship. You could probably include Western and Queens in that category as well. That we have no equivalents to HYPSM et. al. is a given. What we also don’t have however are highly selective smaller LAC’s or research U’s. We have a few schools that might be considered more along the lines of an LAC, but they certainly are not selective. All our top schools, wonderful though their international reputations might be, are very large institutions, and their reputations rest on their graduate programs, not their undergraduate ones. We don’t have any excellent smaller schools which would be my preference for DS’19. On the other hand, I’m very grateful for the straightforward and fairly transparent process for admission to our post-secondary schools. We don’t have to worry about SAT’s or ACT’s and when to write them or how often, and whether we should submit all grades. There are no requirements for having “the most rigorous” schedule or stand apart EC’s, great letters of recommendation, or numerous application essays. There is no consideration for EA/ED/SCEA etc. in making application decisions and “need” has no bearing on application or admissions. There are very few hooks (the only real one being being of Indigenous ancestry). I’m also very grateful for how relatively affordable school is here compared to the US. I have no idea how most people afford to send their kids to college in the US, though it seems much more common to be able to get substantial merit awards. For the majority of students in Canada the most they can hope for is a 1 time award of a couple of thousand dollars in merit scholarship.