Although something like half of its students come from Quebec, and Quebec has a population of only 8 million, the majority of those 8 million live their lives primarily in French, and the language of teaching at McGill is English. It’s also quite expensive compared to other public options in Quebec, especially the Francophone colleges. So most of the Quebecois don’t even consider seriously applying to McGill, and McGill is drawing the “in-state” portion of its student body from a relatively small pool. Of course, language is not generally an issue with students from elsewhere in Canada or international students, but cost may be, and there’s little question that McGill views international applications as a profit center.
The point being, I’m not sure that McGill’s admissions are quite as transparent as they seem. That said, they are a heck of a lot more transparent than equivalent US universities, i.e. the top echelon of state flagships, excepting maybe Berkeley and Michigan.
Second, there’s still something of a sink-or-swim culture in Canadian universities. They expect a certain percentage of the class not to cut it academically, and to leave (or be forced to leave) based on poor academic performance. They don’t wring their hands about that as much as we do, and they have much less elaborate systems to support students who are struggling. McGill’s graduating student profile is probably stronger than its entering student profile.
Also – I think the political culture at McGill is such that someone who was a mainstream U.S. Democrat would be considerably right of center. People who complain about the domination of U.S. academia by left-wing ideology would find a lot more to complain about there.
Holllistic admission at selective private U.S. colleges is a uniquely American thing. The obvious driving factor of this is the incredible diversity in this country. Look at the countries of Japan, Korea, and China, which are purely stats driven. It is not a coincidence that these countries are also very homogeneous in their population.
That was certainly true when I attended university in the late 80’s early 90’s. We’ve recently started touring universities with DS19 and I’ve been impressed by the academic support resources that schools are offering now like writing centres, studying and note taking seminars, living learning communities with tutoring support groups in residences etc. Certainly no one is going to be contacting to see if you are ok if you don’t show up for class but the resources are there if you choose to take advantage of them.
Even so, McGill’s retention rate from 1st year to 2nd year is 93.1% and it’s 7 year graduation rate is 85% (though I would be curious to know what it’s 4 year grad rate is). There are 2 schools with higher graduation rates: UWO at 86.6% and Queen’s at 89.5%.
One of the things I found surprising when I started reading up on post-secondary education in the US was that it was not uncommon to not declare your major until after 2nd year and the extensive distribution requirements at many schools. Many university programs in Canada have moved to general 1st years, but you still have to apply to a faculty, and while you don’t declare your major until after first year, you certainly need to have a good idea of what it’s going to be to make sure you have the appropriate prerequisites. The greater emphasis on breadth is one of the things I like about the US system vs the degree structure here in Canada.
That was also probably more prevalent at US state universities during the expansion era (1950s to 1970s) when many states wanted to make room in the state universities to give all college ready (even just barely) students a chance, though with the realization that not all will succeed. Even the most selective state universities were not all that selective, though some may have offered highly rigorous courses and curricula. States then had money to spend, they viewed state universities as investments in citizens who will pay back in taxes many times over in the future, the cost was low to both the student and the state (at least partly due to there being less frills), and some failures to finish were acceptable because more people had a chance to try (at low cost).
I work at a U.S. school, and I am in charge of messaging. I am honest and upfront about admissions and financial aid. Yet I continue to receive applications from students who are not qualified and from students who expect aid that we cannot provide. I can say it, but I can’t make anyone listen to it.
The UK employs a similar system to Canada. Entry is on academic grades only, as such acceptance rates can seem quite high by US standards, Oxbridge generally is around 25%, for some courses such as Classics it can be as high as 40%+, very popular courses can be less than 10%. Classics requires A level Latin and/or Greek which is really the preserve of independent schools so the applicant pool is much smaller. Applicants are allowed 5 college choices and so don’t waste applications on schools they have no chance of admission, they self select. When D applied I think the fee was $33 for 5 applications total with the application process run by an independent organisation, UK schools do not see admissions as a revenue center. Drop out rates in the UK are much lower than in the US for 2 reasons. Firstly tuition fees are relatively similar no matter which university you go to, and in general are much lower than their US counterparts, so finances tend be less of an issue. In the elite universities entry requirements are more rigorous and so attract the more academic and well prepared students who are less likely to drop out, I would suggest Russell group universities the % who graduate on time is 90% +. The US/Canada keeps the process simple, the US with holistic admissions IMO unnecessarily complicate the admission process almost always in favor of the colleges not the applicants.
But don’t the UK and Canada also have much more uniform content and grading standards for high school courses, so that universities do not have to try to normalize grades across wildly varying high schools like in the US? Seems like that is a substantial advantage there that enables the university admission transparency they have.
Another advantage that they have (as mentioned previously) is that the sizes of the universities relative to the populations are larger.
@ucbalumnus Yes, high schools are uniform within each province in Canada.
Unfortunately “small” is not valued in Canadian higher education. The small universities (Mount Allison, Bishop’s, St. FX etc.) have retention and graduation rates comparable to third tier directional schools in the US.
While it is certainly true that each province has a standardized high school curriculum, and that even the curriculum between provinces is relatively similar, there is no standardized grading system. Well there are marking guidelines but every student can tell you who the easy vs hard teachers are at their schools. Marks are very subjective and dependent on the teacher in question. Add to that very real grade inflation and pressure by parents for their kids to get better grades (which will vary in effectiveness depending on a school’s administration) and there can be a great variability in the grading process. Some schools also have greater or lesser reputations for academic excellence (though much of that is hearsay and also can be dependent on the socio-economic background of the neighbourhoods from which the students are drawn and not necessarily the effectiveness of the teachers in question). Students are also known to try and game the system by taking courses in summer school or at private “credit mills” to try and boost their grades. Universities in Canada will tell you that they don’t adjust admission grades to reflect the historical grading rigour of different schools and with good reason. Say you have an exceptionally generous marker at a given school. What happens when that teacher is replaced and the new teacher isn’t as generous? How would a university know that the marking profile of the school had changed? The only program that I’m aware that explicitly states that they do adjust the marks of applying students depending on their high school is Waterloo engineering. They also happen to be one of the few programs that practices more holistic admissions (and have recently added a voluntary video interview component to the process) and will penalize students for repeated courses or taking courses outside of regular day school (unless there is a valid reason). There are a handful of other programs that use supplementary applications but it’s not nearly as involved as what students are required to do when applying to the elite schools in the U.S. UBC has had a more holistic admissions policy for some time now (an interesting read about a challenge to the process here http://www.macleans.ca/education/inside-the-fight-for-admissions-transparency-at-ubc/), but it appears it is now making amendments to that process https://www.ubyssey.ca/news/senate-approves-new-academic-approach-to-undergraduate-admission/.
There are a few provinces (BC and Alberta I think) that still require students to write matriculating exams, but for the most part there is no standardized scoring. We have no equivalence to the SAT or ACT.
@gwnorth Also in Quebec there is the existence of the CEGEP system. Essentially it is a mandatory 2 year community college for university bound students. Acceptance rates for the CEGEP program range from 65% to 75%. So the less academically inclined are channeled out before they ever apply to a university.
One other note, most universities in Canada are public institutions and thus receive significant government funding. Their mandate is to provide education for it’s students. They are not there to build an “interesting or diverse class of students” (which I personally question the purpose in that anyway). They also do not exist as a springboard to a career in professional sports.
The UK has standardized tests in A levels. UK schools use AP classes for US students as a proxy for A levels, although in truth in my experience AP’s do not seem to have the depth of A levels.
This article by Malcolm Gladwell (a product of the Canadian university system) about Ivy League admissions practices was published in 2005 but stands the test of time. Unlike their equivalents in most other countries (if they can be said to have precise equivalents), the tippy-top American universities are looking for the best graduates, not necessarily the best students, and are, to some extent, in the luxury brand management business.
It’s not that small is not valued. I would love for DS19 to attend a smaller school. It is true that these smaller schools do not have the same prestige as the larger research universities. It is hard to compete in rankings when a large part of that comes from international reputation which is slanted in favour of post-graduate research. Most of these schools have very limited post-graduate programs. While it’s hard to drill into the heads of high school students that for the most part that the perceived prestige of post-secondary institutions has no relevant impact on the quality of education they will receive as undergraduates, they still insist on chasing prestige as if U of T/UBC/McGill could be compared to HYPSM etc. As a result the stronger students don’t apply to these schools.
Further to that is the reality that most students in Canada do not attend schools far from home or at most out of province. Those small primarily undergraduate universities exist in tiny towns in rural Quebec/New Brunswick/Nova Scotia. They don’t have a strong draw outside of the region. The economic reality of maritime region is such that they are not tech or innovation or financial hubs. Young people move away to Ontario/Alberta/BC for employment. I don’t want to sound snobbish, but I would say that the low graduation rates at many of the universities there are reflective of the quality of their K-12 education system vs the rest of Canada as even the grad rate at the bigger schools such as Dalhousie and MUN aren’t much better. The maritime region has a quickly aging demographic and they have a small relative population. It’s hard for them to attract students from the rest of Canada. They do seem to be fairly successful at recruiting international students though.
TBH if the admissions profile of the students at those schools was higher I’d have DS19 seriously consider them. Unfortunately they are not known for the strength of their student body.
@TomSrOfBoston with regards to Quebec and CEGEP, high school in Quebec only goes to grade 11 so the first year of CEGEP is actually equivalent to grade 12 elsewhere in Canada. I have no idea why they do this. The second year is equivalent to first year university thus why Quebec students only need to complete 3 years at university to graduate and why McGill offers a Year 0 for all it’s students from outside of Quebec.
@gwnorth Yes, I know how the CEGEP system works. My point was that the less academically inclined students don’t even make to the point of submitting a university application. They are “weeded out” when they apply to CEGEP.
I’ve taught in both the US (several states) and Canadian (Ontario) K-12 and university systems. My own children have attended school in the same locations. The high schools in Canada are just as diverse in their offerings as US schools. In Canada, some schools have AP classes, some have IB, some are magnet, some have language immersion, some have programs for students of a specific culture. Houses in the “better” school catchment areas/districts are more expensive than those that are in “worse” school areas.
In Ontario, different high schools are known to have different grading standards. University admission offices do make adjustments to students’ grades depending on the high school.
Some university programs in Canada, such as commerce and engineering, now have holistic admissions. Engineering programs, for example, have video interviews, to assess students’ communication skills and ability to think on their feet. Legacy is not a factor. Essay writing ability is much less a factor than in the US.
Compared the rest of the world (all other advanced economies) the US “Holistic” approach is as far out of the spectrum as its approach to climate change. Cambridge/Oxford/ École Polytechs of the world dominate in elite class of their countries just as much as those of Harvard/Yale of US. There is neither hard data nor public consent to show that the holistic approach is superior in producing better students or graduates.
Harvard, Yale, et al. are pretty successful, and as non-governmental entities hardly need “public consent” for how they do things. Of course, Oxford and Cambridge do pretty well, too, but their reliance on pure merit in admissions is probably less than a full generation old, and they attract far fewer applicants than do the American universities, so one could say that their method is unproven in the long run, too. And I have never heard anyone before say, “I wish Harvard were more like ENS.”
Really, if you like those universities’ admissions systems so much more than those of the U.S. universities, you should make certain to meet their entrance requirements and apply there.