I would love for my son to do a semester abroad at McGill. I think it would be a wonderful experience for him. Sadly there seems to be few opportunities for US students to study abroad in Canada. I think it is a real shame.
Both U of T and McGill allow students from outside the university to register for courses. At U of T, they’re called visiting students. At McGill, they’re called independent students.
Also, British students usually straight focus on their chosen subject once they start college, instead of spending the first two years experimenting various fields and fulfill general education, while participating various extra curricular and leadership activities for college students.
Not necessarily a better system overall. But is certainly a more comfortable one for those who with a passion in an academic subject and just want to focus on it.
There is no doubt admission to UK schools is merit based but we cannot ignore the elephant in the room when it comes to Oxbridge; where you went to high school counts. 40% of Oxbridge intake comes from the independent school sector which represents 7% of the high school population. A recent statistic showed more students from 6 independent schools gained entry to Oxbridge than 2000 state schools combined. It is not only Oxbridge, other schools have the same rep, St Andrews, Durham and Bristol in particular. Like the US boarding school system kids are just better prepped for the elite schools. However unlike the US, sports ability, legacy , under represented anything criteria do not come into admissions decisions, so the hooked / unhooked debate is moot.
^ Merit is highly affected by wealth. And without holistic, diversity and athletic admission practice with need-based financial aid like we have, it will be even more concentrated to the upper class no doubt. Hence my opinion of “Not necessarily a better system”
@SculptorDad Not sure about the UK but that is not the case in Canada.
The class system is alive and well in the UK for sure, but give me the UK admissions system any day of the week. Admission is on merit and the cost is almost the same whether you go to Oxbridge or Podunk U.
Lol. You CAN’T compare it with Canada. Canada has one of world’s best public school system and much better wealth distribution than U.S. or U.K. We are not as good as them.
In a nutshell, Canada is a fair country and our’s isn’t. How often do you hear that, “well, life isn’t fair?” Canada actually try very hard to make the life fair. At least in education anyway.
@elguapo1 Completely agree. But I don’t think it need be a concern for potential US candidates as far as the interview is concerned. The most notable difference between US and UK students is that in the US, students are naturally more outgoing because they are forced to present their work to the class from an early age. In the UK that level of comfort with public speaking and debate (which is intrinsic to success in the Oxbridge tutorial system, especially for arts subjects) is much less common outside independent schools (British reserve is real).
The internationalization and increasing competitiveness of Oxbridge has made a difference even at independent schools: at my (independent) UK school in the 1980s usually about 50-60 out of 200 kids went to Oxbridge, nowadays I’m told its about half that number get in. But the point is that you are encouraged to apply and well prepared for the process (and the challenge once you get there).
Indeed when I was interviewing British candidates for post university (strategy consulting) jobs, I could eliminate many of them because they simply don’t come across well in public, whereas most US candidates were entirely plausible on the surface, but often fell apart under detailed math-based questioning (example questions: how long would it take to evacuate San Francisco in the event of an earthquake, how much would you quote me to move one of the Ancient Egyptian pyramids from Aswan to Cairo). Just like many Oxbridge interviews, there is no specific right answer, its a test of ability in problem solving (and making sensible/justifiable assumptions).
We found far more US candidates (including some from quite good universities) failed the sort of long tail math/problem solving test that is typically used even for very senior level UK job interviews (and closely resembles the TSA and similar Oxbridge admissions tests). Amazingly enough, my sister in law (in her mid 40s, with an Oxbridge math degree) was given one of these tests at a recent CEO job interview in the UK. By long tail, I mean that for the test we used for consulting interviews, which gave candidates 30 minutes to complete 32 questions, the top 5% of UK university graduates would score 18 or more out of 32, the top 1%-2% would score 20 or 21 out of 32. Similarly, the score needed to pass the Oxford TSA is something in the mid 30s out of 50 questions.
Of course if US students do go to Oxbridge, they will note the distinct lack of diversity compared to top US schools, which is a result of this strictly merit-based approach.
A quick google search will show that there are concerns about admission to Oxford regarding racial and wealth disparity, raised by David Cameron among others. There may be many reasons for this, since Oxford admits by subject area and the school argues that certain minority students are more likely to go for the most competitive majors. One article mentioned the subjective nature of the personal statement and the interview as factors that can’t be viewed as data points.
As noted above, kids from private schools are much more likely to gain admittance. Certainly, such students often have access to better schools, teacher and test preparation. Another google search shows a number of centers offering tutoring for A levels and university exams, which means there is a market for it. While admissions may not favor elite athletes or others with special skills, there are plenty of qualified kids that are not admitted and some that certainly game the system.
No question there are concerns about racial and wealth disparity, though its only about who gets the support and preparation to apply, not connections. As a result, I don’t think the wealth disparity is worse (and may well be less) than at Harvard.
Thus if Tony Blair’s youngest son gets into Oxford this year, no one will suggest he didn’t deserve a place on merit. Only one of his three elder siblings got in there.
Lol, you won’t find many Canadian parents, especially those in Ontario, agreeing that we have one of the best public school systems. Every time the new standardized scores from the EQAO testing the kids do in grades 3,6,&9 come out, there is an uproar as the math scores have been falling every year (some claim it’s not because kids can’t do math but because there is a disconnect between the test and what is taught in class. I say it’s because the curriculum is driven by pet theories rather than empirical evidence and most elementary teachers can’t teach math). The kids seem to be doing very well in reading and writing however. There is also the view that what the government has actually done to make the metrics look better is lower the bar by making the curriculum assessments more broad based. In any case, the latest “equity” initiatives seem to be promoting equal outcome rather than just equal opportunity with the push for reintegrating all students into “inclusive” classrooms with differentiated instruction. Without sufficient support and funding however, what that means is that everyone becomes mediocre. There was a recent uproar in the Toronto Public School Board when after a task force identified that access to specialty programs at the high school level was not equitable the school board’s original proposal was to shut the programs down (rather than eliminating the barriers that favoured students from higher socio-economic backgrounds). The backlash from parents had them reversing course pretty quickly however. What the school boards don’t want to acknowledge is that the overall success of students nationally and internationally is being propped up by widespread after school tutoring (of which I am equally guilty) which of course then favours those who have the means to be able to pay for it. So while they are introducing all sorts of initiatives to promote equity in the classroom, it’s being undermined by parents paying for tutoring since the feeling is that “equity” is just another word for “equal outcomes”.
I am sorry for making a general judgement with only a very superficial information.
Still, on average, or in general it seems Canadian public school system is still far superior than US’s. For example, how many illiterate high school graduates Canada produce?
“Not sure about the UK but that is not the case in Canada.”
I think that it is difficult to closely compare systems in different countries since there are so few of us who went to school in multiple countries. I don’t think that I know anyone who did high school in both the US and in Canada.
I personally went to a relatively mediocre high school in Canada, and a couple of highly ranked universities in the US. I found that a mediocre high school in Canada did prepare me just fine for the US universities. Other than taking calculus my freshman year in university, while most of my classmates had AP’d out of it, I didn’t see anything academic that I wasn’t fully prepared for.
I see two big issues with the US system. One is that there seem to be less consistency in terms of the quality of various high schools across the country. The other is the enormous amount of stress that US suburban high school kids are put under. The stress seems to have several causes. However, to me one of the major causes is the scarcity of spots at the top ranked universities. A straight A high student in Canada doesn’t have to worry about which Canadian university they are going to get into, and also doesn’t have to worry about ECs. The top universities in Canada have enough spots for all straight A Canadian high school graduates (including some dual citizens moving up from the US). A straight A high school student in the US who wants to go to a highly ranked university in the US has difficulty predicting where they will get in, and has to worry about all kids of things other than just getting great grades and strong SAT scores.
Of course, things aren’t perfect in any country.
Canada has about 1/9 of the population of the US, and its “top universities” are much larger (for undergraduate enrollment: Toronto 89,000, UBC 63,000, McGill 41,000), so it is not surprising that the “top universities” in Canada are not overflowing with applicants whose academic records are pressed up against the maximum possible, unlike “top universities” in the US, which are smaller but draw from a larger population.
Perhaps a more size-comparable comparison would be to California, whose population is slightly smaller than that of Canada, and whose UC system enrolls about the same number of undergraduates as Toronto + UBC + McGill. However, the UC system has 9 undergraduate campuses, and people generally see them in a hierarchy of desirability. I.e. most students see UCB and UCLA as their top choices, increasing the competition there; in numbers terms, it would be like a theoretical situation of students in all of Canada seeing one of {Toronto, UBC, McGill} as significantly more desirable than the other two and therefore having all of the top students there applying to that one instead of spreading their applications around those three.
What’s interesting, @ucbalumnus, is that Canada’s policies and culture are much more equality-oriented – at higher education somewhat at the expense of quality. For example, the Broad Institute at MIT/Harvard garnered huger donations, hired/brought over some of the best scientists in the world, got great post-docs (and grad students because of the quality of the research being done there) which means great research continues to be done there. In Canada, the federal and provincial governments would make sure that they spread the money around to both different provinces and different universities within provinces so that all would be good and none would be truly exceptional. I don’t think the Broad could happen in Canada. I spoke to one post-doc in some biology field at U of T who told me they’d hired a department head or dean who was taking a lot of new hires who were faculty members, I think, from Harvard/MIT because they got the pursuit of excellence in a way that solely Canada-based faculty would not. This is consistent with @SculptorDad’s general comments.
Within the US, because education is funded locally, there is much greater variability between schools and between states than I suspect you’d find in Canada. Some my Canadian relatives went to private schools so I don’t even have an anecdotal sense about the variability of Canadian high schools.
@ucbalumnus Your numbers are incorrect. I think you included graduate students.
Toronto has an undergraduate enrollment of 70,000, spread across three campuses. The largest campus, St. George, has an undergraduate enrollment of 43,500. UBC’s undergraduate enrollment is 52,000, spread over 2 campuses. UBC’s largest campus, Vancouver, has an undergraduate enrollment of 44,500. McGill has 27,500 undergraduates. The total for the 3 universities is 149,500.
The UC system has 210,000 undergraduates.
I always thought of Toronto as sort of like Michigan plus Michigan State, and UBC like some average of UW and the UCs. If you are in Michigan, is admission to UM and MSU really that different than above descriptions of the Canadian system, or in Ohio to Ohio State, or Pennsylvania to Penn State, or Texas or North Carolina or Iowa or… even used to be true of California, but its population may have somewhat outgrown the system.
The weirdness of the US system is mostly in the top 30 or so privates (top 20-25 universities plus some LACs), which really is driven by their enormous endowments.
I have not read the entire thread but a few years ago an Australian friend described the university system as being very transparent and based on scores entirely. It does seem a better way to do it than what we have.