<p>A couple of further thoughts. I think McGill is likely better known in the US than Connecticut College. I’d be willing to bet that outside of the Northeast, if you told most people Conn College, they’d think you were talking about UConn. So, I’d guess that McGill wins on US as well as international reputation. We are a dual US/Canadian family and virtually all of my bright nieces/nephews/cousins/brothers-in-law on the Canadian side have gone to/go to McGill. They all love it despite the fact that it is a big, relatively impersonal school. They’ve all done quite well. One is doing his PhD at MIT in genomics (probably best department in the world) after a stint at Oxford. Another is studying molecular bio at U of Toronto and she turned down good offers from strong US schools. Another is a professor at U of Toronto after doing a post-doc at Carnegie-Mellon. One studied at Oxford and works at Lazard (extremely high-end mergers & acquisitions-focused investment bank) – he was one of 8 offered a position out of 3000 applicants. Another is a Dean at a Canadian university after getting his PhD at an Ivy. That’s just a subset, but typically all have done well and most have ended up in Canada, typically turning down US and other offers because they prefer Canada.</p>
<p>One other likely difference is that Conn College is likely to be more homogenous from an intellectual and demographic standpoint. McGill draws from all over Canada and as Canada’s most highly regarded school (although within Canada, people will tell you certain other schools are just as good or better) will attract some of the brightest kids in Canada. Conn College will be different. Super bright kids who apply to Conn College may also apply to Amherst/Williams or Ivies and if they get in will likely go elsewhere. So the high end of the distribution is likely to be skimmed off at Conn College but much less so at McGill – many Canadians don’t even think of applying to schools in the US for undergraduate years. Given that plus the much larger class, the upper end of the distribution at McGill is likely to have more super bright kids than the upper end of the distribution for Conn College (both in absolute numbers and as a proportion of the student body). Just given the large numbers, it is possible that the lower end of the tail at McGill has weaker kids than at Conn College but I don’t have any insight or data to validate that. I don’t think it is clear that Conn College gets the nod on hiring. Fom a hiring standpoint, I as an employer might be more likely to look at a kid from McGill than a kid from Conn College because of the greater chance that I’d find someone outstanding.</p>
<p>On the demographic side, I suspect that McGill as a public school with relatively low tuition is going to be much more broadly representative of the Canadian population. How is Conn College with respect to diversity. As a small NE LAC that isn’t well-enough endowed to be need-blind or loan-free, I suspect it is more upper middle-class in its student body. According to the following post (<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/bucknell-university/478255-not-need-blind.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/bucknell-university/478255-not-need-blind.html</a>), it had among the lowest percentage of Pell Grant recipients. Plus, Conn College likely draws a disproportionate share of its student body from the Northeast.</p>
<p>Greater academic and social homogeneity will work better for some kids and worse for others. What’s better for your son is for you and him to decide.</p>
<p>So, on a lot of grounds, McGill tips on the plus side. But, a small LAC can offer a terrific education for many kids. Professors actually talk to you and you don’t have to watch the lectures on video screens because the classes are too big. One relative in her first semester at McGill never really realized she had to go to some kind of section and the TA didn’t try to contact her. [While reasonably bright, she is stunningly attractive and succeeded in HS in large part because she is just so good to look at. That doesn’t work if you don’t even go to the section. She’s figured out that, while looks will still get her free drinks and dinner and invites to the VIP sections of clubs, they won’t help on grades in big lecture courses and she’s responded by doing the work and doing well]. I don’t fault the school; it was her responsibility to read the syllabi and understand the requirements, but I suspect at Conn College, someone would have contacted her. Professors at small LACs care about teaching. Less true at research universities (the incentives are different and the professors self-select). </p>
<p>On the flip side, in some fields like sciences, McGill is mid-way between the US and English style universities. You self-select into science much earlier and according to one relative, a diligent student in biology or chemistry has probably done the first year of graduate courses in his/her field during senior year. All of my science-oriented relatives were working on research projects in McGill labs as undergrads. Whether the greater specialization tips positive or negative for your son is unclear (and in any case, I think you can take a less specialized course of study).</p>
Canadian public universities (all) do not have the diversity of quality as those in the U.S. do. You’re going to get an excellent education at any of them. Even at that, though, no one I know would consider McGill any better than U of T, Queens, or UBC. In any case, that is off the topic of the discussion so, again, I wish the OP’s son the best of luck in his decision.</p>