<p>My family situation is rather unique. We hold both EU and Canadian citizenships and live currently in the US. When it comes to choosing a college, we have started looking at some british and canadian schools just because our kids will have this option. When I lived in Canada, McGill in Montreal was considered "the Sorbona" of North America. We all have heard about the excellent reputations of Oxford or Cambridge. My questions to you is this: would you consider sending your kid to one of those universities? Tuition will be much, much less, but probably will have to forget about scholarships. What will their chances be to atttend a good grad school after an undergrad degree from McGill or OxCam? Anyone in that position?</p>
<p>Check out the tutition, room and board for Oxbridge. There was a thread earlier suggesting that for foreign students, the total cost was fairly high.<br>
Some students from my kids' school have gone to McGill and seem delighted with the experience,, and their parents with the lower cost. It's very different, however, from what they would have received at a typical American university.
Graduates of McGill or Oxbridge have excellent chances of being admitted to top graduate programs in the US.</p>
<p>The trick is my kids won't be foreign at Oxbridge. That is why it is beginning to make sense ;-)</p>
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Some students from my kids' school have gone to McGill and seem delighted with the experience,, and their parents with the lower cost. It's very different, however, from what they would have received at a typical American university.
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<p>Marite, what do you mean by "different"?</p>
<p>Do a search in CC for a participant who goes by "mcgilldad" and ask about McGill - his D, an American, goes there and he's a great source of info for parents whose kids are considering it.</p>
<p>McGill is definitely cheaper for American. The tuition is in Canadian dollar vs Oxbridge in British pounds.
One question I have but have not had much time to do research is whether they speak/teach in English or in French at McGill. Isn't Montreal a French speaking area? I visited Quebec and Montreal years ago and remember order things in French maybe it was at a French restaurant.</p>
<p>I have not visited McGill, so all I can report is from hearsay. From what I understood the parents to say, their kids did not live in campus dorms. Instead, they were in apartments. This seems similar to what my S experienced when he spent a semester at the Uni of Sydney in Australia. There was no "college experience" similar to what one would get at an American college.
Oxbridge, however, do have residential colleges with their own personalities.
If your kids are not foreign at Oxbridge, they should certainly apply.</p>
<p>TooRich: McGill classes are in English. Montreal has two French-language unis: Universit</p>
<p>S is attending McGill in Fall. The language of the university itself is English while the official language of Montreal is French.
Check the McGill thread for more info re: grad school admissions, etc.
First years are guaranteed dorm housing, after that students get off-campus rentals.</p>
<p>Montreal is basically a French-speaking city overall but instruction at McGill is done in English. Most Montrealers are bilingual so knowledge of French, although useful, is not mandatory. Canada, as you probably know, has two official languages.</p>
<p>Although it is true that McGill is a good school, and widely familiar to many Americans, particularly in the northeast, it is not generally considered the top school in Canada. That distinction would go to Univ. of Toronto. One difference you'll find with Canadian schools is that, since they are all public universities, there is not the wide disparity between them that you would find at U.S. colleges. It is possible to get a good education at any of them. </p>
<p>I know several profs at McGill and they complain that the reduced provincial funding has been more noticeable lately than it was, say, five years ago. My kids have friends at McGill who like it there, although I've heard anecdotal reports of difficulty accessing classes and housing is an issue. Montreal itself is a beautiful city that has gone through many years of a depressed economy, and seems to be on the rebound. </p>
<p>Univ. of British Columbia and Queens, along with U of T are also all excellent schools. My D3 is at U of T and is very happy. She's had excellent profs, by and large, loves living on the beautiful campus which is right in the middle of downtown Toronto, has met students from all over the world, and is getting a great education for about $15,000/year, which includes housing. I know many kids who have gone from U of T, McGill, and Queens to grad schools, both here and in the U.S., with no problem.</p>
<p>If you have any more questions, I'd be happy to try to answer them. </p>
<p>Also interested to hear Marite's answer to the "different" issue. :)</p>
<p>My husband went to grad school at the University of Toronto and we lived in the suburbs (Oakville) for close to 9 years. At that time McGill was considered "the best" for your liberal arts educations and pre med especially. Waterloo was best as far as computer sciences go.
I just thought of one more advantage of living in Montreal - you can learn French. Just take it at the college and practice on the street ;-)</p>
<p>When I look at the Stats of those who got in, they are not "that" impressive.</p>
<p>As I said earlier, what I posted was what was reported by parents. I got the impression there is less of the focus on extracurricular activities one would find at most US colleges. Please let me know if my impression is wrong.
BTW, these were parents of freshmen; their kids did not get dorms and were therefore sharing apartments with other foreign students. This was about 3 years ago.</p>
<p>I know a number of kids at (or formerly at) McGill and Toronto, and my sister-in-law is a professor at the latter. In general, I think they are equivalent to good US public universities -- think Wisconsin or Penn State, not necessarily Berkeley or Michigan. They can be large, impersonal, and bureaucratic; students can get fabulous educations or practically no education at all. They have many areas of international excellence, and are great for focused, self-starters. Not necessarily so great for kids who don't know what they want, or who won't be aggressive about getting it.</p>
<p>Both cities are great, and both cities are fairly expensive, especially Toronto. Kids love Montreal.</p>
<p>My daughter's best friend is at McGill. She was in a first-year general education honors program that mimicked US LAC style, with broad-focused classes taught as seminars. She enjoyed it a lot, and she really enjoys being in Montreal. She also has a significant merit scholarship (which is what got her there over some Ivies). She has a strong impression that the Canadian secondary education system does not do as well by top students as the US system, and that the Canadian students are less prepared for college than we would expect here.</p>
<p>I believe McGill is still seen as somewhat more prestigious than Toronto, even in Canada, because (a) affluent kids from Toronto -- i.e., many of the best students in Canada -- prefer to go away to college, and where the smart ones go is usually McGill, (b) it attracts mo' better international students, (c) it has more selective admissions standards, and (d) because of the ethnic politics of Quebec, it has always been a somewhat snooty, elitist place. Toronto admits a broader range of students, and then culls them out in the first year, which tends to produce a certain level of general anxiety among first-years.</p>
<p>Note that the Canadian dollar has strengthened against the US dollar a lot in recent years, and tuition has increased. $15,000/year sounds way off to me. Base international tuition at Toronto will be over US $15,000/year next year, and my niece at Toronto is paying about US $600/mo. for her share of a (quite crummy) near-campus apartment. Canadian tuition, though, is still very low -- about US $4,000/year.</p>
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My daughter's best friend is at McGill. She was in a first-year general education honors program that mimicked US LAC style, with broad-focused classes taught as seminars. She enjoyed it a lot, and she really enjoys being in Montreal. She also has a significant merit scholarship (which is what got her there over some Ivies).
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<p>Clarify please - being a US student she got merit scholarship to attend McGill , as a freshman?</p>
<p>Please note that even with an EU Passport you would be paying non-resident tuition at Oxford or Cambridge. You have to have resided full time in the EU over the past three years in order to benefit from the lower EU rates. With room and board you are easily talking over $35,000 per year not including transportation. With no need or merit based financing it would most likely be more expensive that a private college in the US.</p>
<p>For European schools, you should check whether your kids do qualify as Home & EU students, and the reduced tuition that goes with it. In some countries, unless you meet certain exceptions, I think that is is usual for them to ask not only for citizenship but also some period of continued residence prior to enrollment if you do not wish to be counted as an international. </p>
<p>At Oxford, for example, they say:
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Am I a Home/EU student or an overseas student?
Citizenship itself does not determine your status for fees purposes. The issue is decided according to the facts of each case, having regard to where the student has been 'ordinarily resident' for the three year period to 31 August prior to commencing a course at a British University. In most cases, the main purpose of this residence must not have been education. 'Ordinary residence' means "residing in a country for a 'settled purpose'"
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<p>... as cellardweller has said...</p>
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Clarify please - being a US student she got merit scholarship to attend McGill , as a freshman?
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<p>That's my understanding, from talking with her and my daughter about it when she made her decision, and from what she told my son when he was deciding where to apply and thinking about McGill. I never audited it, and my son didn't apply to McGill.</p>
<p>I don't remember exactly how much it was, since I wasn't all that interested, and for her family it was only part of a calculation that included the basic tuition difference and the exchange rate. It wasn't anything close to full tuition, but it helped widen the gap between McGill and her EFC at US universities.</p>
<p>FURTHER EDIT: McGill's website makes clear that US students are eligible for merit awards of C$3,000-$10,000 per year.</p>
<p>marite, my D hasn't found there to be a difference in focus on extra-curriculars. She's been very involved in extra-curric theatre at U of T, in addition to intra-mural soccer, student government, and volunteering in a literacy program. There are probably a couple of hundred different clubs/activities that she could have chosen from which are directly related to the school, in addition to many others in the city, if she'd been interested. I'd be surprised if McGill's offerings were all that different. The one area where you would likely find a difference at some Canadian schools is the emphasis on sports. However, there are definitely sports-interested crowds at both McGill and Queens, for instance, who loyally support their football teams. It's true college football, though, and not the semi-pro type teams you'd find at many U.S. colleges. No athletic scholarships here. I'm surprised to hear that first year kids at McGill wouldn't get housing, especially since U.S. kids generally get early acceptance. All first years at U of T get housing and, after that, housing is guaranteed as long as you aren't on academic probation. Many kids choose to get apartments or houses together, though, in upper years.</p>
<p>Admission to Canadian schools is much less complicated than to American schools and the application process is much simplified. There are differences in requirements for some majors but overall, because they are all public universities, if minimum standards are met, admission is pretty much guaranteed. Succeeding in doing well, though, is more difficult. There's a saying that kids at U of T have that it's easy to get in but not so easy to stay in. </p>
<p>Despite what JHS seems to believe, I can assure you that U of T is considered by most Canadians to be the most 'prestigious' university here, although, as I've said before, that kind of thing is not something which Canadians find all that important, unlike Americans. By the way, JHS, Toronto's wealthy students are well-represented at all Canadian schools, but I'd say that Queens probably gets the majority of them, not McGill. </p>
<p>kelowna, my D who is at U of T is our third in college and we're very happy with her experience there so far. Our D2 just graduated from NYU and, had she not been there for a specific program at Tisch, there would be no comparison between the two experiences. She double majored in the College of Arts and Science, and the courses she took, the profs she had, the bureaucratic issues there, the housing situation, not to mention the close to $50,000 U.S./yr. price tag, just make us appreciate U of T even more. The $15,000 I quoted was for a Canadian student, my kids have dual citizenship, and since Kelowna is also Canadian, that would be what they'd pay.</p>
<p>Is it for every kid? Definitely not but then, what college is?</p>
<p>Alwaysamom:</p>
<p>Thanks for the clarification! I don't know what happened with the kids from S's school. I don't know either if they applied early or not. Be it as it may, they were living in an apartment. The seemed to take it all in stride. One of them was tri-lingual and much traveled.</p>
<p>marite, you're welcome! I think the ability to learn French in a largely French-speaking city is an obvious attribute to attending McGill. I know that Canadian kids who are out-of-province also get the Quebec resident tuition if they take French while at McGill. I don't know if this extends to U.S. students or not. I know many American kids who love McGill and Montreal. It's a beautiful city, we visit a few times a year as my H still has family there. Old Montreal, in particular, is a great place. Not as wonderful as Quebec City but still great ambience and European flare! :)</p>
<p>McGill was in my son's "final two", when he had to transfer out of Tulane post-Katrina due to phase-out of several of their Engineering majors. He didn't end up choosing it. One factor for him was the lack of campus housing for upperclassmen - he wasn't sure what it would be like to transfer in when others would have made their friendship/roommate connections as freshmen.</p>
<p>Most of the things we learned about McGill have been discussed above (btw, even with the strong dollar, its costs compare favorably with many US schools). One that I will add - from what we heard from students there, not (obviously) from first-hand experience: although it is large, can possibly be impersonal and works best for self-starters, there can be real sense of spirit and community within individual "faculties" (I believe that is what they call the different departments/majors/school): we were told that the Engineering faculty has a real sense of cohesiveness and spirit which makes the huge school have more of a small school feel.</p>