<p>I'm an American junior in high school and I'm currently looking into my options for university. I'm very interested in McGill University as well as the University of Toronto, however, as I'm unsure of what my major might be, I'm concerned that graduating from a foreign university may be unwise. Would I be hindered by this if I applied to a US graduate program or medical school? Also, would attending either of these schools be locking myself in to finishing my undergrad in Canada and as such inadvisable? As far as employability goes, will I run into problems trying to find work post graduation? Thanks.</p>
<p>US grad programs know most of the top Canadian universities. You should realize that international collaboration is extremely common in academia and when I say international, I’m referring to intercontinental research, hardly an across the border exchange. Anecdotally, my former boss did his UG at U Waterloo and was subsequently admitted to Cal Tech for his physics phD. </p>
<p>Also, McGill has an outstanding reputation across many fields. Getting a McGill degree would hardly limit you to some third tier graduate program assuming you maximize your GREs, GPA, and opportunities at the school.</p>
<p>McGill and UofToronto are very well known in academia in the US. In fact they are part of the Association of American Universities, a group of 62 leading research universities. 60 are in the US (includes all the big names, Harvard, HYPSM, Berkley, ect.) and two are international: McGill and Toronto. McGill and Toronto are not recent inductees either, they joined in 1927. This should give you an idea about how research at these universities are regarded by American academia. </p>
<p>For the record both McGill and Toronto are arguably most famous for their biomedical research. Two striking examples are: UofT is where insulin was first discovered, and used to treat diabetes (resulted in a Nobel prize, and the annual summit on diabetes is named the Banting lectures after the UofT researcher who was at the centre of the discover). Before that type 1 diabetes was a death sentence. McGill is where the neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield (an American born Princeton and Hopkins medical school graduate I may add) first mapped the sensory and motor corteges of the brain via neural stimulation of the brains of epileptic patients during brain surgery, thus laying the groundwork for all we now know of sensory and neural processing.</p>
<p>There are many other famous scientific discoveries in the nearly 200 year lifespans of these two universities (uoft- development of first working electron microscope, first pacemaker, first proof of the existence of black holes McGill- discovery of Radon, Rutherford’s Nobel winning work on radioactive decay-he was chair of phsics at McGill during that time, invention of plexiglass).
The point is that the research pedigree is there and it is known worldwide including in the US. A graduate degree from eiher of these universities, particularly in the sciences will be well regarded at any US grad school.</p>
<p>As far as grade deflation goes, UofT is particularly known for this, and McGill to a lesser extent. As a UofT alumnus I can tell you that there is some grade deflation but it is not as bad as it is made out to be (most classes are a C+ to B- average). Grade deflation is not uncommon at top US universities either, with Princeton being the most infamous offender. However if you work hard you can do well anywhere.</p>
<p>Here is a very interesting article from Nature, it is short but I think it would really help you make your decision:</p>
<p><a href=“Nature Careers | Science jobs | Choose from 1,135 live vacancies”>Nature Careers | Science jobs | Choose from 1,135 live vacancies;