<p>I feel like McGill being one of if not the best school in canada should have more stringent standards for american students. So I came to the hypothesis that McGill must be easier for american students because they will pay more? I am not entirely sure, but a 30ACT minima (or less for other faculties) is not stringent at all</p>
<p>Well first of all McGill is a public school, so it is generally less selective than its reputation suggests (this holds true comparing top US public universities vs similarly regarded US privates). This changes at the graduate level where top publics in both the US and Canada become just challenging as challenging to get in to as private schools with a similar reputation.</p>
<p>Your not wrong though, McGill is also in the unique situation that since Quebec student tuition is so low ($3000 per year, this amount is mandated by the Quebec government and McGill was not allowed to increase it by the new PQ government) that McGill has to rely on lots of out of province students and international students who they can charge more in order to raise money. As a result only about 55% of McGill students are from Quebec, about 25% are from other Canadian provinces and 20% are international students, of which I believe half of the international population is American (Source: [McGill</a> University](<a href=“http://www.aucc.ca/canadian-universities/our-universities/mcgill-university/]McGill”>http://www.aucc.ca/canadian-universities/our-universities/mcgill-university/)). Oddly enough McGills international tuition fees are still much lower than most other top Canadian universities fees (eg. U of Toronto). </p>
<p>The other reason for wanting American students is that it gives McGill exposure and connections to the largest economy and dominant cultural power in the world! When the newly graduated American student goes back to the US McGill extends its alumni network, when one of those students goes to a great American university for graduate school, McGill gains a possible connection to that US school. And when that student has children of their own they may send them back to their old alma mater.
In short international students are valuable not just because they pay more but also because they spread the university brand after they graduate, and help make inroads into other countries through the alumni network. </p>
<p>The plus side of this is that you get a great mix of students from all of the continent and the world at McGill (ie. out of a random group of 20 McGill students you could quite likely to get 11 Quebecers, 3 Ontarians, 2 from the western or maritime provinces, 2 Americans and 2 students from outside the US or Canada).</p>
<p>A 30 ACT minimum would pretty much ensure that only the top 5% of American students can attend it. </p>
<p>Given the 55% (or is that 50%+1) local admissions rule, in-province students are not sbumitted to stringent standards other than for law or medicine. Then again, as with all Quebec Us, McGill admissions are major-dependent.</p>
<p>American students who attend McGill, myself included, tend to be adventurous. We are willing to “think outside the box” so to speak. </p>
<p>It would be much simpler to attend an American university. To attend McGill an American has to go through the hassle of applying for a CAQ and filling out the paperwork for a Canadian visa. We pay the fees for that. We have to get a Canadian cell phone, deal with trying to get a Canadian credit/debit card to avoid the exchange fees etc. We also have to acclimate to living in a different culture and being surrounded by the French language. The latter provides an opportunity for some Americans, like myself, to learn or improve their knowledge of French. </p>
<p>Like all McGill students, we have to deal with locating an off campus apartment after first year and getting used to dealing with administrative bureaucracy. The latter is an important life skill that is best learned when you are young. Then there is the whole issue of living through four Montreal winters!</p>
<p>It is said that McGill is not a school for the faint of heart. That is true but the experience was certainly worth it for me.</p>
<p>As a whole, Canadian universities are much easier to get into than American ones of the same caliber.</p>
<p>^^ True, but since Canadian universities do not have grade inflation, many of our friends have found that getting high marks in undergraduate is quite challenging - compared to US universities of similar caliber.</p>
<p>^^ Do you mean high numerical grades or letter grades? If you mean numerical grades, then, in some cases, As can be earned at 85%. If you mean letter grades as well… Canadian Us really do grade harder.</p>
<p>Here’s an equation I found on the Web (actually in a research report, which can be found here: <a href=“http://www.gradeinflation.com/tcr2010grading.pdf[/url]”>http://www.gradeinflation.com/tcr2010grading.pdf</a> ) with respect to what kind of average GPA one could expect in any given college program, if grading hardness is average:</p>
<p>Average GPA of a program: (2.8 + 0.2 if private + 0.0005*SEL) * A+/4</p>
<p>where SEL is the rejection rate expressed as a percentage (the other data, namely the % of admittees with 3.75+ UW in high school and the % of admittees which rank in the top 10%, is generally not available for Canadian college programs, so best approximation to use is then the rejection rate) and A+ the highest grade-point value of any single course (if different from 4); the A+ variable is there to account for grade scale variations.</p>
<p>There is another equation in the report but since Canadian Us almost never publish average CR+Ms, or even average SATs (they often publish minimum SAT scores to achieve but no more) this second equation is mooted in the Canadian context.</p>
<p>Grade inflation, to my knowledge, is not prevalent at institutional level in Canadian universities. Sure, there have been reported incidents among a few Canadian universities of grade inflation at subject level, but not at institutional level.</p>
<p>[Higher</a> grades have a right to exist ? - Maclean’s On Campus](<a href=“http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/2011/01/04/higher-grades-have-a-right-to-exist/]Higher”>http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/2011/01/04/higher-grades-have-a-right-to-exist/)</p>
<p>So, if a high achieving high school student from US matriculates into a Canadian university, it is surmised that the student will likely get appropriate grades that he or she deserves (in Canadian universities); in other words, the student’s university grades will not be inflated to the extent if the same student were to matriculate into a US university. Note the grades refer to letter grades (A, B+, etc.), not absolute marks. When the time comes to applying to professional graduate schools in the US, undergraduates at some US universities that do not have grade inflation (ex: Purdue) and Canadian universities (by & large), will be at a disadvantage, compared to students at private US universities (eg. Dartmouth or Duke that have higher grade inflation). </p>
<p>It will be interesting to compare independently assessed educational outcomes of a group of similarly qualified incoming students at a few select universities from Canada and US when they finish their undergraduate education. Perhaps results from the National Survey of Student Engagement or newly proposed post graduation tests such as college learning assessment plus (CLA+) might provide some answers.</p>