<p>I have just been admitted to its Humanities program, and then I discovered this on PrincetonReview.com:</p>
<h1>17 Least Happy Students</h1>
<h1>14 Professors Get Low Marks</h1>
<h1>1 Least Accessible Professors</h1>
<h1>4 Class Discussions Rare</h1>
<p>For current students: how true is this?</p>
<p>I’m currently a student here at UofT and I’m really loving it. I would very much dispute every one of those points.
Kids work hard here… that’s certainly a fact, but we also have alot of fun. The college system creates excellent community and provides a great social outlet. I’m not sure which college you’ve applied to, but I’m at Trinity and it’s fantastic. I don’t know a single kid here at Trinity who has be unsatisfied with their experience so far.
About the professors, certainly in a large lecture the professors are going to be less accessible, but even then, the professors hold office hours, and I have found the TAs to be very helpful. The best professors often teach the bigger first year courses, so even if they aren’t talking directly to you, you still feel engaged. Something to look at are seminar courses. My professors in my seminars base a large portion (30%) of the grade on class discussion, so the whole class revolves around discussion.
If you have any more questions feel free to message me! I think if you came here you would be pleasantly surprised.</p>
<p>I’ve been accepted to University College. Do you know any kids there? And, if so, what do they say about it?</p>
<p>My son was accepted to New College and is going; U of T is his 1st choice. I’m worried! I didn’t know how he ranked the colleges when he applied but now that he’s in I’ve done a little research on New and it’s not one that students come out and say “love this place” about. Any New College kids here? How do you like it? Do U of T students interact with students from the other colleges or do you pretty much stick to your own?</p>
<p>Hi ,I was also accepted to New College. I am from Europe and am worried that I will not be able to make many friends at New College since it does not have such a close knit community like Trinity or Victoria. Also I am worried that if I study enough I still won’t be able to get a high GPA (over 3.5 ) and enter a Master’s program. However, at the end of the day, if one does succeeds in Toronto he will succeed in his career.</p>
<p>You did not state where you are from, or what schools you are comparing Toronto to, but I can tell you that the rankings are pretty accurate.</p>
<p>The Princeton Review rankings only rank two Canadian universities I believe (Toronto and McGill). Both score high in rather unflattering rankings.</p>
<p>I believe, however, that if more Canadian universities were ranked, they would all score poorly in certain areas, because Canadians have a different understanding of the purpose of higher education than Americans do. It makes a big difference whether you’re comparing UofT to other Canadian universities or to American universities.</p>
<p>From an American perspective, the University of Toronto is the extreme opposite of attending an American liberal arts college (LAC). Arguably, the LAC environment is the best-suited for teaching the humanities, so this is something to keep in mind.</p>
<p>The part about “least accessible professors” is somewhat debatable. What is more true is that students at this university do not bother to access their professors. It’s a two-way relationship, you know.</p>
<p>However, the “class discussions rare” ranking is something to take very seriously. Julles92 says there are seminars as if that counters the ranking (newsflash: almost all schools have some kind of seminar-style courses). Toronto’s seminars are only open to first year students, and are mostly considered a joke anyway. And even in these seminars, the class discussion feels more forced than organic. </p>
<p>The fact that the first thing he states is that the seminars “base a large portion (30%) of the grade on class discussion” should tell you everything you need to know about the culture of Toronto –</p>
<p>Grades first, learning second. Students, for the most part, don’t pay attention to anything that doesn’t affect their grade.</p>
<p>In fields where a strict curriculum is necessary, like engineering, Toronto seems to do a fairly good job of educating its students. But in any field where the curriculum needs to be open-ended and individualized, or where the student needs to be more engaged than just doing what their professor tells them to do, the culture I’ve mentioned hinders the learning environment. In most of the humanities, it’s impossible to objectively measure what success should look like in a degree, so I can only give subjective reasons for why I don’t think it’s a good environment for that.</p>
<p>And many people who even study the sciences and engineering fields will undoubtedly feel the same way, if they’re looking for a more balanced curriculum.</p>
<p>Toronto students probably do have much more of a social life than CalTech students (one of the other schools that is high in those negative PR rankings), but the social life is heterogeneously mixed with their studies rather than being homogeneously connected. In other words, students find ways to socialize in spite of being in an oppressive and otherwise hostile learning environment.</p>
<p>University College is one of the oldest and most beautiful parts of the university (from the outside). It’s not quite as pleasant on the inside, and some of the students living in the dorms live like sewer rats. Victoria College seems to be pretty on both the inside and out. Both are more charming than New College, but I can’t speak to what it’s actually like to live in any of these places.</p>
<p>Julles92, I was wondering what you had to do to get into Trinity College? Did you have to write some sort of essay??</p>
<p>Also, is it true that there are maid-like people that clean each and every dorm (unlike the other colleges)??</p>