We should be seeing the first wave of results soon! Please post your decision along with:
Faculty
Citizenship status
UW GPA
ACT, or
SAT/Subject tests
Any pertinent major entrance scholarship information
Best of luck to you all!
Would anyone know how acceptances work? Like what type of applicants tend to get accepted in December? I’m so anxious lol
@harrypotter111 The first group to be accepted are applicants who are significantly above all the minimum requirements. If you are just at the minimum requirements you may not hear until March or April.
When do you think people will start hearing back? Last year acceptance and portal updates started in late November.
McGill website says mid-December
Yes, but I wonder if the website also said mid-Dec last year? Could be that they give themselves a cushion.
D has also applied to UBC, and their portal says something like, please be patient with us as we are receiving so many thousands of applications. Could the Canadian schools be getting even more applications than last year? It will be interesting to see the numbers, as there was a massive surge last year.
@ShrimpBurrito I read some statics that more american students want to go to canada due to the United States’ current political status…
@harrypotter111 McGill reported a 21% increase in American applications for Fall, 2017 but only a 2.3% increase in first year enrolment from the US. Although there was a 20% increase in overseas enrolment.
I have not seen actual American enrolment figures for other Canadian schools. It may be like the celebrities who swore they would move to Canada if Trump was elected. None actually did.
I checked an archived copy of the website and it seems that last year the website said first decisions would be released in December. It just says December, no elaboration.
does anyone know when are the decisions for the international students (Asia) expected to be released?
@rick78 The website says they’ll be released from the beginning of January to end of May 2018.
Okay, we’ve had some movement over here. D got an email from McGill admissions tonight, telling her to check Minerva. Now her application status is “Further Review Required.” They want to see her semester grades. I know this is common, but it’s a bit frustrating. D has a 4.0 UW with 11 APs and 34 ACT. What are they looking for here? She will have all As for her semester report, so I suppose we shouldn’t worry, but if she isn’t accepted in this first wave, who is? She’s applying to Arts, and Arts and Sciences. I wonder if it could have anything to do with the fact that she has applied for a major entrance scholarship? We are perplexed, and a little concerned.
@ShrimpBurrito It is frustrating but common. She should have no problem getting into Arts; Arts and Sciences are usually higher requirements. Last year once we got the first semester grades loaded in my son got his acceptance within days. Unfortunately our school year runs late so that was’t until February.
Just a word of advice: my son found the whole “check Minerva” thing to be stress inducing. So we made an agreement that I would stay on top of Minerva and report changes to him. That worked out well for us. The reality is that you will need to check Minerva quite a bit to look for changes to status. (PM me if you have any questions.)
Don’t be concerned. She sounds like an excellent candidate. And McGill is (in this family’s opinion) worth the wait. 
@ShrimpBurrito I got the same message from both arts and arts and sciences this morning
@avocadopal What are your stats? Did you apply for a major entrance scholarship?
@ShrimpBurrito 3.6 UW at a challenging private school, 33 ACT, no scholarship
Faculty : Faculty of Science & faculty of arts&sciences
Citizenship status International Student Non US
UW GPA 3.73 in arguably the best private school in my country ( only 3 people out of 75 have a better gpa than mine in my school)
SAT/Subject tests : 1420 SAT , 760 SAT physics , 740 SAT Biology , 780 SAT chem
Any pertinent major entrance scholarship information: None
I think im right in the middle. I hope to get a reply before may though.
A friend of my son’s just got into Desautels. This boy has outrageous stats so he was pretty much a shoo-in; US High School, dual citizen. He also received positive word from Toronto engineering. Waterloo CS should be next. But his dream is Cornell, so I hope he gets in there soon, turns down McGill and opens the spot for my son whose stats aren’t quite as ludicrous. Good luck to everyone.
BTW my son got the “Further review required” so we will have to wait until January mid-term grades come out.
I’m in a similar boat as y’all (4.0, 35 ACT, IB + AP), so maybe I’ll be hearing the same thing soon? I’ll keep checking. I was hoping to know by now. If if I need to submit mid-year reports, though, I’ll have to wait at least until the end of the semester on the 15th which isn’t desirable.
Does it matter at all when one applies? Because I sent my application in on September 9th, which I felt was super early but I haven’t gotten any updates from McGill at all.
McGill dad here (US based)…my son is a U0 in the Faculty of Arts…second son is HS Jr. who also has his sights firmly set on McGill.
Our experience last year was that most U.S. students (other than those with outrageous stats) were asked to submit first semester grades. For my son, the semester ended mid-Jan and it was early Feb before his HS made them available. Once submitted it was just a couple of days until he got his acceptance.
Finally…and I’m sorry to say…you do need to check Minerva fairly often. It’s just the McGill process.
Best fo luck everyone!