Copying an earlier comment I made on another sub:
One needs to understand that @Ausername321 is an international applicant who has made a series of posts on numerous threads that are either misinformed or are downright wrong yet they present as proven facts. They’re not. So I would suggest taking with a grain of salt.
Its a quirck of the McGill system, I’ve seen official guidelines from McGIll saying that on the one hand they loosely do take into account rigor, and on the other hand when it comes down to specifics, they will not weight grades, so that a 3.9 in an AP Class is not given the half point or point weight that most highs schools and competitive universities will ADD to a 3.9 in an AP Class.
With McGill they explicity say “they don’t weight”, so it would leave one thinking you would have been better off getting 4.0 in the much much easier or hmmm hmmm ““honors”” level high school class, and a 4.0 in an “Honors” class is better than a 3.9 in an AP class, or whatever that might mean in IB.
Its tough for us Americans, b/c this stuff matters in the U.S. for the more competitive schools, it matters so much, thats’ why grades are weighted.
At least McGill is consistent in this regard perhaps, they don’t weight your grades coming in, so they say, although without being pinned down as to “how” they will consider rigor, (perhaps for petitioned rejections, or very very borderline cases who knows"… Clearly for the most part, they love that refreshing Canadian Uni idea of printing off a list of averages, and a cut off, and that’s basically 99% of it.
The consistency is they don’t weight your uni grades upwards, on the way out to, and I think this is unfortunate in the global marketplace you’re left to explain the unexplainable, how a 3.3 at McGill is “really as good as a 3.8 at Colgate” trust me. That’s unfortunate and impossible, b/c McGIll uses a standard 4.0 recognizable US standard GPA system. If they wanted to give lower grades, but understood their curve is lower than comparable US schools, they should do what some other Canadian schools do, and adopt a non 4.0 system, so that some analysis is required. But that’s just my humble opinion, that would benefit McGIll grads, but maybe it would seem untoward to help anyone who wants to go out an compette against U.S. students for jobs or grad school slots in the U.S., and not their mission - I don’t see much if any downside in putting out a different GPA scale, in order to announce that “McGIll is a bit different” like perhaps UofT should or has . Some Canadian schools used to have some sort of 12.0 scale, which is great, b/c it at least announces that its “different”.
So I had recently got rejected from McGill’s BSc and BArts. Afterwards I wrote an e-mail to them expressing how I felt that my marks were sufficient for the school (CBSE Indian). And turns out they re-did their decision for my Arts application and I got in 
All’s well that ends well
That’s great! Do you think you’ll attend?
That’s amazing-- congrats! Do you mind sharing your timeline? Did you email general admissions? Bravo to you for being proactive!
Hi everyone, I’m sure this has been answered before but my application just changed to Reviewed - Decision Pending and was wondering if this is some sort of waitlist. How long will it take for me to find out my decision?
Hey thats great!! I was just wondering what email did you use? i have been trying to find a way to reach admissions office about questions but am unable to do so
See this recent post: Reviewed-Decision Pending
Thank you will be checking this regularly
Still waiting on other applications right now. Top priority is Waterloo for its Co-op but McGill is definitely up there because of its prestige and the city.
I used service point and used the “Question about application” option to write an email to them.
Haha thanks! I had sent my application late December early Jan and got my rejection on 11th Feb. I emailed them the next day and got my decision overturned on 23rd Feb
I am very annoyed because I applied for the scholarship a while ago and submitted my application 4 months ago and still no decision. I hope I will still get considered for the merit scholarship…. My app changed from not reviewed to further review required and I submitted the requested doc on the same day. It’s been one month and still hasn’t changed.
UBC is a top school. Congratulations! We have pretty much given up on McGill because they seem to have different/unreasonable standards for IB students. Sadly, it was his top choice. He has great options in Europe and US, so he will do well wherever he goes.
Do you mind sharing some color on his predicted IB scores / Major(s) he applied to? thanks much
My DD23 was accepted to the Faculty of Arts today from US. Submitted on 12/25.
Do not believe that about McGill looking at rigor. Our friend’s child was admitted from a mediocre at best US urban public school which is basically a diploma mill. My child attends an IB school and got “reviewed decision pending”
Applied to engineering and environmental. GPA is 3.9+ unweighted. IB HL Physics GPA 4.0 unweighted, predicted 6, HL Math 3.9 unweighted predicted IB 6, HL Film GPA 4.0 unweighted predicted IB6, SL Spanish GPA 4.0 unweighted predicted IB 6, SL Engligh GPA 4.0 unweighted predicted 6, ESS (Environmental) GPA 4.0 predicted 6. School is very conservative with predictioned IB scores. Rarely if ever gives a 7 for predicted. Does not give predicted for TOK/EE, does not weight GPAs. Son also took college courses at Harvard while in high school and has 4.0
Predicted HL Film 7.
Did you attend an IB program? It is very rigorous. In the US there are many public high schools that offer IB curriculum. You argument that IB students are somehow privileged is highly flawed. Also, US IB schools do not over inflate predicted scores as it seems Canadian and other international programs do. Less than 1 percent of IB students score 44/45, so it seems questionable when many students here are claiming to have predicted scores in that range.