<p>Based on the acceptance pattern and the people I know who go to Mcgill, I wouldn't consider Mcgill at Cambridge level or even any of the ivies</p>
<p>"If Canadians were like New Yorkers, a lot of the top students from all provinces would be clammoring to get into McGill and Toronto"</p>
<p>TourGuide,
My point is the strength of student bodies at McGill and Toronto is less than that of the ones at top American schools on average, even though there are many smart students at both of those schools. You admitted that top students from Canadian provinces don't fight to get into McGill and Toronto. Well, top students from all over the world, including top Canadian students, congregate at the top American schools. Your statement proved my point. Although Toronto and McGill do have top-notch faculties, they also have large numbers of undergrads competing for attention and research opportunities. Therefore, Toronto and McGill are like Berkeley and UMich. They are not like the Ivies.</p>
<p>IPBear...I agree with everyting in post #22. I think it must be stressed that (especially on College Confidential) the difficulty of admission is too often viewed as THE indicator of the quality of education, rather than the quality of the faculty. It's true that the average student at Toronto, McGill, Michigan, and Berkeley can't compete with the average student at the Ivies. But the top 5000 undergrads at those schools are clearly as good as the top 5000 undergrads at most Ivies, and the faculties at those schools are Ivy comparable.</p>
<p>I agree. However, maybe the top 2000 undergrads at those two schools can be compared with students at the Ivies, since Princeton and Dartmouth have less than 5000 undergrads. It's the density of smart students that distinguish top private American schools from its peers in all other countries.</p>
<p>I think if you look at the SAT stats, it's probably 2000 at an Ohio State or Purdue. It's way more than that at Mich, Toronto, Berkeley, and McGill.
Using the data from Fiske's Guide (which lists the SATs of the actual students rather than the accepted students' like US News does), roughly speaking, the top 25% at Berkeley (about 5500 students) have an SAT ABOVE 1440/1600. Whereas at Harvard, the top 75% (or about 4800 ) have an SAT above 1400/1600. I know these are approximations and someone will rebut this with a bunch of standard deviation analysis, but I've yet to see a stat that indicates the top several thousand students at the better (not even the best) state schools are inferior to an equal number at most of the Ivies. I mean if I wanted to slam dunk my point, I could have picked Cornell's SATs instead of Harvard's to compare Berkeley's top students to.</p>
<p>And don't forget the Ivies have a lot of jocks, legacies, and affirmative action students who are significantly below the Ivy norm. I also hope you're excepting Oxford and Cambridge from your claims that foreign countries don't have universities with a dense collection of superior students.</p>
<p>Agreed. Top 10000 students at Toronto and McGill are comparable to students at the Ivies. However, student bodies at Toronto and McGill are not as strong as ones at the Ivies on average.
I excluded Cambridge, University of Tokyo, Oxford, National University of Singapore, Imperial, LSE, and other elite research universities when making the statement you referred to. It's simply not possible to do a comparison between them and the Ivies at the undergrad level.</p>
<p>tourguide said:
McGill isn't "just another college" in Canada. Don't know with whom Ivyleaguer has been talking. Toronto and McGill aren't as hard to get into as American universities with faculties of comparable quality because they don't have that "magnet" effect. Whereas the top American schools get loads of applications from all over the country, the bulk of Canadians seem reluctant to leave their home </p>
<hr>
<p>my point was that in Canada, no one is awed about what school you went to for the very reason you noted above. people in Canada go to a school that is close by. there are no bad universities in Canada, like the disparity you find in the U.S. for those reasons and others no one is awed by any school you attended. a mcgill degree or Toronto degree in Canada, is the same as a University of Calgary. none will open more doors for you in Canada. That said, yes, toronto and mcgill offer Ivy Caliber academics. so does Queen's and maybe even Western. but if you're attending these schools for prestige, think long and hard, is all I am saying.</p>
<p>IPBear's comments about Cambridge display a woeful ignorance.</p>
<p>IPBear wrote, "Many colleges at Cambridge are as good as top American schools. However, some colleges at Cambridge are a notch below the top American schools".</p>
<p>Which colleges do you have in mind, IPBear? I doubt IPBear could name more than a handful of the 31 colleges of Cambridge before succumbing to a google.</p>
<p>The ridiculousness of IPBear's claim are apparent when we look at how Cambridge students are taught.</p>
<p>At the graduate level, students are taught by their departments\faculties, so college membership is irrelevant.</p>
<p>At undergraduate level, students are taught by their colleges. However, it is simply not the case that a few colleges have a monopoly on the best or most senior department\faculty teaching staff: senior department\faculty teaching staff can be found as fellows in all colleges. Also colleges often share supervisors (so Professor X might teach at colleges X, Y Z). Furthermore, lectures and seminars are usually held at the departmental\faculty level. So Cambridge student at college X receives the same education as Cambridge student at college Y.</p>
<p>The idea, therefore, that "some colleges at Cambridge are a notch below the top American schools" is simply false and can only be made by someone ignorant of the Cambridge collegiate system.</p>
<p>Also, I was gob-smacked at another of IPBear's comments. IPBear wrote, "Since Cambridge and Oxford take so many undergraduates (more than the top eight American schools, based on averages of their USNWR rankings over the years, combined). This is why students who can't get into top schools in the United States are attending colleges at Cambridge and Oxford."</p>
<p>Again, complete rubbish: from memory, Cambridge has only about twenty undergraduates each year from America.</p>
<p>Also, Oxbridge do not have more undergraduates than the top eight American universities combined. This seems to be a re-telling of the usual nonsense that Oxbridge has more students than the top American universities.</p>
<p>This persistent myth is due to only looking at undergraduate figures.</p>
<p>Harvard has 6K undergrads and Cambridge has 12K undergrads. </p>
<p>Seems a big difference but this ignores the postgraduate dimension: Harvard as 12K graduate students and Cambridge only 6K. </p>
<p>So Harvard and Cambridge have roughly the same number of students. They differ only in their ratio of undergrads to postgrads.</p>
<p>i really like ladypossoms response here lol -- i forgot about this thread, but just re-read and have a couple of comments...first, to ipbear, thanks for calling me ignorant for having an opinion (very classy and respectful). also, in reference to the rankings i posted, it is just another way that mcgill / cambridge compete with the top schools, obviously it was not meant to be the be-all and end-all of my point (much like i dont think the SAT requirement is a great argument either)</p>
<p>knowing a lot of people from canada, and having lived there myself (in montreal actually), i can agree with the people who said school is not the same for canadians as it is for americans (although they dont necessarily choose based only on location, rather on programs offered / selectivity -- but generally the closest match to home is chosen) -- and the simple fact that cambridge / mcgill are not in the united states is a big factor into the reason that u.s. students aren't clamoring to get into these schools like they are to the "top" u.s. schools in addition to the fact that they arent "ranked" by usnwr</p>
<p>sorry for going on a rant here, but seeing people post "authoritative" comments who have probably never even been to mcgill or cambridge, and learn what they know about schools through books and usnwr rankings, made me want to make a couple of last comments... just because they're not named Harvard, Yale, or Princeton doesn't mean they're not great haha -- i just happen to think they all are in the top tier -- this is my OPINION, so ipbear try to hold off on the personal attacks in the response you undoubtedly want to post ;)</p>
<p>
[quote]
Let's put it this way. McGill and Cambridge undergrads are considered at a tier below undergrads at top notch American Universities (USNWR top 15 & USNWR LAC top 5).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't know about McGill, but, frankly, I can't think of a plausible reason to consider Cambridge undergrads at a tier below undergrads at top 15 American universities. </p>
<p>First of all, even though Cambridge's acceptance rate is indeed much higher than Harvard's, the entry-level standards are nonetheless also much higher in the UK. That is because the British A-level curriculum normally goes much deeper than the standard American HS diploma. That also explains BTW why Cambridge colleges only admit a handful of US students fresh out of HS and favor instead candidates who have already completed one year of college studies in America (deemed to be equivalent to an A-level qualification in the British system). </p>
<p>Second, unlike in the American "liberal arts/general education" model, Cambridge undergraduate students concentrate almost exclusively on their chosen major from day one and study it up to a level of detail/depth that would be found only in graduate (master's) level courses in the US. That is true even in the case of the standard 3-year Cambridge BA (the usual degree for arts, humanities and social sciences majors) and, even more so, in the case of the new 4-year undergraduate degrees that are now available in engineering, mathematics and natural sciences (physics, chemistry, etc.). In fact, several fourth-year Cambridge courses in engineering, mathematics, or physics could actually be suitable even for ** first-year Ph.D students ** in the US ! </p>
<p>Generally speaking then, I tend to think that an Oxbridge undergraduate education compares favorably in depth of content to an equivalent HYPSM education for example. US universities have an edge though for ** research-based ** doctoral degrees, chiefly because the standards to earn a Ph.D in the US (in terms of originality and relevance/impact of a student's research) are still much higher than in the UK and the American research groups/labs are usually much better funded on average than their British counterparts.</p>
<p>
[quote]
At undergraduate level, students are taught by their colleges. However, it is simply not the case that a few colleges have a monopoly on the best or most senior department\faculty teaching staff: senior department\faculty teaching staff can be found as fellows in all colleges. Also colleges often share supervisors (so Professor X might teach at colleges X, Y Z). Furthermore, lectures and seminars are usually held at the departmental\faculty level. So Cambridge student at college X receives the same education as Cambridge student at college Y.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Just to add to what Ladypossoms said, all Cambridge students, irrespective of the college they are affiliated with, take the ** same final exams ** for their chosen degree, as exams are also set and administered by the central university's departments/faculties rather than the individual colleges.</p>
<p>Well said, bruno. I would also add three further points.</p>
<p>First, Cambridge's (and Oxford's) acceptance rate is distorted by the fact that students cannot apply to both Oxford and Cambridge in the same year. If we factored this in, then Cambridge's acceptance rate is probably at least equal to or lower than that of Harvard (after all, the vast majority of Oxford applicants would also apply to Cambridge if they could, and vice versa). </p>
<p>Second, as you indicated, the reason why there are so few American undergraduate students at Cambridge, as well as Oxford, is that their High School 'education' is not deemed to be sufficient preparation for the rigour of a Cambridge or Oxford education.</p>
<p>Third, the belief that HYP+whatever else > Oxbridge appears to be one of those cute little delusions suffered by our colonial friends. The only advantage HYP has over Oxbridge is $$$. Cambridge has more Nobel Prizes than Harvard (in fact, Cambridge has the highest number of Nobel Prize winners in the world), more distinguished alumni, and provides the superior education. I visited Harvard last year. I found that both the campus and the students were noticeably well below Oxbridge standards.</p>
<p>No amount of $ can alter the fact that these so-called "top" universities in America have yet to produce a Milton, Newton or Darwin (sorry Princeton, but hiring Einstein in his later years with $$$ doesn't count).</p>
<p>Oxbridge: older, posher, better.</p>
<p>Finally some people who know what they're talking about when it comes to comparing the top US and UK universities. I wish that we could sticky just the last few posts.</p>
<p>to Milkmagn</p>
<p>i hope the people you know don’t hang out with you a lot, who knows, you might take pictures of them while they are doing something humanly common just to ruin their hopes for succeeding. shame on you</p>