Last month, after getting rejected from most of my top schools, I committed to McGill’s Faculty of Arts. Then this morning I got off the waitlist at NYU CAS and now I’m very conflicted.
I’m waitlisted at McGill’s management school, which is where I initially wanted to go, and I’ve accepted McGill’s offer for their economics program but now that I’m off the waitlist at NYU I’m not sure how excited I am about McGill.
My biggest concern about both schools is that I won’t get enough individual attention from the school and I’ll get lost. I’m coming from a small private school in NJ where there is a lot of support for students and the classes are often less than 15 people. The advantage NYU has in that department is that I would be closer to home and would feel less alone. I also know many people from here that are going to NYU. Conversely, McGill would teach me to be more independent and less reliant on my parents and the people I already know.
I love both cities endlessly. However, I’m more focused on choosing a school than a city because I know that I can probably love any city I live in.
Does anyone from the econ department of each school have any guidance? Or even outside of that major? I want to get a feel for each school but doing so during quarantine is difficult.
If you attend NYU would you be commuting? Have you visited McGill and Montreal in the past?
What would be the bottom line cost difference?
I assume that you have read the responses on this thread:
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/mcgill-university/2176127-i-am-a-current-mcgill-student-ask-me-anything.html#latest
Hi TomSrOfBoston,
Yes, I did read those replies. They were very helpful at the time but now that I have a new option at NYU I’m more concerned about my choice. When I committed to McGill it was my best option. Now I’m not so sure.
I will not be commuting to NYU and my parents have been generous enough to fund me regardless of where I go to school.
I have not visited McGill but I visited Montreal when I was young. I had plans to visit McGill last month but that did not happen.
In terms of academics McGill and NYU are comparable. Both are large schools and “individual attention” would be limited in freshman year classes. Both have limited athletics and Greek life. So neither is the “traditional college experience”.
Although you are someone from the New York metro area Manhattan is a different world from suburban New Jersey. When my son decided to attend McGill he wanted to get away from Boston unlike so many students who are eager to get to Boston for college. He never regretted that decision. He immersed himself in a new region, took his high school French to fluency (although that is not required) and made many friends from around the world.
It is a personal decision of course and most unfortunate that you are unable to visit Montreal.