<p>Hi guys,</p>
<p>I am a British PhD student/journalist/political researcher and as much as the USA is great fun (it is my area of academic focus), I cant work out why Canadian students would go there for degree study when Uo Toronto and McGill are as good as anything pretty much (except HYP).</p>
<p>Care to catch me up?</p>
<p>Thanks,</p>
<p>These are certainly thinking points:</p>
<p>Resources (endowments, campus size, opportunities etc).
Industry (companies in Canada vs US. I mean… you can’t really compare Entertainment industries - Hollywood studios).
Prestige (reputation from personal influences such as parents, teachers, acquaintances, role models, word-of-mouth, branding, nobel laureates)
Leaving home (when out-of-town universities doesn’t cut it)
Peer pressure
Nefarious social commentary plan to compare US and Canada Universities (lol)</p>
<p>I see.</p>
<p>Do many students go the other way, from US to Canada?</p>
<p>I have no clue.</p>
<p>I see.</p>
<p>Canada is so much nicer then the US. Much more sophisticated country, I cant imagine why one would go South as it were.</p>
<p>I think fallenmerc has hit on a number of reasons for why students do this, though I believe with the US in a recession and so much pessimism about their economy (relative to Canada), it is making increasing less sense for students to consider the US offering more job opportunities (except in some specific industries). And indeed, students can and do get recruited all the time from Canadian schools to work at US companies. </p>
<p>At our kids’ school I see a lot of wealthy families whose kids apply and get into some fabulous US colleges…and then opt to stick with Canada after all. When it comes to the financial differential, even for well off families, it just doesn’t add up (especially when its only for undergrad and one can always go south for graduate school…the difference of $100-150k can be spent on so much better things!).</p>
<p>As for prestige, I think that emanates from popular culture. There are some very fabulous high quality US schools, but one sees Canadian kids even applying to well known (as in appearing on TV and in movies) US schools that aren’t even that great (based on my experience of working in them as a professor). </p>
<p>But also Canada is a multi-cultural country, and those that go for the prestige factor tend to be students whose families hail from some parts of the world where prestige/brands (especially over all things American) is a big deal in their family and their community. I guess that has value in a way that isn’t tangible. </p>
<p>If Canadian kids can get there without going into debt- especially if they can get funding from the institution- all the more power to them. But I think it would be a crying shame if they chase after it and can’t actually afford to do it. In those cases, financially it just does not make much sense.</p>
<p>I pretty much agree with what the person said above me.</p>
<p>The thing is though, if a student wants to go to a US university, they might as well get into Ivy Leagues or any others equal to their reputation because why bother paying 2 to 3 times more to go to an average US university when one can go to a really good one in Canada for less. If a student does get into Ivy Leagues and such, the schools there are stuffed with money so they give out financial aid depending on how much the accepted students can pay and it comes with NO STRING ATTACHED…meaning that there’s no student loan/debt :)</p>
<p>One of the factors that made me want to attend a private US institution is that in Canada, all universities are run by the government - meaning that the university professors are actually paid by the education system within the Canadian government. So the payment of professors are actually equal, whether they have 200 or 2 students in their classes. This causes some laziness and awful teaching among some professors. However, private institutions in US have professors paid depending on how many people are in their courses, which encourages professors to be better teachers.</p>
<p>And no, not as many US students go to Canadian universities, but the numbers are increase by year so maybe one day Americans will want to attend Canadian universities more than vice versa.</p>
<p>IVY2012-- you may want to check out what you said as the Canadian Federal Government does not have a ministry of education therefore your second paragraph is totally false. University pay structure is different at each University and paid for primarily by the University with some Provincial monies thrown in. Do not try to tell anyone that the salary structure creates lazy teachers. You will get lazy teachers anywhere regardless of the pay scales. I have heard of some profs in top US IVY schools that once they get full tenure show up very seldom in class but have a TA do it for them. You have made some very big assumptions that are best left alone.</p>
<p>Canadians may want to go to the US because of the numerous exit opportunities that an American school may provide (LAC or Prestige). </p>
<p>Sometimes I find the Canadian undergraduate atmosphere too career-centric. What I mean by this is that students are no longer enrolling in majors that they’re interested in, rather they’re enrolling in majors for the sake of going into a certain career.</p>
<p>Many US students apply to McGill. I understand they recruit from the northeast US.</p>
<p>But not that many Americans go to University of Toronto.</p>
<p>For example, you will see on CC that the Toronto sight is dead.</p>
<p>And I’d venture to say that most americans don’t even know the names of any Canadian colleges/universities, other than those two.</p>
<p>I wonder why UofT is so lowly rated? Although its business program is lackluster, its other programs are considered topnotch by academic journals, national/international publications and it’s perceived this way by industry leaders as well. </p>
<p>Hmm.</p>
<p>I know a lot of people go to US schools from Ontario because they are easier to get into for certain programs, such as medicine and some education/OT programs. Even though Ontario has a lot Universities there is a lot of competition because there are so many students so it can be difficult to get into grad school.</p>
<p>U of T is known, at least from the 15+ people I know that go/went there, for a bad undergraduate experience —> huge class sizes, hard to get grades, bad profs, etc, cut throat competition.</p>
<p>That’s not true. </p>
<p>Class sizes are similar at UBC and McGill. The smaller universities like Queen’s or Western will have smaller class sizes. </p>
<p>The curve is also similar to the ones at UBC and McGill. </p>
<p>The professors are some of Canada’s brightest. Some are pretty bad, but there are a lot of gems and “celebrity” academics that show up once in a while. </p>
<p>Cut-throat competition? That’s just a rumour. I have study groups, and they’re all very nice.</p>
<p>I always thought UoT was rated highly, not McGill high, but still high.</p>
<p>Does having a US name of the resume help in getting a job in Canada?</p>
<p>I see the logic of Ivies, FA considered, but else, I always thought Canadians going to the US for studies was a bit pointless. Canadian universities are well regarded, at least in the UK.</p>
<p>I worked in the City before doing a PhD (well starting one, yr 2 now) and if you had McGill or UoT on the resume, you were looked at favourably.</p>
<p>**I always thought UoT was rated highly, not McGill high, but still high.</p>
<p>Does having a US name of the resume help in getting a job in Canada?</p>
<p>I see the logic of Ivies, FA considered, but else, I always thought Canadians going to the US for studies was a bit pointless.**</p>
<p>Canadian employers tend to be pretty impressed by famous American schools on one’s r</p>
<p>But swathes of the US are full of fat, ugly, red neck, idiots. Ok California is tops and DC is good, maybe a nod to NY, but the entire middle bit is like one big anus.</p>
<p>Yeah Canadians love to see UCLAs, UCBerks, Dukes and IVYs but there are SOOO many Canadians that think there are only 10-15 good schools in the US (IVYs, UCLA +UCB, Stanford, Duke, UMICH, etc) and the rest are inferior to their Canadian Universities. A LOT of people and employers in Canada would generally think of schools like Rice, Tulane, Northwestern, Fordham, Emory (schools that aren’t University of “X”, X being location or schools that haven’t been mentioned in NCAA sports or Hollywood flicks) as no-name schools being schools that wouldn’t even rank top 300 MBA programs. </p>
<p>Lol, health sciences at UToronto as an undergrad is suicide. Speaking from the experiences told to me by the 15+ people that went to UT, I wouldn’t go there. And also for UT Commerce (Rotman), if you can’t maintain a 75 (a B by Ontario standards), you get kicked out of the St. Georges campus.</p>
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<p>Lol artsies have nothing to complain about. They should spend some time here in engineering :p</p>
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