Questions about McGill

Also looking at McGill and U of Toronto. Daughter is still undecided but will apply to Faculty of Arts. Anyone here who knows someone who applied as undecided? Current stats: 3.94 UW/4.86 W, 1460 SAT /700 Math/760 Eng. Foreign language in Spanish but took it only for 3 years (unfortunately, she didn’t enjoy it). She could have taken French if she knew she’d fall in love with McGill! She visited the campus last April and it’s the only school she has in mind. She’s a Canadian citizen so she’ll be paying in-state rate, too if accepted. (Fingers crossed). Appreciate any feedback. Thanks!

3 Likes

If she was born outside Canada and has not lived in Canada for more than three months, she would pay the in-province Québec tuition.

1 Like

Thanks for your reply. She was born in Toronto but been living in the US for 17 years. You’re right - in province tuition. : )

Since she was born in Canada, she would pay the out of province Canadian tuition rate.

Thanks! I looked up the regulation. It says that she would pay as a Quebec resident if she never lived in Canada for more than 3 months. I went through our passports/papers and realized that we left Toronto when she was 2.5 months old. I couldn’t believe it either! If indeed, it was meant to be. At this point, we should focus on how she’d be admitted.

1 Like

Is she undecided between Arts, Science, etc.? Or is she simply undecided on which major she wants within Arts? Note that the application doesn’t require her to choose a specific major within Arts; she will just apply to Arts as a whole and choose her major later.

If she is undecided between Arts, Science, etc., she can apply to as many programs as she likes. The first application fee allows her to apply to two programs (such as Arts and Science), but she can pay another application fee if she wants to apply to additional programs (such as Arts and Science, etc.)

With her stats she should have a good chance at most of these programs. Good luck!

1 Like

I also think that your daughter’s chances are very good.

Assuming that you are living in the US, this all sounds a great deal like our oldest daughter, except that your daughter has a higher weighted GPA (this might be an artifact of the way that you school computes weighted GPA), a very slightly higher unweighted GPA, and a slightly higher SAT English score. Our daughter applied to McGill a number of years ago, and got her acceptance relatively quickly. My best guess is that your daughter will have a similar result.

Do you have a Canadian passport for your daughter? Since she was born in Canada this should be reasonably quick to get, but you will need it before she starts classes. Our “dual citizen daughters” were born in the US, so we had to first get a Certificate of Canadian Citizenship which can take quite a while (I think that it took nine months in our case, but this was a number of years ago).

1 Like

Her chances are excellent.
She would apply to Arts, right? Or would she want to apply to several majors or Honours programs directly? Applying to U0/Arts would probably yield a fast, positive response.
Might be time to lewrn some French basics :wink:

1 Like

Is she undecided between Arts, Science, etc.? Or is she simply undecided on which major she wants within Arts?

Thanks!
She’s interested in Psychology, Economics, and Statistics, and lately, she mentioned about “possibly” a career in data science. Prior to her senior year, she was looking into good pre-law majors. We’ll take your advice as to apply to programs she’s “currently” interested in and probably pay a separate application fee as we see fit. Who knows what major she will end up in. :slight_smile:

1 Like

Yes

1 Like

Thank you. That is very encouraging. Here in the US, no one can tell me the same thing. We are so grateful that we have Canadian schools on our plate. Their admission requirements are pretty straightforward and they work well for my family. We are surrounded by families here in the Northeast that can afford to send their kids to top-notch private schools, pay for excellent tutoring programs, SAT prep courses, leadership programs, sports, etc. It’s dizzying to listen to conversations about their obsession with Ivies. My daughter is working on some weekends and plays music with friends and engages in some volunteer activities during her free time. Nothing extraordinary about her out of school activities.

Yes, we are all excited about McGill or U of Toronto, and truly are praying that she’ll get into either.

2 Likes

Assuming that your daughter does get accepted to McGill and chooses to go there, you do not need any French at all to live and do well in Montreal. The part of Montreal around McGill and Concordia (the other English language university in Montreal, just up the street from McGill) is very largely fully bilingual. I think that this is quite an interesting location to live and study for four years.

However, learning a little bit of French might be useful. McGill will have classes. Alternately, there are French immersion courses available over the summer. These are subsidized by the Canadian government and are very reasonably priced. One daughter took a similar course but in New Brunswick. After five weeks she and I could just sit and have a simple conversation in French. Some of these courses are available in Montreal (and also in Quebec City) and you might want to look into them. If interested, I would be tempted to first wait until your daughter hears back from McGill, and then ask them if a course would be available before regular classes start.

When our daughter was taking the French immersion courses they first gave the rules in English, and then she was supposed to only speak French for the full five weeks. They had lessons in the morning and activities (which were in French) in the afternoon. There were multiple different levels of lessons and each student participated in what made sense for them (ranging from “total beginner” to “already speak French quite well”). In the spirit of “she should only speak French” I was texting her in French. After a day or two I ended up using Google translate to improve the chances of my getting the text right. I would type what I wanted to say in English into Google translate, and then type whatever it said in French back into my cell phone. I suspected that she was using Google translate to translate the French back into English, which made me suspect that we were using Google translate as the least effective encryption protocol ever invented.

3 Likes

Hi—do you have any more info on in-province tuition for Canadian citizens that have never lived in Canada? That would be amazing for my situation.

Situation 8c:

Situation 8 | Legal Documents - McGill University

It involves a lot of paperwork but it is a big savings.

Some may be eligible for Canadian citizenship but never claimed it. Your student would need a Certificate of Canadian Citizenship.

Just a heads-up on how provincial politics are destabilizing anglophone universities like McGill at the moment:

2 Likes

“Music school could be in jeopardy” is distressing. We toured McGill’s music program a number of years ago (back when my oldest was still considering being a music major). It is a really excellent program. They have multiple facilities which are very impressive, including but not limited to the music library and a very impressive recording studio.

The interaction between provincial politics and McGill’s academics was one reason that I went somewhere else a bit more than 50 years ago. This is not just a recent issue.

Thank you for posting this. This could be useful information for a dual-citizen daughter who is currently applying to PhD programs (although she had not been planning to apply to McGill).

We’ve been following the developments on talks between the provincial govt and the 3 anglophone universities in Quebec. A proposal was put forward that includes making the French language a mandatory course as a bargaining chip to suspend the planned tuition increase. Such proposal however did not move the needle at all.

Without huge grants and scholarships here in the US, I think McGill remains a viable option. We’ll see…

2 Likes

Yes, it’s too bad about the proposal. Ironically, because of this whole tuition-hike issue, McGill had to suspend a $50 million program that would have taught/improved the French skills of students and faculty!

Best of luck with the whole process. At least Situation 8 kids (Canadians born abroad) can still get Quebec residency for tuition purposes, but for international applicants, I’ve noticed international tuition already doubled recently.

Yes, it’s really upsetting. (Even worse for poor, tiny Bishop’s U, which could cease to exist altogether if they don’t come to some kind of arrangement.) My dual-citizen teen has definitely scrapped McGill, though it had already begun to move down the list after Bill 96 was passed.

1 Like

We toured Bishop’s twice, once before applying and again after our youngest had been accepted. I also have two relatives who graduated from there, both of whom speak well of the university. We liked Bishop’s quite a bit. It would be very sad to see it go away or suffer.

I do remember at Bishop’s overhearing conversations in both of Canada’s official languages. There are plenty of francophones at both Bishop’s and McGill (and I assume also Concordia).