<p>Why are McGill's admission criteria for American students so low? It is supposed to be a fantastic and prestigious university that is on par (or slightly below) the Ivies, however, their website states that American students only need around a B+/A- average and around an 1800 SAT score for admission. Am I reading this wrong? Is it significantly different for Canadian students or are they really pushing for Americans?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Why do you assume that the number and types of people a university rejects are good proxies for how academically rigorous a school is?</p>
<p>I never said anything about rigor; but there seems to be a correlation between “prestige” and heightened admissions criteria that seems to be missing here</p>
<p>Well, first of all it all depends on what department you apply to. The admission standards for arts and humanities are far lower than for departments such as business or life sciences. This is typical for Canadian universities.</p>
<p>Secondly McGill may not set the bar extremely high for any particular criteria but they have thresholds for each and every area, each SATI and II subscore, and grades for each year. Re: That B+/A- minimum is for EACH year from grade 9-11, NOT just a cGPA. Academic stability and well roundedness is valued and McGill is maybe less likely to be forgiving of a subpar year than other universities. </p>
<p>Thirdly these are the MINIMUM grades of the WEAKEST successful group of applicant last year (ie. got in off the wait-list) that are displayed, not the admission AVERAGE as displayed by most US universities. I guarantee that if you saw the average incoming grade of McGill freshmen it would be a lot higher than those minimum standards you see online. </p>
<p>Lastly McGill is a large research focused public university, it really isn’t accurate to compare it to private schools like the ivies. A more fair comparison would be to the top US public such as Michigan, the stronger UCs, UNC and Virginia (or the University of Toronto for a Canadian counterpart). McGill really is not structured like a small private Ivy like Dartmouth, it is much more focused on high impact graduate research then undergraduate education. A large proportion of undergraduate students take honor’s degrees and end up working in research labs in their last two years of their degree.</p>
<p>I hope that answered your question.</p>
<p>Thanks so much! This answered my question.</p>
<p>It is far from scientific, but this site has the average admitted members scores and rejected members scores: [McGill</a> University Admissions Statistics and Chances | Parchment - College admissions predictions.](<a href=“McGill University Admissions Statistics and Chances | Parchment - College admissions predictions.”>McGill University Admissions Statistics and Chances | Parchment - College admissions predictions.) </p>
<p>Again take it with a grain of salt because it is one website and the average member scores are via self reported data of the members of this site who applied to McGill (203 people)</p>
<p>From the site:
The 50th percentile of accepted students is an unweighted gpa of 3.80, and an SAT of 2151
The 50th percentile of rejected students is an unweighted gpa of 3.56 and an SAT of 2006</p>
<p>Again though the grades required to get in McGill are very different depending on the major you apply to.</p>