Transferring to Canadian Universities from an Ivy League school

Hi All,

Due to the current situation regarding the coronavirus and student visas (I’m an international student, as you can guess from my username), I’m strongly considering transferring to a Canadian university. I’m currently on leave, and planning to start my junior year in 2021 Fall at either my current uni or a new one. I’m applying to Humanities / Arts divisions (music history major) and have a GPA of 3.98 with two pass/fail courses (which is rather common in my school). I also have pretty strong letters of recommendations and the resume. I’ve also taken a couple of graduate level courses, and have done a bunch of extracurriculars.

At first, I thought it would be pretty safe to apply only to UBC, Mcgill, and Toronto (I know a prof there), alongside with some British ones, but considering the anticipated competition among international students given the current situation, I’m considering to apply to other ones as well. Can someone tell me my chances to these three schools, and also recommend me some other choices? I’m utterly confused about this whole thing tbh.

You’re at an Ivy school with a very high GPA. I think you’re safe if you’re applying to all those schools, but apply to more if you want to be sure.

Agree with @Lindagaf . If you are still looking for other schools Western and Queen’s would be good choices.

Wise idea to broaden out your search, as I suspect there will be a flood of international students looking for alternatives to the US. I wish I had more info on what CAN schools have strong Music History departments. Perhaps @gwnorth can chime in?

Queens is certainly very good, and always has been overall. Western(University of Western Ontario) is a good school overall, but more famous for it’s business school. Waterloo, while excellent, is more of a techie/math school. McMaster is more science/Medicine. Maybe Guelph? For straight out Music, Humber used to have a great program, especially for jazz, but that was more for players than academics.

I know that the music department at U of T has always been strong, as has McGill’s. Both of these being right in the middle of their respective cities is a big advantage. They are not only excellent schools, but close to all sorts of music. UBC is more suburban, and Vancouver doesn’t have nearly the music scene, being somewhat isolated as a city compared to Montreal and Toronto.

So, check into Queens, besides the Big 3, maybe? I am not sure what the Ottawa schools have to offer(Carleton, U of OTT) in your major, or how well they are regarded. I would agree with the above posters that if your Ivy courses are in good order then you should have a very good shot at gaining admittance to almost all schools in Canada, though there are always quirks. I know of a guy who was admitted to Yale and rejected at McMaster!

Thank you all so much for warm comments. I’ll definitely look into Queens and Western.

Both Queen’s and Western have strong music departments in addition to being academically selective schools (I’m a Western alum myself). If you want to search to see what schools in Canada offer degrees in Music History you can use this site

https://www.universitystudy.ca/

If you have any questions regarding specific universities let me know.

With a GPA of 3.98 from an Ivy League university I would definitely go ahead with your application to McGill. It has a large and excellent music program. The music library there is very impressive, as are other aspects of their music program.