Hello! So I’ve been in a constant argument with myself for the past couple of months here and the deadline is approaching quickly. I’ve seen a lot of threads comparing UBC and UAlberta, but they’re all focused on sciences and engineering while I want to go into linguistics.
Cost is kind of the main thing holding me back from UBC. I loved the nature and outdoors in Vancouver, but it’s an expensive city and it’ll cost me almost twice as much to attend UBC. UAlberta offered me 11k$ in scholarships and I know Edmonton is cheaper to live in, but I don’t know if it’s worth dealing with the winters. I’m from southern California and have never experienced temperatures below 20F. My other concern with attending Alberta is the reputation; does anyone know how much weight a degree from there would have if I were to come back to the US after my undergrad?
If I could get opinions on both the cities and the universities in regards to arts, it would mean a lot. Thank you!
Originally, the reason I started looking into Canadian universities was for the lower tuition. Many of the US universities ranked near the top Canadian universities have tuitions up to 40k a year and that’s not including room and board and all the other costs for attending school. Meanwhile, I can attend a Canadian university for a little less than that including everything beyond the base tuition and still get a top-tier education. Along with that, I love the idea of traveling and getting to immerse myself in an entirely new culture. I’ve lived in such a sheltered city for all my life that the idea of actually getting to go out and experience the world is beyond appealing.
How much can your parents pay out of pocket (income+savings)?
Does UBC accept US federal loans?
Do the 35K include room&board+personal expenses?
Does that take into accoutn the fact that 1 canadian dollar is about 0.70 american dollar?
UBC is roughly the same cost as a UC, and Vancouver is “the best city in the world” according to a worldwide survey (while it’s subjective which city in the world is “the best” :p, Vancouvers definitely a really cool city to live in).
Alberta is rather insular and is experiencing an economic downturn. If that’s your only affordable choice, I’d take a gap year and choose a wider variety of schools.
I believe that you can also still apply to Quebec’s Cegeps, Dawson and Champlain St Lambert use one application, for the others (Champlain Lennoxville, Heritage…) you’ll have to look at their website (“Anglophone cegep in quebec” should yield a result). Tuition should be 5K USD and R&B about the same.
If grad studies are not likely, U of A is a gamble as far as its reputation with US employers. With grad studies in the US, it would be fine, academically. It’s cold, though, and if you’re not used to that it can be somewhat of a downer. The campus culture at Cdn schools is not what you’d find at most large US universities; it’s more conservative, tame, “mature” if you like, and some of that probably has to do with colder winters.
I can’t see UBC being well-known in CA, either, but it’s a safer bet than U of A. The linguistics program at U of A might be as good or better than UBC, but without grad studies, it’s a risk if you plan on returning to the US. Winters in Vancouver can be pretty dank, which I doubt you’re used to either. The UBC campus is in a beautiful location, though.
Yeah I’m still super unsure about grad studies which is why I’m scared of going to Alberta, but it’s true that UBC isn’t super well known in California either…more than Alberta, but that’s not saying too much. I’ve been in tougher winters and haven’t minded them, but always as a tourist, never as a resident. If I go to Edmonton, I feel like I’ll spend most of my scholarship on winter stuff haha
And I applied to schools with a 3.9 unweighted GPA and a 1980 on the SAT, got rejected from most all the UCs, but I also come from a really competitive school so that might’ve had something to do with it.
Speaking as a linguist: They’re both quite good as far as reputation and getting into grad school and such. Their programs have quite different focuses—Alberta’s really excellent for things like laboratory phonetics, language acquisition, and psycholinguistics, while UBC is more centered on things like sociolinguistics, anthropological linguistics, and First Nations linguistics/language documentation. If you’re interested in the theoretical side of the house they’re both quite solid, with Alberta perhaps getting the edge on the integration of elicited data into theoretical studies, as opposed to more of an “armchair linguistics” model. Either way, you’ve got a solid path into grad school.
One more thing: Edmonton vs. Vancouver. I don’t think either is really a better place to be in terms of quality of life (though I will say that I’ve liked the little bits of time I’ve spent in Edmonton, but the definition I heard once of “A bunch of oil fiends gathered together for the express purpose of freezing to death” has its moments of truth), but in terms of research possibilities, if you’re interested in anything dealing with racial/ethnic variation in language or language contact issues, Vancouver is an amazing laboratory space right outside your front door—so there’s that, too.
I actually didn’t know about which areas of linguistics both schools were more focused on so that’s really useful information, thank you! I was conflicted between psycho and sociolinguistics, so I suppose that’d probably be a good thing to look more into in the week I have left. And it’s good to know that both schools are good paths to grad school, makes Alberta’s reputation feel a little less risky.
Right now, my goal is to into publishing - preferably for books, but we’ll see what’s big in 5 or so years. And yeahh, I applied to both of those schools and no luck. I always thought I was a pretty decent student but everything’s so competitive that the results don’t surprise me too much.
What about a gap year to reapply to ucsc and ucsb + more universities ?
Both schools ’ weather would be a shock to you. (plan to buy a sunlamp).
Ubc * is * more well known in the us but grad schools will know about each department 's strengths.
That’s outrageous. Your GPA is well above UCSC’s average of 3.76. You are around the 75th percentile SAT score. I assume your course rigor was there. You would have required decent ECs and essays, certainly not outstanding.
You said you went to a very competitive high school. What was your class rank? For UCSC, 96% are within the top tenth of their class; 100% within the top quarter.
Were you offered a spot at Merced?
If you’re UC eligible, they are supposed to offer an alternative UC that still has availability,
which these days means Merced.
Of course a gap year is also an option, as is a CC to UC transfer at the junior level,
which is probably the most cost effective. Another option is to find a WUE school that is still taking applications.
Here’s a link to their sort by major function: http://wue.wiche.edu/search1.jsp
Since Merced would be about the same cost-wise as the Canadian schools,
I personally would opt for UBC.
The support you would receive as an International student will be a good counter-balance to the size of the school.
As someone said above, Vancouver is a terrific city.
UBC is very recognizable to both grad schools and employers in California.
They also have very high International reputation rankings: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/11464059/Top-100-world-universities-by-reputation-in-full.html
Both Canadian schools have great programs.
As part of your decision process, you may want to dig deeper into the specific departmental course offerings,
as well as any core or general ed. requirements at each school.
I’m in the top quarter but I didn’t have very crazy ECs…I’ve been running an online business from home for the last 2 or 3 years and haven’t had much time outside of that and studying. All of the ECs I did have mostly revolved around music and performing arts. I wrote about that in my application, but I doubt it did much to help me.
As of now, I haven’t received any offers from any UCs. And I honestly love both Vancouver and Edmonton for such different reasons - the nature in Vancouver is beautiful and the weather is a lot more temperate, but I also appreciate the small-town feel in Edmonton and the staff there were a lot more enthusiastic to talk to me.
I’m definitely spending the next couple of days really looking into the specific programs and seeing which one is a better fit.
Even if you had decent ECs, with the rest of your scores, you had very good odds for UCSC. Surprising. Besides, running an online business shows initiative. It’s hard to put a finger on the reason for your denial. Maybe there was something catastrophic in your essays. Anyway, like @MYOS1634, I was going to suggest a gap year if you would rather attend school in CA. I would imagine your essays can be improved, plus you’d have a year to build upon your ECs/volunteering/work. It doesn’t appear that your scores/grades were an obstacle. I see that you’re under some pressure to go to uni this fall, however.
Academically, both UBC and U of A are suitable, but maybe you can parse out meaningful differences (to you) in the curricula. Try to discover whether UBC has a better/safer reputation back home. The climate/geography and the feel of the two cities are quite different – not many non-locals move to Edmonton to retire, for example (versus Vancouver). Also, it depends largely on how easily your family can absorb the extra $60,000 for UBC. If they can afford it, then you have to put a price tag on the extras you’re getting with Vancouver. IMO, UBC is definitely worth a premium, but how much?