<p>My son is considering these as (hopefully) safeties. Can anyone compare and contrast or give other input? Thanks much.</p>
<p>McGill will have the feel of a U.S. state flagship like Michigan, but with fewer resources and campus activities. Not much on-campus housing; most students live in apartments. Lower tuition (assuming you’re not a Michigan resident). Michigan has a strong Greek system, while the Greek scene at McGill is very small.</p>
<p>I think one of the biggest differences is that at Michigan life centers on campus. Ann Arbor is an incredible college town. I don’t believe there’s much campus activity at McGill; student life centers in Montreal, which is a gem of a city.</p>
<p>I’m not I’d consider either a safety. McGill’s app is purely numbers driven. I don’t know about Mich but S goes to McGill and what wjb says is true.</p>
<p>Michigan is a very selective university. If it’s a safety for your son, I’d like to know what your match institutions are.</p>
<p>Well, McGill is a safety only in the sense that it is solely numbers driven so presumably if you are above those numbers, it is a safety for you. Also the McGill app is very easy (no essays, no recs), so that is tempting. ANd we love Montreal. But I am really not sure about undergrad education there (I know it is a superb research university) and the whole system of applying to particular “faculty” is confusing. Woody, how did your son decide which faculty to apply to? I am also concerned that McGill is a commuter school for many Montreal residents, although obviously there are a great many students from outside Montreal. Also if independent living is immediately required (as opposed to dorm life), I wd be concerned that my son is not ready, although I am sure he would strenuously disagree.</p>
<p>There is dorm housing for all freshman. Quite frankly, the “McGill Ghetto” is so full of students that entire blocks seem like dorms to me! S has lived with variations of his first year dorm mates for the past 3 years.
S knew going in what he wanted his major to be and took it from there.</p>
<p>Michigan is a great school with a pretty high acceptance rate – about 50%. Last year’s mid-50% ACT range for enrolled students was 27-31 – excellent but not astronomical. Michigan can be a safety for top stat applicants – kids who are highly competitive for HYP and peers. If the high school has Naviance Scattergrams, they can confirm whether Michigan is a viable safety.</p>
<p>It was one of my son’s two safeties. It was a relief to have that great admission in his back pocket by about Halloween.</p>
<p>I guess my other concern (all based on rumor) is that McGill is not a great name for US grad school (particularly perhaps med school - not that my son is particularly likely to go in that direction) admissions. No idea if that is true relative to peer institutions. Anyone know? Thanks.</p>
<p>McGill is well known and highly rated.</p>
<p>See the most recent London Times ranking:</p>
<p>[Top</a> 200 - The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2010-2011](<a href=“http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2010-2011/top-200.html]Top”>World University Rankings 2010-11 | Times Higher Education (THE))</p>
<p>It’s 35th, and ranked as the second best University in Canada (after Univ. of Toronto).</p>
<p>for comparisons like this,schools in the us are usually better.</p>
<p>^ LOL. Michigan is ranked 15th in the world, 12th in the U.S., and better than any school in Canada on that same ranking.</p>
<p>But I wouldn’t take the ranking too seriously. Both Michigan and McGill are well known and highly regarded. And my understanding is that for med school all that matters is GPA and MCAT scores; the nameplate on the undergrad degree won’t make much difference. As for grad school in purely academic disciplines, McGill will certainly be known and respected by U.S. academics. As will, of course, Michigan.</p>
<p>One other possible concern with McGill: we looked at it with my D2 this summer, and she didn’t like the fact that a lot of Montreal-area kids use it as a commuter school. Understandable if you can get a quality education and live more cheaply at home, but it changes the nature of campus life if a large fraction of the student body goes home in the evening and on weekends.</p>
<p>To me it’s one of those apples to oranges things. I have a friend with a daughter at McGill who is very happy. If the style of an Canadian school appeals to you then McGill has much to offer and Montreal is wonderful. Ann Arbor is a quintessential American college town with a large classic university and all that encompasses including huge fall weekends. I do believe McGill is significantly less expensive than Michigan which is getting close to $50,000 a year for OSS kids. If instate the costs might be relatively comparable. For an undergraduate education I believe they are comparable.</p>
<p>McGill is as easily recognized for med or grad school as any well known US school. Like Michigan, is highly regarded as a research powerhouse, and that drives the reputation. </p>
<p>For med school considerations, keep in mind the special importance of GPA. As a general rule, Canadian schools lag behind in grade inflation that you see at American schools. You can readily find a great college in the US with an average GPA of 3.3-3.5 (Michigan last year was 3.27) whereas Canadian schools tend to be around 2.7-2.9 and McGill has a Canadian reputation for being particularly tough. U of T also known as a gpa killer, but their transcripts at least provide the class average along with the students’ average (hence provides necessary context).</p>
<p>I believe the quality of the students and education at either school would be quite comparable. Both are large, diverse, and research oriented with great reputations. The big upside of McGill is lower cost, and the adventure and developmental experience that comes with living in a foreign city. The big upside of Michigan is a very classic American college experience (self-contained campus in a college town, everyone lives in dorms on campus for four years, all activities on campus). That sort of experience is pretty unusual in either the UK or Canada.</p>
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</p>
<p>I agree with everything Starbright said except for the above. Most upper class students in Michigan live in apartments near the campus or spread out around town; few live in dorms. In practice, though, it doesn’t really make a difference. Virtually all frosh and most sophs live in dorms, and they carry their relationships over when they move out into apartments.</p>
<p>^ Ah thanks for the correction and interesting to know. So since most freshman at McGill live in the dorms in first year, then in the ghetto after that, it really isn’t as different as I thought it was.</p>
<p>40% of McGill undergrads come from the Montr</p>
<p>The main things people have said here correspond to what I know. A few grace notes":</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Both are great universities, but as the London Times rankings illustrate Michigan tends to be underrated in the U.S., at least by high school students, because it isn’t as selective as the fancy-shmancy schools, and I think McGill tends to be overrated some (one of the big surprises in those ranking was the clear superiority of Toronto to McGill, which is not the conventional view).</p></li>
<li><p>Going back a decade or so, I know several kids who left McGill because it was too impersonal, too many giant lecture classes first year, etc. These included some very smart, academically oriented kids (some of whom may have effectively chosen the wrong Faculties for them). My daughter’s BFF went to McGill more recently, was in some sort of humanities honors program her first year, and had a dream experience (of which more below).</p></li>
<li><p>To those worried about graduate school: my daughter’s BFF was accepted at what she considered the top four PhD programs in her field, in some cases within weeks of her application being received. She had turned down an Ivy to save about $15,000/year at McGill; she is now a PhD student at the same Ivy. Things worked out really well.</p></li>
<li><p>The drinking age in Quebec is 18. As a practical matter, what that means is that you have to wait a few weeks to meet anyone sober freshman year, but that on average, over time, people drink less than they do at Michigan.</p></li>
<li><p>If you are politically conservative and care about that, McGill could be a challenge. The BFF mentioned above is a standard U.S. liberal Democrat who considers Obama too conservative. On the McGill spectrum, she was way right of center. I think Michigan more closely resembles the U.S., or at least the Midwest, as a whole.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>The new Times rankings measures research output primarily. It doesn’t really measure the quality of the undergraduate experience. For example, Georgetown is ranked 164 and Dartmouth 99. Except for the usual HYPSM etc. schools, the Times seems to favor very large schools over medium sized schools. UToronto has 66,000 full time students compared to McGill’s 27,000. </p>
<p>Also, freshman classes at Michigan, UCLA, Berkeley etc. can often have 500 to 600 students too. That is common at all large publicly funded schools. </p>
<p>And yes, politically McGill is more akin to Berkeley, minus the nutcases with bullhorns.</p>
<p>I just want to underline what someone above said about Michigan’s extremely high out of state tuition. There aren’t very many merit scholarships either.</p>
<p>Incredibly helpful answers. I will need to sit down with my son to decide. One admissions related difference is that for it to be even somewhat safetyish, need to apply to umich early and it is a pretty heavy duty app. Mcgill requires no essay and no rec, a 15 minute online app.</p>