Hey CC community! At the moment I have a lot of my letters back and I’m having a lot of trouble making a decision. My top choices out of what I have in right now are the University of Washinton in Seattle and the University of Toronto. They’re both really great schools but I can’t for the life of me decide which one I should prioritize. The approach I’ve been taking so far is pretty multilateral, I’m prioritizing my education by reading over rankings and reviews and then looking to visits and other online research to take a look at student life. Toronto is a lot cheaper for me, but luckily money isn’t too much of an issue. I’ve tried for hours doing research on my own but as soon as I’m swayed in one direction, I get pushed back the other way. For example, yesterday I found out that the University of Toronto’s metrics on “degree employability” scores far, far higher than UW and even colleges like Berkeley, this seemed great to me. But when I zoom out from a rankings point of view, UW has a slightly higher US News ranking overall and in my subject (molecular biology). Overall, I’m finding that tons of rankings have overall scores for the colleges relatively similar, but the rankings look primarily at all-encompassing metrics rather than just the ones that concern me. This has me looking at the colleges’ own descriptions insofar as how they handle undergraduate education. I love UW’s focus on undergraduate research, but something tells me that this may be artificially inflated by a need for research to have any chance at getting into a major. How’s the quality of education? Are the professors leaders in their fields? Even if they are, do they teach well and cater to undergrads? Utoronto claims that they force their best professors to take on more commitments to undergraduates, and that seems attractive.
Overall, is there anyone who can help me with this research? Are there any rankings with good methodology for comparing the schools in terms of quality of undergraduate education? I’ve seen a bunch of rankings, but sadly I’m limited to only those that look at world universities, since Toronto is in Canada. Thus, rankings specific to undergraduate education are sparse. Does anyone have specific points or experiences with either campus that vouch for a good undergraduate experience? How do the schools fare against each other in terms of my major, molecular biology or just biology by extension. I have a friend who is looking at the same colleges for neuroscience, can anyone vouch for the colleges’ prowess in that subject? Thanks so much for the help!
I’m a graduate of U of T and have 2 other members of the family who are or will be soon. All of our degrees are in similar fields to yours and your friends. The education you would get at U of T is as good or better than anywhere. Is there a reason why you want to study at UW?
Honestly, I’m currently leaning towards U of T simply because they’ve shown me they really do want me. The recruitment staff is impeccable and they actually respond to questions and take initiative to invite you to events. UW hasn’t really contacted me, but a lot of things struck me when I visited their campus. The tour staff there were extremely friendly and facilities extremely beautiful, but what stood out the most was their educational philosophy. Despite being such a large school, they have an amazing focus on undergraduates. They keep class sizes small, claiming the largest undergrad class you’ll have to take has no more than 100 other students in it. Plus they’re very adamant about their resources in terms of career/academic counseling. I see a ton of effort just generally put into making sure that undergraduates have tightly-knit communities and easy ways to get help when they need to. Coming from a school where there aren’t more than 800 students from a different school where I was just a single student in a sea of almost 3000, I treasure a hands-on educational experience and teachers that are able to work 1 on 1 with students.
In addition, I hope to pursue a graduate education in my major some day. To do that I need plenty of undergraduate research and UW tells me that they can make that exceptionally easy with more internships than they have students who want them. They really hammer that down with statistics when they told me almost 40% of their undergraduate students were involved in some sort of research and they receive more research funding than almost all universities their size. To top it off, US news rates them as a better school for molecular biology and Shanghai college ratings puts them far above toronto for both life science and clinical medicine majors.
Seeing all of this, I’m really liking the feel of U of T, but I can’t find reason for why they’re a better educational environment for what I want to do. Do they have the same/better systems? How much do they care about undergraduate research? Will professors there provide me with a better education in the major I want to pursue than UW can?
I have been living in Toronto for 8 years, now I live in Seattle. I didn’t study in any of the schools, but have a lot of friends with kids who went to both universities. I think, these two school have more similarities than differences. They are both huge (don’t get fooled by promising of small classes), they don’t have much of the social life. The culture is “more work, less play”. Both have a big Asian student population (read competitive). Seattle as a city as not as good as Toronto. But the weather is much milder, you won’t need winter coat or shoes in Seattle. If you like outdoors - Seattle is a place to be. But from academic point of view, they are very similar.
Yeah that’s really the consensus I’ve been getting to. I really appreciate the care that Toronto takes to attracting future students, and when I visited it was a really fun, bustling city. I feel like people there are just nicer. I can mind the weather, because I don’t really like Seattle’s heavy rain either, but it’d really help my decision if I could see which university would better cater to my academic interests, and when they’re this similar that’s not something very easy to do. I think that a potential advantage of Seattle is that I’d be able to do more first year research, since Toronto students don’t really get to do research until second year. But at the same time, I’m finding that Toronto has a lot of better professors that they put in undergrad classes. Also, they’re not plagued by the same EPA funding cuts that Trump has done in America.
I feel like I’ll be able to make a lot of friends in Toronto, but I don’t know anyone currently going there. A ton of my friends, however, are going to UW. But that shouldn’t really be as big of a factor because the UW pricepoint just dwarfs the U of T one, it’s that much more expensive. If I’m making a decision I think it should be on academics.
Another concern I have is transfer rates. I do think there’s a chance I’ll fall in love with either school. But what if I don’t? If I want to transfer to, I don’t know let’s say UCSD or something back in my home state, which school will make that easier?