There isn’t a huge variability in the quality of education between any of the universities or their satellite campuses at the undergraduate level. What does vary is the calibre of the students who attend, the facilities and resources the students have access to, and the opportunities for experiential learning. There are a handful of premier programs but are mostly restricted to Engineering, Computer Science, Business, and Health Sciences. For the vast range of programs within the faculties of Arts & Sciences, you will get a strong education at any school you attend.
U of T students are able to take courses at any of the 3 campuses, though there maybe some restrictions for taking courses at SG due to space. One of the things that the main campus will offer though is a wider range of specialized upper level courses. The students there will also on average be of a stronger academic calibre. Apart from the academics though there is the matter of location. The Scarborough campus is quite far out from the city centre and while close to the Toronto Zoo, it’s not really close to anything else. On the other hand it is more of a contained campus than St George (which has it’s core campus but also buildings scattered around off campus). Transportation to and from the airport will be easier from the SG campus.
Having said all that, if your son has his heart set on Math he should not hesitate to accept his offer to the Scarborough campus. If he is ok with humanities and would prefer to attend the SG campus, he should be able to add a second major or a minor in math if he wishes.
Thanks, @gwnorth. Tough call, especially when he has offers in the U.S. for CS, and mechanical engineering. But the U.S. programs are so much more expensive.
Well CS and Mech Eng are not Math or Humanities. If that’s what he wants to do it would not make sense to chose a different major just to attend U of T.
At U of T tuition is going to cost you around $50,000 USD/yr + supplemental fees for the first year and increase every year. Are his offers at the US schools he’s been accepted to more expensive than that?
@slawong Most of the math majors and specialists at the St. George campus are open enrollment which means that anyone with 4 credits or more can declare them. U of T St. George math calendar Specialists and majors don’t get declared until the end of first year at the earliest.
The only difficulty may be that since he would enter in the Humanities stream, he would have difficulty registering for the first year math courses as students who are in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences stream would have first dibs.
Thanks, @bouders. It’s good to know that at least he has the option to take Math courses. We just heard that S got into Waterloo’s honors math (co-op) with some scholarship. So, perhaps that’s the way to go, although S wants to major in English as well. He’s leaning on St. George, but the overly-concerned parent in me thinks Waterloo has better career prospects.
@slawong My daughter graduated from Waterloo’s math faculty last year. Co-op is a very hard slog. Students have to do their courses, look and interview for jobs and move every 4 months for those jobs. It’s extremely stressful.
I have heard someone else say the exact same thing. That worries me a bit. So, if you had to do it over again, would you send your daughter to Waterloo? Do you think the education and career preparation your daughter received was worth the stress? I am not sure U of T St. George would be less stressful though. Maybe Scarborough would be less stressful? I don’t know.
It was her decision to go to Waterloo. I wanted her to go to a school in California, closer to where I was at the time. If I had to do it over again, I would have talked her out of Waterloo. She made lots of friends and got an excellent education though.
Her younger brother is HS class of '23, potential math or business major. I’m steering him towards UTSG or a school in the US Northeast. I went to UTSG, as did my husband and my oldest. Any stress we had was self-inflicted.
I grew up in Scarborough. I wouldn’t recommend UT Scarborough unless you already live in Toronto and are familiar with Scarborough. It’s a completely differently experience than UTSG.
We are from Thornhill but have lived in the US since 2016. My older son wants to stay in the US for college, but most of the programs he got accepted into are out of reach, even with scholarships. We think Ontario universities make the most sense since he can at least get OSAP and paid internship. UTSC is his safety, and he is not at all familiar with Scarborough.
I don’t know much about studying at Canadian universities. All my degrees are from the US. My wife is a Ryerson grad and has only good things to say about her alma mater. My younger son HS23 is aiming for an engineering program next year. So, UTSG, McGill, Waterloo, and Ryerson are definitely on his list. But he also plans to apply to the top programs in New England and the midwest.
But at the end of the day, we may have to settle for what we can afford.
Waitlisted at UC Berkeley and accepted to University of Michigan but just got accepted to U of T Engineering Science so happy to send my second son back to Canada
The tuition for all Canadian schools across the country is the same for all Canadian citizens regardless of where they reside in the world. Quebec is the only province who has in province tuition/Canadian (out of province) tuition/international tuition tiers. But Quebec does offer out of province tuition reductions for Canadian students who commit to taking French classes through their studies.
Hi, thanks for this clarification. I have a question - why is UoT giving separate fees for Domestic (Ontario Resident) and Domestic Non-Ontario Resident. I checked them and I see a very small difference- at least in most of the specialties ( because the pdf is huge and I can not compare all the specialties). Can somebody comment on this? In Quebec the difference btw. the fees for residence and just Canadian is significant. Is this also your understanding? Thanks a lot!
He’s leaning on St. George, but the overly-concerned parent in me thinks Waterloo has better career prospects.
so happy to send my second son back to Canada 
