<p>Hey guys</p>
<p>I was just wondering-- which USA colleges is McGill University comparable to? As in which league does it fall in?</p>
<p>I've often heard people comparing it with Cornell, NYU, UMich, etc. but I just wanted to hear more views regarding this issue. </p>
<p>Any ideas/guesses?</p>
<p>UCLA, UMich, Cornell.</p>
<p>I think its a lot like NYU. Except a better campus, older facilities, and cheaper.</p>
<p>Location-wise, I’d say it’s similar to NYU, but physically, it’s very different. The majority of buildings are on-campus and those that aren’t are less scattered in the neighbourhood.
When it comes to comparable schools, I would say, like BigTwix, UCLA, UMich and Cornell. Highly competitive American universities, roughly ranked by USNWR ~15-30; however, not the top tier (HYP, MIT, etc).</p>
<p>Hey guys</p>
<p>how would you compare McGill to Carnegie Mellon, UC Berkeley, Northwestern, etc?</p>
<p>Is it a lot better?</p>
<p>I’m an international student, so I’m just trying to get a broader perspective regarding all this :)</p>
<p>It depends in what aspects. </p>
<p>Berkeley is the best if you are speaking in terms of Departments, as pretty much every dept. at Cal is one of the absolute best in the world (as in usually considered either #1,2, or 3). Only a few school really compare to Berkeley when it comes to grad school.</p>
<p>McGill has generally excellent departments all across the board, psych and linguistics being some amazing ones (idk much about which other depts are best) and I think Neurology too. </p>
<p>Northwestern has great programs, though one would probably argue that outside of the US, McGill is better known.</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon is excellent for engineering.</p>
<p>All the schools you mentioned have incredible reputations. If i had to rank them by international prestige I’de probably say :BErkeley>McGill>Northwestern>CM.</p>
<p>If you want the “most student friendly” education, you will probably get that at CM or NU. Berkeley and McGill being large publics, the classes are often very large.</p>
<p>@Bigtwix</p>
<p>ive applied for ugrad engineering (computer engg, to be precise) </p>
<p>What would you say about that dept/course in McGill? Overall popularity/prestige? How good is it? etc etc. </p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>hey guys</p>
<p>any other opinions???</p>
<p>anyone disagrees/agrees strongly with what’s written above?? :)</p>
<p>not saying this is 100% accurate in gaging worldwide opinion, but…</p>
<p>[QS</a> Top Universities: Top 100 universities in the THE - QS World University Rankings 2007](<a href=“http://www.topuniversities.com/university_rankings/results/2008/overall_rankings/top_100_universities/]QS”>http://www.topuniversities.com/university_rankings/results/2008/overall_rankings/top_100_universities/)</p>
<p>mcgill sits comfortably at #20, ahead of brown, berkley, nyu, bu, & dartmouth</p>
<p>pretty impressive.</p>
<p>Yea, I’ve seen that ranking before, but I’m really not sure how reliable it is, considering the amount of criticism it has invited from educationalists all over. </p>
<p>While it does place McGill really high in that list, its always best to get to know other opinions rather than keep that ranking in your pocket and go around saying “Look, McGill is good because this piece of paper says so!” </p>
<p>What do you guys think? Any opinions will be good.</p>
<p>well, but you can’t deny that most employers look at that piece of paper …</p>
<p>Do they? As in do they refer to the TIMES QS ranking in general?? I bet they must be having their own “ranking” (not so much!) of colleges and the ‘quality’ of students that graduate from certain colleges. </p>
<p>So is McGill really up there? ( better than CMU, UCLA, Brown?) Do employers really prefer McGill students? Are McGill students given the same preference as students from Cornell, etc. when it comes to getting jobs?? </p>
<p>I mean if it is, that’s a good thing…I’m still deciding between McGill and other colleges :)</p>
<p>The thing about THES-QS is that people mistake its purpose. It does not really measure the quality of an education. The biggest component of the rating is how highly a university and its graduates are rated by both professors (both its own and outside), recruiters and by its own students.
But, before you dismiss them out of hand, what professors (and, by extension, the grad schools they work for) and/or future employers think of your university is actually very important.</p>
<p>(Also, THES-QS is infinitely better than ARWU which both gives science-focused universities an inflated rank and was exposed for fudging its numbers.)</p>
<p>Hi guys, I am at McGill doing my very best to transfer to Cornell. I am an undergrad in Chemical Engineering. I must be very honest with you, McGill has been very disappointing for me and as excellent as people say that it is, it’s a far cry away. It is DEFINITELY not in Cornell’s league. Also, please do not believe the TIMES ranking. Look at ANY other ranking and you will find McGill at a far far far lower position. It’s not a terrible school and I would put its American equivalent no higher than Carnegie Mellon. NYU maybe as well. It’s an extremely large school as well. The campus is pretty and Montreal is a lively city at night especially. However, there is friction between the francophones and any anglophones in the city. I’ve done extremely extensive research into all the Canadian and American universities so I’m making my choice based on that. If you have any specific questions, post them or PM me.</p>
<p>“well, but you can’t deny that most employers look at that piece of paper …”</p>
<p>What about looking at textbooks?
I’de be far more impressed remembering that in basic chem and physics, Berkeley is responsible for over half of the theories and discoveries in my textbook. </p>
<p>While I do think THES is nice because it gives public universities a good rank (unlike USNEWS and crap), if anyone want’s to say crap like “oh it beats Berkeley”, they might want to compare the…oh maybe 61 nobel prize affiliates with BErkekey compared to McGill’s 8, or perhaps they could talk about the creation of the Cyclotron (berkeley), the discovery of the transuranium elements (berkeley), carbon 14 dating, the invention of the atom bomb…to name a few discoveries and inventions that changed the entire world. </p>
<p>If you are going to use the THES as a standard of greatness, look at the individual department rankings of THES (life sciences, social sciences, etc) where Berkeley destroys McGill, as well as pretty much every other department. If you average out Berkeley’s rankings in the various fields on THES it ends up with the best overall departments, beating out even harvard.</p>
<p>This forum seems to be largely focused on hard sciences at McGill. How do its social science, language, and humanities programs compare to those of American universities? THES-QS ranks McGill 14th in Social Sciences placing it in front of many top Universities. Is there legitimacy to this? How are these departments at McGill regarded?</p>
<p>Thank you and i look forward to reading your replies.</p>
<p>I can’t believe how everyone is nitpicking reports and rankings to validate their feelings about a particular school. At the end of the day, what counts with people and employers, is the perception they have about the school. I haven’t met a single person or business executive who hasn’t commented on McGill’s outstanding reputation. Everyone that I mentioned the fact that I am going to McGill has immediately reacted by saying at the minimum " That is a great school ".
I can understand each college’s particular faculty strength might enhance the reputation of the school. Overall, McGill’s percieved reputation is at par with some of the US Ivy Leagues.
When an employer interviews candidates they don’t check rankings to verify reputation.
Furthermore, more importantly, what you bring to the table based on your academic performance and passion about your chosen career path, matters the most.</p>
<p>I have to agree with the point that when it comes to an education, McGill probably is not in the same league as either Cornell or Berkeley; however, employers in the US and grad schools think very highly of it. It’s reputation, especially in biomedicine, is very good. (Perhaps the reputation is more than it deserves, but that’s a different argument altogether.)</p>
<p>Also, to the person who suggested looking at another ranking, one must ask: what other ranking? The only other ranking really is ARWU. (Newsweek used to published a ranking, but all its formula 50% ARWU rank, 40% THES-QS rank and 10% library size - basically just averaging the two main rankings and throwing in library size!)</p>
<p>There are other rankings besides ARWU and Times, but I’d say ARWU is a damn-side more accurate than the Times. McGill is just NOT in the league of any of the Ivies. There is no question of that. I have solid evidence for that as well. But it definitely wipes out some of the middle-tier schools in the US. It’s probably actually at the upper end of the middle-tier, but not in the top-tier, by any stretch. There are several fantastic universities that lie between McGill and the Ivies.</p>
<p>There’s no doubt McGill is not in the same league as most Ivy Plus schools (two notable exceptions are Brown and Dartmouth, which are both overrated solely because they’re Ivy League); as I said, its rough equivalents are schools ranked between 15-30 by USNWR.</p>
<p>That being said, no ranking is perfect. USNWR consistently has good public schools such as Berkeley fall behind their private counterparts, THES-QS puts too much emphasis on reputation, and ARWU puts too much emphasis on the sciences. They’re rough guides - not sacred texts.</p>