UW Seattle or UBC Vancouver?

College Search & Selection
1

Hi all, I am an intl student transferring to a 4 year university from a CC this year. I have just got accepted into the UW’s BSc Speech and Hearing Sciences and UBC’s BA Linguistics. To a non-resident of both Canada and the U.S., it is important to compare their similarities and differences. -
Course length: UW 2 years | UBC 3 years
Post Undergrad: MSc 2 years in US/Canada
Overall world ranking: (2019) UW is slightly higher than UBC
Tuition (approximately): UW USD 37,000/yr | UBC CAD 38,000/yr
Living cost: Vancouver BC might be slightly lower than Seattle WA
Housing (studio suite): UW (off-campus) comes unfurnished, but move in anytime | UBC (on-campus) comes furnished, but goes by luck due to the long wait
Transportation: Not sure about Vancouver but I have a driver’s license of the state of WA
Prosperity: A speech therapist wannabe. Both places have a relatively high salary for the job

Both cities are great and I loved that they have direct flights to my home country.
There are tons of factors to be considered and I am super happy that I got accepted into my dream schools.
Please comment and tell me about your thoughts! Many thanks xx

2

Depending upon your visa status, it may be easier to work in Canada after completing your degree there.

3

Both schools are wonderful. Have you visited?
Try not to focus on just a few percentage point difference in the World Reputation Rankings, as they really
don’t have much impact on what you’d get out of the school individually.

Note that today’s exchange rate equates the $38k CAD into around $28k USD,
so UBC will be $10k per year less expensive than UW, but the UBC program seems to add a third year.

Have you checked with each department to see what their required coursework is and what their grad school admission rates are? Assuming excellence from both schools, the placement rate for a Master’s degree in this subject area is almost as important as the undergrad costs.