How come for engineering and CS, UToronto has better rankings than UWaterloo, even though waterloo is more talked about?
The rankings depend more on graduate school and research production than on undergraduate teaching. U of T is an academic powerhouse in research and graduate school across many disciplines, including the sciences. Waterloo’s strength is in its undergraduate teaching for engineering and computer science.
@bouders so for undergrad, would people prefer waterloo or toronto?
@hammad22 It depends. My kids prefer to live in Toronto - there’s a lot more happening in the big city. Waterloo has a co-op program which is very helpful getting jobs as well as paying for tuition. https://uwaterloo.ca/co-operative-education/ Different students are on different schedules. Generally, with fall, winter and summer semesters, students will be at school for 2 and working for one. Because everyone is on a different schedule, that means that your friends might be there one semester and gone the next. You might end up with summer classes and no time off at all during the year. Not everyone is on co-op though.
Toronto has PEY (professional year experience) ie an internship, which some, not all, students in computer science and engineering take after their second or third year. http://engineeringcareers.utoronto.ca/internship-programs/pey/ and http://web.cs.toronto.edu/program/ugrad/pey.htm
Both universities are equally difficult to get in.