I have been searching for universities in Canada but I haven’t been able to zero in on any, yet. I’m primarily looking at colleges in the U.S but I plan on applying to a few decent ones in Canada to fall back upon if the U.S plan fails. I’m an Indian national currently attending High School in India.
SAT(after march 2016): 1460/1600. (I know most universities in Canada don’t look at the SAT scores when it comes to Indian students. I’m adding this here so as to better equip you in assessing my profile, as a whole.)
IELTS: 8.5/9
Budget: No more than 120k USD for 4 years (all inclusive i.e Cost of Attendance). I’m looking to major in Computer Science.
Thanks for reading through. Please do tell me if you need any more information to work with.
Canadian universities generally don’t quote costs of attendance, only tuition, fees and residence costs. For international students, cost of tuition alone will be $30K-40K+ CAD which is $23K-30K+ USD. The cost of residence will add an additional $10K USD. Your personal costs will add an additional $5K per year.
Apply to the usual: Waterloo, UBC, UT, Queens, McGill. Waterloo is outstanding for CS. For lifestyle, U Victoria. UT might be your best bet with proximity to internships and large employers in the area.
@bouders Ouch. That’s a tad bit more than what I can afford after pulling a lot of strings. Aren’t there any cheaper uni’s? Ones that won’t break my bank? Also, thanks for the swift reply. I appreciate it.
@TooOld4School Thanks. I’ll look up the tuition costs and everything else. But given my grades, don’t you think U of Toronto is a bit of a reach school?
I didn’t research every Canadian university, but I did look at a lower tier one for computer science (McMaster). It would fit your budget this year, but just barely. And I would not recommend going to school in Canada for McMaster for computer science.
Waterloo, U of T and UBC are best known for computer science in Canada and are all in the $45K-55K range. International tuition has been rising rapidly at Canadian universities, up to 10%/year. Tuition alone for U of T, for example, is $42K CAD whereas 4 years ago it was $32K. Computer science has higher fees than other majors and it is getting very hard to get admission to the major. Computer science in Canada is a reach for everyone.
I would still apply to UT. The Canadian universities are going to stretch your budget so you’ll probably have to work - preferably as a developer- to make up for the shortfall.
I don’t think that U of T is a reach for you. I have had many less qualified students (most of them international students with far lower IELTS and SAT’s and GPA’s) gain admission to U of T. In Canada the international reputation and ranking of a university is not tightly correlated with its selectivity. U of T is one of the world’s best universities, but U of T is not very selective as far as undergraduate admissions go. In Canada it is often harder to stay in university than it is to gain admission; i.e. the failure rates are much higher than in the US.
It is much tougher to get into computer science programs at the University of Waterloo now that to get into U of T; this is a very recent phenomenon. A few years ago all of my students who applied to Waterloo were accepted, but recently even very capable students (e.g. last year a kid with 1600 on SAT, 4.0 GPA, amazing extra curr was rejected by comp science at Waterloo and accepted at U of T and a couple of Ivies).
Tuition for computer science at U of Waterloo is Can$26 882 for international students which is under $20 000 US. That is a huge deal given that Waterloo is considered one of the four best schools in the world for undergrad comp sci (up there with Stanford, MIT and can’t remember the fourth). The big difference is that most of the US schools are fabulously wealthy by Canadian standards and therefore give out gobs of money to able students. Most of my students accepted at Waterloo get $0 of scholarship or financial aid from Waterloo. The strongest student that I ever sent (he earned the highest score in Canada on the Putnam which is the most prestigious English language university-level math competition) got about $5000 (=US$3750) per year in scholarship.
@violindad That’s the most comprehensive answer I could ask for. Thanks a lot for all the information. I can’t thank you enough for taking the time out to reply. Do you think I should apply to U of Toronto and Waterloo? (I’m also thinking UAlberta.)
@collegemom3717 My bad, I did not make myself sufficiently clear. Where I come from, it isn’t very uncommon for student visas to be turned out due to sheer volume of students applying.
pcwizkid: Yes, I would encourage you to apply to U of T, Waterloo, and U of A and also to consider UBC if they look f financially viable for you. Applications to Canadian schools are usually much simpler than US schools, so it shouldn’t take tons of extra time. UBC is a better school for comp sci than U of A and the climate is much better than the other Canadian schools. Vancouver is also a wonderful city and though living off-campus is very expensive, on-campus room and board is comparable to other Canadian schools. I would expect you to get into a general sciences program at all 4 of those schools (and in most of them you declare a major later); Waterloo’s comp sci is different in that students apply from high school to get into it and it can be difficult, so I won’t make any guarantees there!
Be aware that U of T’s comp sci major and specialist programs have a bit of a complicated admissions system. Some students are admitted as freshman. For fall 2016 admissions, U of T admitted very few students directly to computer science as freshman. Maybe a couple of hundred.
Other students are admitted after their first (or second or third year) after completing the two foundational courses and attaining a certain percentage in those courses. Last year, the bar was set at 83% for admission to the major or specialist. With course averages around 70%, only about 20% of the students who took those courses probably attained a 83% average. The required percentage has been increasing significantly each year for the past several years. It’s likely to be higher in 2018, when the OP would apply. It’s only recently that they have been handling admissions to computer science this way. It’s possible that in the next couple of years, they could change the admissions procedure to comp sci and get rid of the secondary admissions route altogether. However, I haven’t heard anyone suggest this.
For admission to U of T arts and science faculty, students must choose a single program eg computer science or life sciences or mathematical and physical sciences or humanities or social science or commerce to apply to. You cannot choose a second choice. So you would either need to take your chances with direct admission to computer science (and risk not being admitted to U of T at all) or request admission to a different program and attempt to gain admission to the computer science major or specialist through the secondary admissions route.
University of Waterloo, on the other hand, allows students to apply to 3 different programs on their application. As well, if they reject you from a certain program, they may offer admission to a different program.
Speaking of budget universities, you should look definitely apply to University of Waterloo, but I spent quite a while and I’ve found three more universities: University of Victoria, Dalhousie University, and Memorial University.
