<p>Thanks for your reply, jamimom. I'm pretty familiar with a lot of Canadian schools and the biggest difference I can see is in athletics. If you want the crazy world of college sports as it exists in the U.S., you won't find it at Canadian schools, which in my opinion, is not a negative. :) There are certainly sports, and tons of school spirit involved, but it's much more of a students' thing, rather than the large influence of alumni and members of the community, etc.</p>
<p>The housing issue is really quite different. At most Canadian schools, the kids live in housing for first year only. Some stay for second year, but after that it is a rarity. Every school has what the kids refer to as the 'student ghetto' where kids get apartments and houses together. They're within walking distance to the campuses and are handy for getting to classes, activities, on campus jobs, etc. It's not really an issue of being commuters as it is in the U.S., it's just that they're not in housing. </p>
<p>If you're referring to the responsibility of finding and maintaining housing as the independence issue, I guess I can agree. There is a certain independence required in that regard but from my experience of the kids I know, that isn't a problem. The large schools in Canada which are located in cities are probably as different from each other as they are from U.S. schools. UBC has a very self-contained campus. U of Toronto, while in the center of the city, is also a very well-defined campus. McGill's is probably more like that of NYU but not even to the extent of being scattered throughout the city. I'm not as familiar with McGill as I am others but as far as clubs, etc. go, from our experience with my D3 applying this year, U of T has more available than NYU where D2 is. The extracurricular drama activities rival what Tisch is offering to its majors, which surprised me, and the facilities on campus for productions are superior to those at Tisch. </p>
<p>It's interesting to hear someone else's take on it, though, so thank you for sharing. Not many here are familiar with Canadian schools which is a shame, in my opinion, for they have much to offer at a much lower cost than equivalent schools in the U.S. :)</p>
<p>Alwaysamom, it has been 9 years since we looked at the Canadian schools and we did not examine them as carefully as we did the US options because it became clear that they were way too big for my niece. She ended up in a very small Catholic college which suited her well and she has done well there, as she graduates from medical school this year. Because of her Canadian roots, we wanted to at least explore this possibility. </p>
<p>Many US schools do not have sufficient housing for all of their students and it is not unusual for kids to go off on their own after freshman or sophomore year, but at one of the schools, I believe the percentage of kids in university housing was in the single digits. Many, many commuters. And a lot of the college infrastructure is around these dorms. When I look at a college like NYU, though the housing is provided, it is not the standard dorms, much more apartment style for most kids, but each NYU building is supplied with a number of things that make it easier for the kids than renting a place that is not NYU owned. There are RAs, there are amenties provided under the umbrella of the university, that many of us take for granted in colleges. Not so in the Canadian schools. It does take a more independent, self sufficient student to deal with these issues. My niece would have been fine, I am sure, but for her, it was the size of the school, not her maturity level that was the issue.</p>
<p>You are right that these schools have more information out to US kids. How did your daughter get interested in this option? McGill is the only school that I often hear about, and I am hard put to name the Canadian univerities, other that a handful, even though there are not many of them. The price is certainly right, and the environment could be a great match for some kids. One of the drawbacks of the big flagship schools is the nonsense that comes with the sports frenzy. For those who love this sort of thing, fine. But for others, it is a detriment. I have been suggesting the College of Charleston to many kids, and to my surprise, those who have taken me up on a looky see end up loving it. This southern school does remind me of the Canadian schools except, of course, the weather. And I believe my niece would have liked the school as well. It is showing up now on the lists of many select prep schools as the choice for some of their graduates, and I believe that its selectivity will be improved in the next few years. </p>
<p>What do you estimate a year at a Canadian U will cost? Surely no where near the cost of Tisch! A relief to have the next one going to a more reasonably priced option.</p>
<p>Jamimom, I'm not aware of any Canadian university which has only single digit percentage of students in housing. As I said, most kids move into apartments or houses with friends after freshman year but there are some who remain in housing for sophomore or junior year as well, although that is the exception rather than the rule. I don't classify the kids who move out and into apartments and houses with fellow students as commuters. It just isn't like that at any of the campuses I'm familiar with. In fact, my D2 at Tisch commutes further to 'campus' than any kids I know at Canadian schools! :) Commuters, as far as I've always defined them, are kids who live at home with their families while attending college. This seems to be the way that colleges define the term as well. In any case, you're correct in that these kids obviously do not have an RA but that doesn't seem to be a problem for any of the kids I know. </p>
<p>My D3 decided on Canadian schools because we lived there for many years and she has many friends still there. Several family members also live there and we spend a lot of time in the Toronto area. She loves U of T and is anxious to be there in September. International student tuition fees are in the range of $11,000 Canadian/year as opposed to the $4200 for a domestic student. An excellent deal regardless, in my opinion. And yes, it will be nice not to be paying the same as for D2 at Tisch, especially since D4 will be ready to go to college before D3 finishes. :)</p>
<p>I just pulled my Fiske guide and looked at UBC which we visited since my niece had family in Vancouver. Directly from their narrative, it says, "Only 5 percent of the students --mostly freshman and sophomores live in college housing...". For McGill, it says,"The university's six residence halls houses 6 percent of the student population, primarily freshman from out of town...." I see that Toronto has 25% as residential students. Fiske also states in his section on Canadian schools that their are a lot of commuters, and that over 80% of the kids are local the the city, not Canada, but the city where the university is housed. Those numbers agree with the impressions we got when we visited the school. Now even 5-10% of 50,000 kids is a lot and can make for a nice residential community. But one thing we wanted to see in our colleges was that it was not a commuter or suitcase school, and with so many kids coming from so close, it appeared as such. Though the percentages are similar in many flagship state school, usually there is a spread of kids who live far enough from those campuses that they do not go home often as the social life for US big schools has quite a rolicking image. My friend who has two at OSU, and lives only a couple of hours away sees no more of her kids than if they went to school 10 hours away. But when you go to college within an hour of home, there is the tendency to pop home, and there are ready made groups of kids all having graduated from the same highschool. That is a reason why my son did not want to go to SUNY Binghamton. Busloads of kids go there from the various NY areas with 94% from in-state. I know NYU kids, particularly those who travel to studios 3 times a week have a ways to "commute" from their dorms. But the dorms are all NYU with residential advisors, and amenities provided for student life. When you rent privately, that is not always the situation, as there are non students in the buildings. One thing that amazed me about NYU is the number of cafeterias and student areas within the many building that comprise NYU housing. We did not see that sort of thing at the Canadian schools. And I would say NYU is a close model for how the schools work with it large size in a city without traditional dormitories. The same with Pitt and GW, also city schools. But US schools put alot into these apartment dorms that you just cannot get renting off campus </p>
<p>What does the room and board run, as an average estimate for the Canadian schools? I just skimmed the Fiske description of Toronto, and it does sound like a great deal. Would it be an option, however, if she did not know anyone there? That is how it would be for most US kids going there. We went all the ways to Vancouver to look at the university there because my niece had lived there as a child and had some family still there and some childhood friends going to the university. McGill, we also checked out because she speaks fluent French, as her mother was a French Canadian, though they lived in Vancouver, and also because of the familariy factor that the name had. It was the only Canadian college I could have named at that time.</p>
<p>It seems that Fiske is a bit off in their numbers. The UBC website indicates that 7,000 spots are available for on campus housing so that's definitely more than 5%. McGill's shows that they guarantee housing for all first year students, again that would be much higher than the 6% stated by Fiske. In any case, while it may be true that some Canadian schools draw from the surrounding environs, I don't think that is very different from U.S. schools, for the most part. Unless you're at a school where everyone goes home for the weekend, it shouldn't be a problem. I'm not aware of any school like that, anywhere. It's funny but friends of my two older Ds who live further away seem to go home more often than those who live within an hour or two. At a school the size of UBC, U of T, or McGill, this isn't going to be a problem.</p>
<p>The distance many NYU kids commute is often long, even those who are not travelling to studios. Some are a good 20-30 minute trip to WSP where most classes meet. The dining halls are scattered throughout the dorms which surround WSP and those at Union Square. The apt. style dorms do not have dining halls. Not sure about UBC or McGill but U of T has a dining hall for each college, in addition to cafes, foodcourts, coffee shops, and of course, there are many eating establishments surrounding the campus in the city itself. Each of the dorms we toured had music practice rooms, a gym, laundry facilities, common rooms with kitchens, comfy sofas and chairs, tv, dvd, stereo on each floor. A single room with mealplan will be in the range of $6000 Canadian, a double room is less.</p>
<p>My D decided to attend a Canadian school for many reasons but it really had nothing to do with her friends in Canada. In fact, none of them will be at U of T. A few will be at Queens and one at Dalhousie, one at Univ. of W. Ontario, and two are going to Princeton, having been admitted early. She won't have any friends there but I don't anticipate a problem with that. My niece who's there is graduating this year. She's got dual citizenship and was very active in organizing registration drives for the election last fall. She arranged for Kerry's sister to visit and speak to the American Students group there. It's quite large.</p>
<p>The Fiske is probably dated. It does jive with the info we got 9 years ago. </p>
<p>I agree with you that the Canadian schools are certainly undiscovered gems among US students and a bargain to boot. How are they in terms of accepting US students? One problem with recommending these schools is that I have no feel as to who falls where in the admissions scheme of things. With my niece, since she was such an excellent student, it was not a problem. But how would, say a "B" student with a 1200 SAT1 fare at these schools? I have somewhat of a feel as to where a school should be on someone's list selectivitywise when it is in the US, but am lost as far as the Canadian schools go. Do they offer a selectivity value as well as a cost value?</p>
<p>Jamimom:
Several kids from our hs went to McGill about a couple of years ago. All strong kids. The mother of one told me that they were made to take a writing course as American students' writing skills were considered weak. The kids live in an apartment house that seems to be designed for students. According to the mother, they all seem to be enjoying themselves tremendously. Some of them already have extensive experience living abroad.</p>
<p>This thread seems to have been hijacked a bit, but to return to the original topic: For those who don't have time to read the whole article, here's a summary and a list of the top 20 schools. (Several people here have mentioned Carleton, but note that Oberlin beats all the others by a nearly 2:1 margin.)</p>
<hr>
<p>Ever wonder where the offspring of college professors specifically, professors at Northeastern universities matriculate? Two economists at Vanderbilt University, Malcolm Getz and John J. Siegfried, did.</p>
<p>After a 10-year survey of 5,592 professors kids, the researchers found that the students were most likely to choose selective liberal-arts institutions. The study was cited in the July 4 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education.</p>
<p>Here are the top choices and the number of students who chose to attend each one:</p>
<ol>
<li>Oberlin College 61</li>
<li>Carleton College 36</li>
<li>Stanford U. 36</li>
<li>Duke U. 33</li>
<li>U. of Michigan at Ann Arbor 27</li>
<li>U. of Chicago 26</li>
<li>U. of California at Berkeley 23</li>
<li>Reed College 21</li>
<li>Northwestern U. 19</li>
<li>College of William and Mary 18</li>
<li>U. of Colorado at Boulder 18</li>
<li>Vanderbilt U. 18</li>
<li>Washington U. in St. Louis 17</li>
<li>Pomona College 16</li>
<li>Brigham Young U. 15</li>
<li>Kenyon College 15</li>
<li>U. of Richmond 15</li>
<li>U. of Wisconsin at Madison 15</li>
<li>Virginia Tech 15</li>
<li>Georgetown U. 14</li>
<li>George Washington U. 14</li>
<li>Macalester College 14</li>
</ol>
<p>It's not surprising, therefore, that my son (a professor's son) applied to 4 of those top 20 schools -- and attended one of them as well (Chicago). My daughter didn't apply to any of them, but then again she's an artist. (Between us, my wife and I attended 2 of these schools.)</p>
<p>I know five professor's kid's who went to or go to Oberlin. (I'm a prof's kid, but visited Oberlin and disliked it...)
As for professor's salaries, how's this: my father and my girlfriend's mother both teach at distinctly non-prestigious "mission" colleges, with the social objective of making education accessible to all classes. My father, whose school is located in a large city and requires a lot of research from its faculty, is paid over 50000/year. My girlfriend's mother, whose school is in the rural south and requires no research but an incomprehensibly heavy teaching load, is paid 25000.
My step-father, who teaches at a prestigious, selective, rural liberal arts college with some but not much research required, is paid 40000/year.</p>
<p>Hm. I can verify that trend of professors' kids going off to LAC instead of big universities. Two of my profs (husband-wife)'s kids went to LACs, namely Amherst and Smith and I think Dartmouth?</p>
<p>As for tuition, definitely true for a daughter's boyfriend of my parents' friends. She met her boyfriend at Cornell when she was a freshman and he was a sophomore. He was actually a transfer from UPENN and then he transferred back to UPenn for his junior and senior years because somehow his parents, who are profs at Penn, managed to work it out with the university to give them a huge discount on tuition that Penn would be cheaper to attend.</p>
<p>At University of Rochester, staff and faculty have to work there for five or so years before their children can be qualified for 1/2 tuition or more. My adult friend's husband is a doctor there and their daughter wounded up at U of R, not because of the tuition, just because it offered everything that she wanted!</p>
<p>Although somewhat interesting, I'm not sure that this study really shows us all that much. The top twenty colleges listed represent less than ten percent of the students studied. I think what might make it more interesting would be to see where the other 90% attended. :) In any case, I would imagine that similar results would have come from a study of a similar number of kids whose families were at a similar socio-economic level and who obviously value education. </p>
<p>Jamimom, to answer your question, yes there is a selectivity factor but it's not as great as it is in schools in the U.S. Canadian schools tend to be more equal quality-wise and selectivity-wise than in the U.S. A large reason for this would probably be because they are all public universities and largely taxpayer funded. There are definitely some schools which are considered to have a better reputation than others, and certain programs within certain schools, and as it is here, it is more difficult to gain admission to those schools and programs than it is to others. From our experience with American students going to Canadian schools, they are usually very good students. At a few of the smaller Canadian schools, and also at a few which are possibly less selective, there is no reason a less stellar student couldn't gain admission. At the top schools, like U of T, Queens, and McGill, that might be more difficult as they have many American applicants and can thus choose the top students.</p>
<p>dave72, all the schools have very small numbers compared to the total number of kids. Colorado was pretty high on the list. That school doesn't get much respect around this board. </p>
<p>I was glad to see Michigan and Berkeley high on the list. :)</p>
<p>I read the report and I have come to the conclusion that rich parents send their kids to schools with kids with similar family financial backgrounds.</p>
<p>Since when are academics rich? (Good news for my family.)
My sense is that LACs are popular among academic and wealthy families (two distinct groups, though overlap exists) because those are the groups most likely to be aware of the advantages of studying at a fine small school. Children of academic families often clash with scions of privelege.</p>
<p>I was using the word rich relatively, not absolutely.
As income levels go up, it is more likely schools like lacs and national universities come into play.</p>
<p>I got the figures from the U. of Richmond website, as the copyright line suggests, though I've also seen them reported elsewhere. (Maybe in a table with the Chronicle article?)</p>