<p>Here's how I look at it:
the pro's and cons
Out of all north american cities, McGill is the best to study in. If you dont speak French already, you'll come out relatively fluent (McGill gives students the options of free French classes). Also, it's a very European, fashionable city.</p>
<p>The professors that they hire are on the level of Ivy League professors. HOWEVER, classes are 300-500 students which makes it a potentially weak experience.</p>
<p>The people don't seem to be academic... The 18 drinking age makes it the biggest party school in the hemisphere (drugs are rare though)</p>
<p>Also, if you're a citizen it costs around $5,000 for tuition... niceee</p>
<p>so to sum it up: its a rounded undergraduate program that is strictly not for someone who aspires to win the nobel prize... I'd say its on the level of Emory, but if you're not a party-er you can make it a dartmouth experience</p>
<p>classes are 300 to 500 at Mcgill. No they are not. you might get a first year psychology with 200 or so, but one or two freshman classes is hardly the same as saying class sizes are 300 to 500. Not even close. you will find many classes with profs under 20 students.</p>
<p>as for montreal being the best college town. hell no. montreal is dull. I can understand the attraction to Americans but to me Miami is exotic. the latin culture on U.s soil. now that's awesome.</p>
<p>I don't understand how Miami or Montreal can be considered "college towns"? There is nothing collegiate about those two cities. </p>
<p>This said, Miami and Montreal aren't comparable. Both are great in their own way, but to say that Montreal is "dull" is ludicrious. Montreal is an awesome city (so is Miami). I think it depends on personal taste. I prefer Montreal to Miami personally. If I want a latin flair mixed into a modern city, I would go for Barcelona.</p>
<p>It is very plausible that Montreal has more college students than Boston. McGill has 33,000 students, Concordia has 40,000 students and the Universte de Montreal has 55,000 students. Those three schools alone have close to 130,000 students. I am sure there are several other universities in Montreal that could easily tip the scale at 150k. But Montreal as a city has a population of 2,000,000.</p>
<p>If McGill's SAT acceptance scores are similar to JHU then that's pretty impressive. Either way it is by a slight margin the most selective school in Canada.</p>
<p>yes, it's a question of taste Alexandre. I spent way too much time in Montreal. I never liked the city. I much prefer Toronto and vancouver or for that matter winnipeg, halifax or Calgary. I find montreal boring. I love Barcelona but we were talking about different cultures in north America. so the same would be true to use your logic, Americans seeking french culture should head to France not Quebec.</p>
<p>According to collegeboard, McGill's median SAT is 2045 and M+V SAT is 1360 vs 1395 for JHU and Cornell. Acceptance rate for McGill is 54% vs 24% for JHU and 21% for Cornell.</p>
<p>the person who said the median is 2045 can't do math properly.</p>
<p>Test Scores
Middle 50% of
First-Year Students Percent Who
Submitted Scores
SAT Critical Reading: 640 - 740 78%
SAT Math: 640 - 720 78%
SAT Writing: 650 - 720 78%
ACT Composite: 29 - 31 37%</p>
<p>from those who submitted scores, the median is 690+680+685=2055. </p>
<p>I guess we were both a bit off. I said 2060, which is closer though.</p>
<p>Mcgill only cares about test scores/grades, so it's pretty self selecting. Entering average grades/scores>acceptance rate. NYU has a tremendously low acceptance rate. Look at the quality of the ppl who apply.</p>
<p>I think when you get to the top 10, top 15 universities in America/The world, it is really quite hard to differentiate the quality of education. Eg, Harvard is often ranked above Yale and Stanford nationally/worldwide, and above Princeton worldwide as well. Is it because a teacher at Harvard is necessarily better than one at Yale, Stanford or Princeton? Not necessarily. When colleges are all that good, the rankings become more arbitrary and based on personal opinion, rather than anything else, I feel. </p>
<p>In addition, a lot of worldwide rankings will rate their own country's schools higher than may be true - provincial bias. E.g, a lot of British rankings put Oxford and Cambridge and King's College and LSE and Imperial a lot higher than Stanford and Yale and Cornell and Princeton. Also, recent anti-American bias and the myth that Americans are not intelligent contributes to a deflation in their rankings, while the myth that Canadians are infinitely more refined than Americans will cause THE to put McGill and Toronto miles ahead of Princeton, Stanford, Columbia, etc.</p>
<p>Mcgill's average SAT is a 2050 or so, with a 54% acceptance rate. This year, BC's middle 50% ranged from 1950-2220 with an average SAT score of 2085 Selecting</a> the Class - Boston College and an acceptance rate of 26%. BC is ranked 35th, I would put Mcgill in the late 30's, early 40's range on USNEWS. FYI, at my high school, both students going to Mcgill next year were rejected by BC (one rejected flat out early action). </p>
<p>Be realistic, Mcgill can't even touch the lower ivy's, or even the top 30 schools.</p>
<p>Nesh, you know why the acceptance rate is so high? </p>
<p>McGill has a cut-off policy that varies slightly from year to year. They show students that in 2007, you would need a 1400/1600 (I'm not sure if these are the exact #'s) with a 3.8 UW GPA or you won't get accepted, plain and simple.</p>
<p>Obviously, if a student has a 1300, he or she would not apply to the school, so this takes the self-selection process to an extreme, hence the high acceptance rate. </p>
<p>On the topic of the original question, where should McGill rank on USNEWS? Slightly lower than UCB and higher than UCLA. Probably around a UMich level.</p>
<p>Oh, as far as international reputation goes. McGill dominates BC. In fact, you could make a case that BU has more rep than BC, just because of sheer size and the fact that BU has many more international students. </p>
<p>However, I find it hard to believe that McGill's undergrad program wouldh ave more distinction than Cornell. Med school probably.</p>
<p>I obviously chose Cornell over McGill and in the biological sciences (I'm Canadian), but my sister chose McGill over Northwestern, I'm not saying it's better, but in Canada at least according to the latest national rankings, it's #1, as well as in terms of selectivity although there isn't all that much seperating Canadian universities. I would say it would make it in the top 25-30 range of American universities for undergrad, but it has a very good reputation for grad in some fields that makes it stand out. For example, Neuroscience would rank in the top 5 internationally (that whole being ranked #12 in the world is more or less a reflection of their reputation in Europe for certain programs). But this is the case for most Canadian universities, there are no schools that stand out in all fields like in the US but there are some very selective, reputable programs (like Waterloo Math, Queen's Business etc...) mostly at the grad level. And the more I look into the matter the more I understand how great universities in the US really are compared to those in the UK, Australia and Canada. </p>
<p>McGill is a bit poorly funded for a public school, by American standards (not by international standards). They admit American students into Arts programs pretty easily for that reason only...</p>
<p>Neither kid going to Mcgill next year had a 3.8 UW or a 1400 SAT, fyi.</p>
<p>I would definitely agree that Mcgill has a better international reputation than BC but who cares? I'm not planning on working outside the US, and the VAST majority of college students aren't planning on doing so either...</p>
<p>And comparing Mcgill to Cornell is laughable at best...</p>