<p>everyone doesn't apply to McGill for the same reasons that everyone doesn't apply to any one US school.</p>
<p>Thats just what the current prospects need, a bunch of 5.0 Ivy League calibur CCers taking half of the Intl spots at McGill with no intention of attending. Someone lock this thread lol.</p>
<p>Also Tsinghua in China is fairly respected, Sorbonne in France, the list goes on buddy...maybe you should do some research instead of making foolish assumptions.</p>
<p>On another note, call them "Quebecquois" not Quebecians :D</p>
<p>I can assure you no businesses here in Dallas know what the hell McGill is</p>
<p>yes they do kcirsch, think again. My mom met i dont know how many, like 5 or so in her unit alone that were from McGill, one of them being her boss. These were people that moved from the northeast though, maybe i am being unfair, but i can garuntee that the bofa offices over there know, along with the law offices, capital one etc etc</p>
<p>"McGill disadvantages for Americans:...located in a militantly anti-anglophone province of an often anti-American country."</p>
<p>Clearly you've never been to Montreal. I'll give you the anti-American country, at least with Bush as a leader. More than 3/4 of Canadians have said in the past (i.e. pre-Bush) that they view the U.S. as a friend. That number has dropped to just over 50%. So it's not even raging anti-American; clearly it's anti-Bush.</p>
<p>On to the other ridiculous comment: "a militantly anti-anglophone province." Yes, Quebec may be anti-Anglophone, but Montreal is not. While the city is predominantly francophone, the downtown core (where McGill is located) and nearby areas are either anglophone or francophones who know English and are NOT anti-anglophones. You'll only find anti-anglophones in the East End of the island, and in smaller towns or cities located away from Montreal. In other words, an American student will face no discrimination or have any problems getting by with English.</p>
<p>southpasadena,
i am getting really tired of your snide remarks - i meant most businesses. i asked at least 4 employers and none of them had heard of McGill - just because your mom met some people from the northeast doesn't mean much of anything to the Dallas business community, so go back to happy-go-lucky SoCal. oh and i can assure you that neither of my former employers would have heard of McGill</p>
<p>Ask prestigious employers like ibanks, consulting firms, etc...and you'll get a different answer. Most of those know about McGill because most of those recruit there! If a couple local Dallas businesses don't, who cares? Local Dallas businesses also probably don't know about Williams or Chicago (or insert underpublicized top college name here).</p>
<p>seriously if their are 5 in her unit of 30 people, their are more, she worked in downtown dallas, she isnt here right now, i cant ask her about others. Maybe you mean mom and pop shops. they few days i was Plano West, i had counselors talking about McGill along with harvard, i am plenty sure people over there know about it, especially since so many wanted to get out of TX</p>
<p>racially how is Quebec for a person of color; anyone know?</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>On to the other ridiculous comment: "a militantly anti-anglophone province." Yes, Quebec may be anti-Anglophone, but Montreal is not.<<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>Since you went on to say that "Yes, Quebec may be anti-Anglophone...." the comment that the province is anti-anglophone is not ridiculous at all. We actually agree on that point. We also agree that a student could "get by" with English in Montreal. We further agree that Montreal is not particularly anti-anglophone, but unfortunately it is stuck in a province that is. And Quebec keeps passing laws all sorts of French-favoritism laws that Montreal must live with. They get caught up in debates over which language has letters on signs slightly larger than the other - controversies that would be laughable non-issues in the US. French sign/English sign - in the US nobody would even care. On that point, every American shop owner is free to do as he pleases </p>
<p>Decades ago, Montreal used to among the most anglophone of all the cities in Quebec, but the percentage has been dropping ever since; they are being driven out by the French favoritism laws.</p>
<p>As for anti-Americanism prior to Bush, let's just say that since WAY before Bush, the one sure way to get a Canadian all huffy and indignant is to say that Canadians are just like Americans or that Canada is just like the US. They can't give any solid reasons or examples (other than the silly French laws and debates) of how they are very different, but the idea of being like Americans sure offends them.</p>
<p>i shuold have applied...darn it...is there a lot of weed?</p>
<p>A few points:</p>
<p>-stop complaining about the cold. It's not cold in Montreal. Complain about the slush, water, ice and wet snow, but don't complain about the temperature because if it was actually cold those wouldn't be a problem.
-stop complaining about signage. Quebec's only official language is French, deal with it (besides, tons of McGill student and Westmounters get by without knowing a word of French). When it comes to road signs it's mostly pictograms anyway, and the minimal amount of written stuff is not hard to decipher. Except for parking instructions, but this actually doesn't have anything to do with the language they are written in.
-despite the perception outside of the province, the population is not anti-anglophone (the olden days of poor French workers with rich English bosses have been gone for 40 years). Don't confuse pro-French attitude as de facto anti-English. No one complains about the English side of cereal boxes, as long as there's a French one too. And don't think metro workers give you attitude just because you only speak English. They do that to everybody.
-Montreal isn't the most anglophone city in Quebec because all those West Island places like Westmount aren't technically part of it (though they were for a short while).</p>
<p>Rabidchickens: though Montreal doesn't have as much diversity as, say, Toronto when it comes to skin tone, the mentalities are similar in the two cities. Montreal is in general a very welcoming and friendly city, no matter what your skin colour, language, religion or sexual orientation is (notice I haven't listed attitude).</p>
<p>OK... McGill related stuff now: big classes depend on your year and program. The first 1 or 2 years will have huge classes, after that, it depends on the popularity of your major and how advanced your classes are. If you pick the more challenging courses, you will get small classes and prof/student interaction.</p>
<p>And it's not surprising people in Dallas haven't heard of McGill, nobody in Montreal (or Quebec, and probably most of Canada) has heard about Texan universities either...</p>
<p>Yes but most people from the US plan to work in the US so it helps to go to a school most people have at least heard of.</p>
<p>McGill is known at least in New England and the most populous states (including Texas, despite my tongue-in-cheek remark) in general, among university educated population. Given the number of people I know who are now in Seattle or come from there, I would assume it is recognized in that area too (though there might be a bigger awareness of UBC locally due to its proximity).</p>
<ul>
<li><p>It's cold in Montreal. At least the three times I've been there.</p></li>
<li><p>One way to 'deal' with the official language is not to attend school there</p></li>
<li><p>McGill isn't on par with the ivy league</p></li>
<li><p>I saw the McGill campus. It sucked.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>I dont get what people are talking about when they say most people havent heard of McGill maybe as a whole, but I just care if my bosses/admission officers for higher educational offices hear of McGill, which if they are educated they would hear of.</p>
<p>I personally might either go into Law or the Foreign Service Office (diplomatic work in embassies), im considering McGills/Univ of Torontos as sort of safeties, this thread sort of resparked my interest in McGill for next year, I thought before I read this thread that not knowing french was an issue.</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>stop complaining about signage. Quebec's only official language is French, deal with it <<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>No one is complaining and there is nothing to "deal with". The original question was why isn't everyone applying to McGill, and one of the answers is that, as you say, "Quebec's only official language is French." Many people who don't happen to speak French may well prefer to go to college in a place where the signs aren't written in a language they can't understand. Simple. Quebec is perfectly free to do everything in French, and Americans are free to go to school elsewhere. There is no problem.</p>
<p>
[quote]
* It's cold in Montreal. At least the three times I've been there.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>One way to 'deal' with the official language is not to attend school there</p></li>
<li><p>McGill isn't on par with the ivy league</p></li>
<li><p>I saw the McGill campus. It sucked.
[/quote]
</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Sucked? Compared to what? If you expected a bunch of grassy areas with long winding roads with rows of trees on either side then yes. Alas for an urban campus I quite liked McGill.</p>
<p>Montreal is really not that cold from what I can tell. I visited in summer but the winter climate I see from various resources does not seem that bad at all. Then again if you are one of those people that thinks 25 F is cold you have no business anywhere but the south or cali in the first place.</p>
<p>I encourage all juniors to consider McGill and keep an open mind as far as international schools go.</p>
<p>I didn't apply to McGill because of its massive size and large classes. For someone looking to personally connect with professors and not be one face in a million, McGill probably isn't the best choice. I'm sure McGill offers a great education though. And Montreal is great!</p>
<p>It's a fact, and it seems easy to avoid until you actually experience it. The other day I was talking to my brother, who attends McGill, on the phone. Where I was, New York City, it was over 50 degrees (unusually warm for NYC in January). But in Montreal it was more than 30 degrees BELOW ZERO. That's not as uncommon in Montreal as you might think it is. A very large percentage of the winter days in Montreal reach temperatures below zero degrees.</p>