I hope you don’t mind me posting this question here. We are Canadian citizens living in Ontario. While I know the education system between Canada and the US is different, I think this question is generic enough that I hope you can help. I’m not aware of a similar forum pertaining to university in Canada where I can reach out to the collective wisdom of parents.
DS’19 is a very strong student who was identified as gifted in elementary school. He is a true intellectual with a wide variety of interests which he also pursues of his own initiative. In particular he has interests in the sciences (chemistry and physics), world history (ancient, especially Roman), music (various), art, literature (various), and philosophy to name a few. He plays 3 instruments (and is getting a 4th for Christmas). His EC’s include various music ensembles/lessons (including school concert band (clarinet), rock band (guitar), and private piano & guitar lessons), DECA, and TED-EX clubs at school. He is currently in grade 11 in a regional congregated Advanced Placement program that was by application (he is one of 85 students accepted from over 600 applicants in his year). At the moment his classes are still pre-AP which accelerates the regular university stream (honours?) curriculum so that they will have completed most of it up to the end of grade 12 before moving on to the actual AP courses in grade 12. His marks are in the high 80’s to high 90’s with an overall average of about 94%. Next year he is planning on taking English Literature, Pre-AP Pre-Calculus (Advanced Functions), AP Calc BC, AP Chem, AP Physics, AP World History, Instrumental Music, & Computer Science. He is leaning towards appling to physical sciences for university, most likely chemistry, though computer science and engineering are possibilities. He will most likely choose electives in music, history, philosophy, and business, though not necessarily as a minor (depends on the flexibility of the degree structure of the program he chooses).
We have been investigating post-secondary options for a while now, and due to the nature of universities in Canada, he basically has 2 choices: a very large comprehensive research university that is relatively to highly selective (similar to a state flagship) or a small primarily undergraduate school (like a LAC) but that is considerably less selective. All things being equal, he would prefer a smaller school. Unfortunately things are not equal so he has to choose between selectivity and size. What I am wondering is what are the advantages/disadvantages of a more selective school since the actual curriculum between schools at the undergraduate level doesn’t vary that much? What are the pros and cons of larger versus smaller institutions? In an ideal world he would attend MIT or Cal Tech (but that’s not going to happen).
With a more selective institution, he will be around smarter, more hard working students. He is more likely to find his “tribe” if he is a smart, hard working kid. That can push him to become better, which can be an advantage or a disadvantage.
Are you familiar with the college system at U of T? The selective colleges such as Trinity and Victoria are smaller environments which skim off the smartest students. They’re like being in an LAC with the resources of the larger university.
Why do you rule out the “ideal world” alternatives? Of course they are very selective but there are many major research universities – both public and private – as well as many small colleges that have excellent programs in science and math, as well as excellent broader curricula and even opportunities for the musically inclined.
It seems likely that your son will eventually head to graduate school. So one way to think about the choice of undergraduate institutions is as a stepping stone for graduate study – but a “stone” that allows for broad exploration of interests in different disciplines and modes of contending intellectually. I don’t know the exact figures but I’d venture a guess that most graduate school attendees at MIT and Caltech did NOT attend those schools as undergrads.
Added: When our children approached the stage your son is in now, I “knew” that my daughter was unlikely to attend graduate school b/c she wanted above all to attend a stand-alone art college. And I “knew” that my son needed a “stepping stone” college b/c he was certain to pursue an advanced degree. HA HA on me. My daughter attended an art school (RISD), but then later obtained an MBA and an MS! My son attended a stepping stone (University of Chicago) but chose not to seek an advanced degree.
With a big school, there is more likely to be a significant number of students in all parts of the range of selection criteria, so a student not in the middle of the distribution is likely to find his/her academic peers at a big school.
With a small school, the tail ends of the range may be few in absolute numbers, so a student not in the middle of the distribution may find few academic peers at a small school.
With any size of school, the distributions may differ from one major to another.
@bouders, I’m still a bit fuzzy on how the college system works at U of T. I know that students select one, but apart from residential considerations, and the first year One seminar programs, from what I can tell, the remainder of the courses are taken together on the St. George campus. The class sizes for first year especially I am told are huge. I’m not sure what size tutorial/lab sections would be. U of T is also known annectodatally for grade deflation and it’s weed out policies.
To be honest, DS was turned off of U of T by a grad student he spoke to at the University Fair in the fall. The student (erroneously I believe following further investigation) told him that he would have to choose either co-op or specialist streams (which leads to grad school) and that you couldn’t do both. He then went further to say that the course structure was such that there wasn’t much room for electives. That pretty much eliminated U of T in DS’s mind right then and there. U of T is within commuting distance for us but I think DS would like to go a little further a field.
@mackinaw, we are pursuing options in Canada (most likely just Ontario). We don’t have the option of small & selective. Unfortunately it’s either one or the other.
A student’s college also takes care of registration and payments. Most social activities are organized by the colleges/students at one’s college.
There are only a couple of first year classes that are huge at U of T, psychology and biology. Each is held in Convocation Hall which seats 1500. Both have smaller sections too, 400 and 500. S18 takes upper year philosophy courses and many of them are less than 100 students. The first year philosophy course is capped at 300. Tutorials and lab sections are capped at 24 students. Grade deflation depends on which course you are taking. S14’s U of T first year CS course had a mean of about 79% while D16’s first year CS course at Waterloo had a mean of about 68%. Both were in fall 2016. If anything, Waterloo is more selective for CS than U of T, so the students should be “smarter”.
Sounds like the grad student didn’t know what he was talking about. UTSG doesn’t have co-op. The Scarborough campus does. UTSC has very different majors than UTSG or UTM. At UTSG, there are specialists, majors and minors. Students have to take one specialist or two majors or one major and two minors to graduate. If you can slot in more, you are free to do so. If you take a specialist, 40% of your courses are electives. For the other 60% of your courses, most of the requirements are something along the lines of: Choose two courses from this list of 10.
This may sound a little crazy but bear with me. The State University of New York system has among the lowest costs for out-of-state students, and their Honors Liberal Arts College is in SUNY Geneseo, which is near Rochester. It has 5600 undergraduates. Tuition, Fees, Room and Board is currently around $31,200 US for out-of-state.
While not too far from home, this might provide a nice balance between selective and small, though it seems to have gotten less selective over the last few years, it still attracts like minded students as yours.
Also not too far from home, though certainly more expensive, the University of Rochester is a small research university that has the feel of a liberal arts college at about 6300 undergraduates.
Personally, I think it would be better to have both selective and smaller if that would provide the best educational environment.
@ClassicRockerDad, thanks for the consideration. SUNY Geneseo would come to about $40K CAD per year, twice the price of attending university away from home in Canada. Unless he would be eligible for some kind of merit scholarship, that would be out of our price range. I agree that selective and smaller is ideal, but for some reason, we don’t have that here in Canada. Top performing students tend to flock to the large research universities. The smallest school on DS’s list has 19,500 undergraduate students. We did tour one tiny school that is affiliated with a larger research university in Nova Scotia that I’m hoping he will consider applying to. They have a first year program that would be right up his alley. The research U is also smaller than the top tier ones in Ontario (but not as selective).
How much CAN you pay per year for your son to attend college? It sounds like schools in this country will not be affordable without significant financial aid.
One of our kids looked at McGill. Is that on your list?
For most colleges here, you so will be considered an international student. He will not be eligible for any U.S. federally funded aid. Some schools will have very limited financial aid for him. Some won’t provide aid at all.
So…what is your budget?
Also, did I miss your son’s GPA and SAT or ACT scores? If he is class of 2019, he is currently a junior in HS, right? Hs he even taken the SAT or ACT yet?
That’s true. I’ll have to do some digging to see if I can find the entrance averages for his potential majors. I have a breakdown between degrees, but not faculties.
I think grad school is going to be in his future, whether in Canada or the US remains to be seen. I am concerned that at the large research schools, he won’t in fact have access to undergraduate research as it will be much more competitive to get one of those types of positions and mostly reserved for the brightest of the bright (DS is very bright and motivated but no budding genius). At a smaller school he might have a better chance to “shine” but there maybe fewer research opportunities or not the same diversity of opportunity as at a larger school. Then there is the question of getting to know his professors in order to get a recommendation. The large universities are notorious for being very anonymous. I’m worried he’ll just be a part of the nameless/faceless masses. This is basically what I’ve been struggling with. I guess it comes down to Big Fish/Small Pond vs Small Fish/Big Pond.
It’s funny that you mention the prestige of U of T, because at the undergraduate level, it’s not perceived that way here in Canada. It’s not even that selective in terms on entrance requirements when compared to UBC or McGill. We have a handful of selective/prestigious programs, but no school at the undergraduate level is really considered prestigious. We have no equivalent to HYPSM at the undergrad level.
@thumper1, DS is a junior yes and no he hasn’t written either the SAT or ACT because frankly to be honest attending school in the US has not really been on our radar (more of a fantasy than anything). Without significant merit money it would be very hard to justify attending school in the US given how much cheaper it is for us here in Canada, even if it were in our budget. I knew we would not qualify for need based aid. The only school I seriously investigated was MIT which I know would be a very long shot and from what I can tell it would cost in the neighbourhood of $70K+ CAD per year. Compared to attending U of T for $10K (commuting from home) or the other schools for $20K (living away), I can’t see justifying that cost for an undergraduate degree, especially if he intends to pursue graduate studies.
What I’m trying to wrap my head around is, given that he will attend school in Canada (and most likely Ontario), and that graduate school is probably in his future, is he better off at a large selective research university (e.g. Waterloo, Queen’s, Western, McMaster, U of T) which has lots of potential opportunities but is pretty anonymous and will be highly competitive, or a smaller but less selective school ( e.g.Trent, Acadia, Mt. Alison) where he is more likely to get individual attention and standout from the masses. As for McGill, he hasn’t expressed an interest so far and it’s not any smaller or much more selective than the schools he is already considering. Finding selective schools isn’t the problem, it’s their student/faculty ratio that concerns me.
I think U of T is perceived at about the same level as McGill or UBC in the US. Which is of course still way below the level of HYPSM.
Talking about being a part of the masses, many professors do notice their best students and are happy to forge a special relationship with them, but he has to be proactive and approach the professors.
We’re basically pondering the same choice now, except in the US. Of course DS also hopes to get into MIT but we need to work on the matches…
I believe that the University of Rochester also meets financial need for international students from Canada and Mexico, and might well offer merit money to a student like your son, as well. It may be a good fit —selective admissions, serious students, good academic reputation, “big enough but not too big,” etc. He would definitely have access to academic research as an undergrad. (My daughter, for instance, is a junior and has been part of two research studies—one in microbiology and one in epidemiology.) And it’s not too far from Ontario. It might be worth a look for you if he’s thinking about expanding his options.
@thumper1 Even with ACT/SAT merit aid is hard to predict, which why I qualified my response by saying “might well offer merit money to a student like your son” and suggested looking into it further. The point is that there are both need-based and merit-based opportunities for international students at selective US universities that may not be on the radar of a Canadian student. An international student would not necessarily have to assume that they would be paying a “sticker price” of $50K+ at schools like Rochester or Case and, therefore, may want to expand their consideration set.