We are Northern New Englanders exploring Canadian Universities & Colleges (Ontario, Quebec, or the Maritimes) for S25. We are aware of the cap on international students and French language requirements in Quebec. We are looking for a liberal arts program with small classes. At the moment, Carleton University in Ottawa has an attractive Humanities degree. I’ve also read a bit about Mt. Allison and I think someone here may have touted Bishop’s in the past. I think McGill is out b/c of French requirement. I have not looked at University of Toronto yet, but it might be too intense.
Does anyone have experience with these or other institutions? I know many institutions are experiencing financial distress related to the cap on internationals.
S23 will study History, English, Classics or the like and is interested in Bates, Dickinson, Bard, Ursinus, St. John’s Annapolis, Clark, and our state flagship. So looking for something like one of these.
We may relocate to Canada in retirement (husband’s mother born there before 1947 so he obtained documentation of citizenship) so happy to hear where ex-pats have enjoyed settling as well. Thanks!
Toronto has three campuses. The main campus is in downtown Toronto and it’s large but the other campuses might be suitable. There is one in Scarborough which is to the east of the downtown campus and one to the west in Mississauga. The other two campuses are about 15k undergraduates. You might want to look into them as they are not considered as intense as the main campus. Some majors are only available at the main campus like the engineering programs and possibly Classics? (not sure) but History and English should be available at all the campuses.
We were in a similar situation as you, but with dual citizenship (for me and my daughters) and a daughter who wanted to attend a small school (what in the US would be called a liberal arts college).
I would expect the French language requirement to be the same for Bishop’s as it is for McGill. Bishop’s has quite a good languages program so there should be no problem getting the appropriate education while there if you child wants to do so. Bishop’s is an English language university in a largely bilingual town right next to a largely French speaking city. The first two people who I met who grew up in Lennoxville (where Bishop’s is located) have both told me that they started with two languages right from birth.
We visited all of Acadia, Bishop’s, Mount Allison, and St Francis Xavier, and we liked all of them. We visited most of them at least twice. Our youngest got her bachelor’s degree at one of these, and liked it quite a bit. She got good research opportunities. Her first job back here in the USA sounded to me to be very similar to what she had already been doing as an undergraduate student. First semester freshman year she had two classes with 15 or fewer students in them (although one was a third year languages class). This for example made it pretty easy to get to know her professors, which helped with getting research opportunities. Her largest class over four years had 90 students in it. More recently she has gotten accepted to and is currently attending a very good PhD program down here in the US, and appears to be well prepared for it.
I have heard good things about Carlton but I do not know much about it. I did like Ottawa in a few visits there.
The main campus of the U. of Toronto is huge. I do not know much about the other two campuses. The U of T has been claimed to be stressful with grade deflation. I have wondered how much of this is due to it being relatively easier to get into compared to top universities in the US, but not any easier to graduate from.
We have also thought about retiring in Canada. One issue is that our retirement funds are in the US, and US taxes are complicated for someone living outside the country. Another issue is that we have connections and friends here in the US, and it is just easier to stay where we are.
There’s a Classics minor at UTSC along with degree options in History and English, and majors and minors in all 3 of Classics, History, and English at UTM. Grade deflation is better but not nonexistent at UTSC and UTM. Note that both are largely commuter campuses as on-campus housing is extremely limited at both.
OP, you may want to look into Queen’s in Kingston and King’s in Halifax.
The French language requirement at Quebec’s English universities has not been finalized. Even as originally proposed students would be required to take French language courses but no particular level of proficiency would be required to graduate.