How Selective are Canadian Schools?

<p>^^ now wasnt that a quick reply</p>

<p>No Queen’s doesn’t have the lowest. Julliard, is I believe, 8%. So there must be other schools too that are lower. The Ivies just come readily to mind when you think about low acceptance rates. Doesn’t mean there aren’t other schools out there who have lower ones. Some of the smaller, but highly regarded, liberal arts colleges in the U.S. probably go lower than 8%, I would imagine</p>

<p>Here’s one source of the useless selectivity statistic:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/brief/webex/lowacc_brief.php[/url]”>http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/brief/webex/lowacc_brief.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Curtis Institute of Music ¶ 3%
Juilliard School (NY) 7%
United States Coast Guard Acad. (CT) 7%
Harvard University (MA) 10%
Princeton University (NJ) 10%
United States Military Academy (NY) 10%
United States Naval Academy (MD) 10%</p>

<p>I looked up the numbers from Queen’s own publication on selectivity. The Queen’s brochure, “Information for Students from the United States”, says that last year there were 3,396 applicants for 270 spaces in Commerce, 7.9%. The University overall had an admission rate of 13.9%.</p>

<p>One thing to keep in mind with the Canadian selectivity stats about numbers who apply is, the system there is different and kids often ‘apply’ to many more schools than they really would if it was a system like the U.S. In Ontario, it’s a centralized application process and for many, is pretty much just checking off another box on a general application. There’s no separate form, fee, essay, etc. like there would be in the U.S. I believe that the fee charged is for the first three schools, it’s grouped like that in increments so it makes it much more common to apply to schools that you may not be specifically all that interested in. It makes it a little misleading as to how selective it is. Also, they count applications separately in their numbers, so someone who may apply for more than one program at a particular university, is counted as more than one applicant. This happens more often than it does in the U.S. It’s very common there to apply to more than one program at the same school. In the original double cohort year, there was one boy in Ontario who applied to 57 programs in the province! And I believe there are approximately 17 universities. :)</p>

<p>UVic is wonderful for math and engineering. I have 2 friends who go there.</p>

<p>alwaysamom: You must fill out Queen’s own Personal Statement of Experience for each program you apply for, separate from the OUAC form. I don’t know about other Ontario colleges. The admission rate I posted is the actual number of slots divided by the real number of applicants. I think selectivity is useless without knowing something about the quality of the applicant pool anyway. Obviously it can be much tougher to get admitted to certain “self selected” schools, like MIT, no matter what the selectivity percentage shows.</p>

<p>Queens and Toronto only look at your ‘numbers’. My friend got into Queens with almost no extracurriculars, low 3.0 GPA and 1200s SAT.
Waterloo’s engineering school is as hard as MIT
</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.ouac.on.ca/info/[/url]”>http://www.ouac.on.ca/info/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>EVERYTHING ABOUT ONTARIO UNIVERSITIES INCLUDING ACCEPTANCE RATES IS ON THERE</p>

<p>T990, it appears that queen’s accepted more students last year than previous.</p>

<p>Alwayamom, the ontario wide application common application really isn’t misleading when it comes to whom applies. Students have to list their order of preference. Schools only count those applicants who listed them in the top 3 choices in their acceptance rates.</p>

<p>Jelda, no Canadian school looks at extracurriculars. I thought that was common knowledge by now and as I mentioned Canadian schools set aside a certain number of spaces for American students, selectivity depends on how many students applied from the U.S and for what programs. dont think people haven’t gotten in to HYP with a 3.0. I know someone who got accepted to Columbia recently with a 1230 on his SAT.</p>

<p>smartguy, the site only lists applicants from the province of ontario. which takes out 90% of the country, international and american. Hardly scientific since they are still preliminary numbers at least for 2005-2006. Unless I am looking at the wrong PDF file on the site, I don’t see how many were actually accepted.</p>

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<p>ivyleaguer, I am wondering where you got information on previous class sizes at Queen’s?</p>

<p>I don’t doubt it increased with the double cohort; I am wondering if they are increasing the size further and on a permanent basis now.</p>

<hr>

<p>On a different subject, how would you compare the education quality of Queen’s to universities in the states? 
compared to public universities in the states, and compared to private universities in the USA.</p>

<p>The stats from Queen’s came from Queen’s themselves. They were preliminary for the 2003- 2004 year. But they came directly from the university. I think Queen’s did open up a little after all, because of the double cohort if only slightly. Ontario universities were under pressure to increase spaces. I think Queen’s was surprised by the number of applications in 2003- 2004, because of the double cohort and had no choice but to let a few more in the next year. That’s my guess. </p>

<p>US News did a story a while back that compared the academic rigor at Queen’s, U of T and Mcgill to Harvard and Yale. You can find it if you do a search on the Internet. It was about Canadian schools being a bargain because of the high quality education and the low dollar (at the time the story was written).</p>

<p>Thanks. Your old forum post has the link, but it appears to be out of date.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.collegeconfidential.com/cgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?4/13306[/url]”>http://www.collegeconfidential.com/cgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?4/13306&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Came across this while searching:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.dopejam.com/byecanada/deciding/canada/jun27-99_braindrain.html[/url]”>http://www.dopejam.com/byecanada/deciding/canada/jun27-99_braindrain.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Here’s my take: I think the best Canadian schools have high standards and tough grading. They often have large class sizes and the professors may be less likely to have PhD’s, esp from the big name US universities. Meaning what you get in a private US college is a smaller student-faculty ratio, more likely to have classes under 25, and the US schools’ faculty will be PhDs from big name US universities. The top Canadian schools are a bargain in comparison as US schools are raising tuition 7% a year.</p>

<p>T990, only the first year classes are large and that’s at the McGill, Queen’s and U of T’s and their counterparts. Liberal arts colleges in Canada have just as small classes, and again it’s generally only freshman classes at the other universities here that are large lectures. Faculty-student ratios at McGill, Queen’s and U of T are generally skewed by first year class numbers. Classes are relativitly small after your freshman year.Granted, not as small as the classes I attended at Columbia, but still small.</p>

<p>Also, according to Maclean’s magazine, November 15, 2004, 98.6% of U of T faculty hold PHd’s. At Mcgill it’s 94.3 and Queen’s it’s 95.3. So I don’t agree that these schools profs don’t hold PHd’s. The numbers speak for themselves. </p>

<p>I am curious as to why you would want your profs at a Canadian university to hold degrees from U.S. universities?</p>

<p>State schools in the US, as well as schools like Cornell, have large class sizes. Yes, certain US private schools have many classes under 25, even under 15.</p>

<p>I noticed that the Canadian programs I applied to have noticeably fewer PhD’s among the faculty than the US programs I have applied to.</p>

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<p>I was attempting to show how US colleges compare to Canadian universities. Americans typically put a lot of value on having a faculty that came out of Stanford, Yale, Northwestern, MIT, etc. This will not be the case for the Canadian schools.</p>

<p>The University of Toronto is not selective at all. It’s quality, excellence and prestige is undeniable but for most of their undergrad programs they have low, low admission requirements. </p>

<p>Most of my classmates put U of T down as the backup for their backup. One of my friends who didn’t get into McMaster Arts got into U of T, another was denied acceptance from McGill Science and accepted to U of T Life Science (all for Main campus - St. George). The people I know, and know of who have been accepted to U of T generally have mid to high 70s for Arts and low to mid 80s for Maths/Sciences. To put it bluntly, a lot of the students from my high school who are going to U of T are really mediocre. The ones who are in the top 5-10% are mostly going to Queen’s, Western and McGill.</p>

<p>U of T accepts a huge number of undergrad students every year. (September 2005 stat: 39,320 applicants accepted) And from what I heard from many people, first year they “filter” them out.</p>

<p>Top 3 entering averages: McGill: 89.3%, Queen’s: 89%, Western: 84%.
Now those stats say nothing about the university’s reputation, quality etc etc, but gives an idea of the selectivity.</p>

<p>McGill’s acceptance rate in particular is somewhat inflated (i.e. difficulty of acceptance is harder than the % accepted would denote). Most McGill applicants are Quebec CEGEP students. In Quebec, not only do CEGEP students get their marks in terms of percentages, but they also receive something called a CRC
a numerical rating that compares them to their class. McGill publishes appromixate CRC cutoffs by program, meaning that most applicants already know if they can get into a certain faculty/major. Therefore, you have far, far fewer people “taking a shot” at a selective program, raising the acceptance rates.</p>

<p>Western is a complete joke of a school. The only reason worth going is its undergrad B-school. From everyone I know who’s gone and everything I’ve heard elsewhere, it’s a BS party school.</p>

<p>ok does anyone know where you find statistics for canadian universities? Like freshman retention rates, graduation rates, etc.</p>

<p>and any UBC information would be appreciated.</p>

<p>I too am interested
I really like McGill but was discouraged by the fact that housing is basically only for first year students.</p>

<p>I also checked into University of British Columbia - some rankings say it’s the 2nd best, some the 3rd, but I haven’t really heard much about it on this thread. Can somebody inform me about UBC? It is by far my favorite because it’s in Vancouver - the ocean and skiing!</p>

<p>“I too am interested
I really like McGill but was discouraged by the fact that housing is basically only for first year students.”</p>

<p>Don’t be discouraged by this. There is PLENTY of cheap housing around McGill that is mostly occupied by students (in fact, it’s called the McGill ghetto–so many students live there). I know plenty of people who are not rich and yet live off-campus. </p>

<p>Even better, McGill and the McGill ghetto is smack downtown in what may be the best college city in the world (lots of bars and clubs/drinking age at 18/last call at 3 AM; lots of great cheap/inexpensive restaurants; over 150,000 college students in the city; very safe to walk around late at night).</p>

<p>Also, honestly, I don’t have a very high opinion of UBC. It is one of the least selective major schools in Canada, and is a step below Queen’s/McGill/UofT and even Waterloo. In my opinion, those 3 or 4 are really the only Canadian schools worth going to if you’re from the U.S.</p>