McGill - humanities and liberal arts?

violindad
Tue, 14 Sep 2010 21:01:50 +0000

What I have heard from students suggests that the quality of teaching at McGill has improved over the last 25 years from what kierans experienced (and 25 years is an entire generation and most of the profs from then will have retired). I hear stories of students that have gone to McGill and other universities and found the profs much more energetic and stimulating at McGill.

Certainly any large university has some profs that are duds at teaching (including the Ivies). Most large universities have at least some large classes. At McGill (and most places) these are most frequent in first year. McGill does have a lot of tutorials/labs which break the large sections into much smaller groups.

As for grading standards, generally McGill is regarded as having much tougher standards than most US schools: Canada is behind the US in the grade inflation game which is driven by competition amongst schools, of which there is relatively little in Canada. A fair number of US students complain about their grades at McGill being too low.

McGill is often ranked among the top 20 universities worldwide (so ahead of some Ivies and among the ranks of Cambridge, Oxford, U de Paris, Harvard et al). Perhaps the ranking of McGill is not an accurate reflection of the experience of an undergraduate student in the Faculty of Arts–the rankings are based on factors such as the publishing and research records which often don’t correlate well with good undergrad instruction.

Bottom line: McGill’s undergrad population is several times as large as the Ivies and most liberal arts colleges (and therefore less selective than the Ivies). Your experience at McGill is likely to be very different from that of a small college. Most undergrads prefer (and benefit more from) the personal interaction with a nice prof whose reputation is regional than the impersonal lecturing of one of the world’s great thinkers.