@DadTwoGirls, I have followed your posts with a lot of interest! D has added Mount Allison and St. Francis Xavier based on your advice, and she already had Acadia on the list. She has been very impressed with what she’s seen on their websites and in the info sessions. They fall into a slightly different category than the big Canadian schools - a little more work to apply, but look and feel more similar to US LACs (but bigger).
We visited New Bruswick, Nova Scotia, and PEI a few years ago for a vacation, and absolutely fell in love with the entire region around the Bay of Fundy and the north coast of Nova Scotia. If only we had known about them then, we could have toured before the border closed!
With her intended field, I don’t think where she attends will matter as much as what she does with it, so the “unknown name” is not actually of much concern. The small unis have some location features that are very attractive and would be a boon to her expected field. And at least two have a specific club that she’s looking for.
Thanks for your feedback on grading and class size. Interesting that the grading would be different at the larger schools, but it’s very reassuring to hear this.
Class size is such a funny topic! D says she wants small classes, so we say to focus on LACs. Then she says they’re too small, so we point to the big city unis. Then she says the classes are too big! She’s something of a Goldilocks. It is so hard to find medium size schools in the right locations with plenty of smaller (<50) classes, and lots of different majors. They do exist, of course, but she’s dead set against engineering, and many medium size schools have a strong engineering and/or pre-med focus.
Re: “lots of different majors” - she knows what she wants to study, but she likes to be surrounded by others in different fields, with different interests. And she does want to take at least a few electives (another reason for the 4-year school format).