“My McGill student will graduate prepared much better for grad school”
Yes, absolutely. One person I know did a Bachelor’s degree and Master’s degree at McGill, and then went to the University of Washington for a PhD. When he arrived at UW, his advisor very carefully went over all of the classes that he had taken, what he had learned, and what he knew. Finally the advisor said “You have already completed all of the classes that you need for your PhD, but you need to take two years of courses; You can take anything that you want for two years”. McGill had prepared the student so well for graduate school that he was essentially already done in terms of required material.
“Question: Do most students at McGill find their comfort zone after the first few months or do most kids struggle with grades the whole time?”
I think that the answer is almost the same as for any academically very challenging university: Some students (the smartest, hardest working, best prepared, and most “ready”) love it and do really well. Some students struggle the entire time. The difference between McGill versus Harvard in this regard is probably that if you aren’t academically up to flourishing at Harvard, and you aren’t an athlete, URM, or some other “hook”, then you won’t get in. Even if you are academically up to it you still very likely won’t get into Harvard. At McGill you might get in even if you aren’t strong enough to do really well there. The students that will do well at Harvard will also do just as well at McGill, and learn just as much.
Part of doing well at any academically challenging university is to know why you are there and know why you want to work that hard to learn your subject well. One former McGill student said to me “you have to want to do it”, another said “you have to know why you are there”. The same could be said of Toronto, MIT, Harvard, Stanford, U of Michigan, or any other strong school.
" …and is just as metropolitan and chic as Montreal."
Atlanta is a nice city (if you can handle the summers). Nonetheless, I got quite a chuckle out of this statement.
Certainly the bilingual nature of Montreal is a major factor in the experience of spending four years at McGill. You can love it, hate it, or have rather mixed feeling about it, but it will have an impact on your experience there. If you learn even a little bit of French it will enhance your experience living in Montreal (although this is not required at all to do well at McGill for four years). I might add that for an American living in a different country for four years will be a significant experience. The world might be a better place if everyone had the chance to spend four years living outside of their native country.