Canadian Universities

[galaxygirl]

Senior year is coming up and college selection and applications is something I want to get started on pretty soon. I know I want to go to school in Canada, and I have looked into several schools that seem to be pretty good. The problem is that because I live in the US I don't know what kind of reputation each school has- such as if it's a good science school, or a school with good research programs. I was wondering if anyone here went, or knows someone who went to a university in Canada that they really liked, and wants to share some advice as to which universities I should apply to.

I plan on double majoring in some combination of either biology, chemistry, psychology, or neuroscience, though I've been planing on doing a double major in bio and chem.

Here are schools that I've looked into and like so far:
McGill (of course)
U. Toronto
Dalhousie
Acadia (I'll be visiting Acadia and Dalhousie in a week :))
U. Calgary
U. British Columbia

Any help would be greatly appreciated :)

[TriangleMan]

I'm a UBC grad! :)

UBC is a large university with decent programs for chemistry, biology and psychology, but I don't know enough about other universities to compare how good UBC's programs by comparison. Because the university is so large for the first 2-3 years you can expect being in classes with 100-200 other students so you kinda become just another face in the crowd - you certainly won't get the kind of individual attention from profs and TA's that you could get at a smaller university.

UBC's grounds are excellent, Vancouver is a wonderful city (provided you can handle months of rain in the winter), and it is close to some top-notch skiing facilities.

Other potential downsides are the residences for 1st & 2nd year students - some of them can be dominated by people who are just there to party, much to the annoyance of more serious students. Those people tend to get weeded out by year 3. Many students look for housing off-campus but that means commuting to class every day.

Macleans magazine (http://www.macleans.ca/universities/) (a Canadian magazine similar to Time or Newsweek), does an annual review of Canadian universities. Click on the link for their analysis - it is pretty detailed.

[snarkophilus]

McGill
That's the big one for anything having to do with biology, though that's more graduate-level stuff. They've got some Nobel winners there. A friend's brother just got his Ph.D. there and he speaks very highly of it.

Acadia (I'll be visiting Acadia and Dalhousie in a week :))
A lovely part of the country. I very seriously considered going there.

UBC
The only people I knew who went there recently were pretty much in it for the parties. Apparently they are excellent. :rolleyes: The campus is quite nice, and a lot of good physics research comes from there.

You might also look into the University of Victoria (http://www.uvic.ca). Victoria is a great city, and something like ten or fifteen out of the hundred people I graduated with ended up going to UVic. Experiences varied.

You seem to be looking only at big schools. If I may plug my own school (perhaps just as being representative of smaller universities), the University of Northern British Columbia (http://www.unbc.ca) is great. It's a smaller town, about 75 000, and the air quality sucks, but the university is on a great big hill that lets you look over the smoke and breath in very nice air. I had quite a few classes with fewer than ten people, especially at the higher levels. All of my professors knew me by name (except for one arts elective, where there were 100 students in the class), and there's a whole community thing going on -- you'll sometimes find students and professors having drinks or playing chess together after class.

The best part of small schools is that it's very easy to get in on special projects, or have special topics courses made just for you. For instance, I wanted to take quantum chemistry, but there was no such course, so I just went to my phys. chem professor and asked if she'd teach me. Next semester, I was learning it, the only student in the class. A few of us wanted a computational number theory course, so we went and asked, and sure enough we got it offered. I suspect that you don't get that kind of thing at bigger schools.

The chemistry department (biochem in particular) is in the midst of a huge expansion right now, too. There's a new medical school up here, so they've hired a bunch of biochemists and all that. I don't think I'd recommend it for psych or neuroscience, though, but if you're looking for a chemistry degree (and probably biology), then UNBC comes highly recommended.

(Edit: Just looked at the McLean's site, and UNBC is fourth in the "primarily undergraduate" rankings. Not bad for a 15 year old school.)

May I ask why you want to go to school in Canada?

[Gillianren]

I visited U Vic once with a friend whose goal was to be in a different country than her parents were. (She ended up at St. Andrew's, in fact.) It seemed very nice, and several of my SCA friends went there, but I'm afraid that's all I know.

[banquo's_bumble_puppy]

I'd recommend Dalhousie just because Halifax is such a nice place to live....but then again I'm biased

[TriangleMan]

I forgot to mention that UBC has a clothing-optional beach as well (Wreck Beach). That's a feature you won't find anywhere else. ;)

[galaxygirl]

May I ask why you want to go to school in Canada?

Gillianren sort of answered it- I want to be in a different country than my parents. But why Canada instead of another country? I'm Micmac- a first nations tribe from eastern Canada- so I can potentially go to any Canadian school for free, which would be VERY nice.

The best part of small schools is that it's very easy to get in on special projects, or have special topics courses made just for you.

For this upcoming schoolyear I made up my own course- extragalactic astrophysics and cosmology- because my school only offers intro astronomy classes. A couple friends and I also got a teacher to make an organic chem class for us. I like the idea of being able to make courses like this in college, so I'll definitely start looking into some small schools as well.

Thank you for your help everyone!

[peter eldergill]

Personally, I went to McMaster in Hamilton (70 km W of Toronto) for 7 years ( a Master's as well) in mathematics. As far as I could tell it was top notch for science. Hamilton is similar to Pittsburgh (is that named for Pitt the elder ot Ptt the Younger?)

Part of what you might consider is how much scholarship money you may get. All the Universities you mentioned are extremely well known in Canada.

You might want to consider how close you want to be to (Boston?) Massachusetts (I had to look up the spelling)

Of those listed, you won't make a bad choice, I think it should be a personal choice, though. It also depends on what you want to do. For example, one of my friends works with monkeys, so for ontario, he only had a choice of Queens and U of T. He has since opened up a lab at Western (in London, Ont)

Also do consider Queens (Kinston), Western (london) and McMaster. All three are also top notch in Ontario

I teach grade 12 all the time at my school and students always ask me what they should do and it usually comes down to money, marks and personaly choice. My students tend not to be wealthy and of Indian/Pakistani descent, where moving away from home is not an option.

Hope that helps. Feel free to post or PM for any further advice

Also, enjoy your stay in Canada! I love it here, except for taxes...

Later

Pete

Edit: I didn't see the Micmac part. If you can get free tuition, then great. If you're interested in astronomy, I don't really know who's known for that here. I did meet some of the faculty for astronomy at McMaster, but that was 10 yrs ago

[peter eldergill]

Galaxy girl, I tried to send you a PM but your mailbox is full....

Pete

[i only ponder]

i strongly advise that, if you can- i know canada is a big place, look around the universities you are interested in. there's no better way than that. you can go around on their open days or if theyre nice theyll give you a tour!
i'm going to university sept 2007, probably the same time as you, and i've found it extremely helpful to look around universities to see their physics departments (i want to study astrophysics). seeing it for yourself helps you weigh up the pros and cons e.g. subject department versus accommodation.

[Gillianren]

Heh. The Arrogant Worms, a Canadian band, have a song called "Canada's Really Big." In fact, it's bigger than the US, just a heck of a lot more sparsely populated.

[Makgraf]

UVic has another nice benefit, in that the campus is coated with rabbits. This is a benefit if you're running low on cash and get hungry...

Queen's is pretty much coasting on its reputation these days, though there is a prestigieous flipping-and-burning-a-car program.

U of T bio students are hypercompetitive devilspawn. They will do things like ripping pages out of library textbooks or sabotaging your experiment if you're not looking.

University of Calgary is really shooting up in the quality index. The downside is you'll be surronded by Calgarians. I kid, I kid: I'm just jealous because there are jobs out there.

On universities that haven't been mentioned, have you thought about Guelph? It's a cozy, cute little university and nobody has anything bad to say about it. Plus, it's got the best meal plan food in the province.

[Lurker]

Canada has universities?? :eek:


Am I gunna get banned for this?? :think:

[peter eldergill]

Canada has universities??


Am I gunna get banned for this??

Well..if I find your home address! :surprised

have you thought about Guelph

I'm not sure if Guelph has much of a science department, unless you're interested in agricultural science, then this is definaletly the choice for you

Makgraf, I see you're from the centre of the Universe, just like me!

Later

Pete

[davidlpf]

I agree with banquo with that halfax is nice place to live even that i went to st marys for about three years so i do not know a lot about dalhousie.

[Fraser]

I went to UBC. In fact, I might be going back next year to finish my computer science degree. And my wife might be in the science program there too.

When you're ready, make sure you remind me to write you a reference letter - I can't believe you're getting ready for university. You were like 15 when you joined on as a moderator for UT. :-0

[galaxygirl]

You might want to consider how close you want to be to (Boston?) Massachusetts (I had to look up the spelling)


I don't mind being really far from Boston, the only issue is being able to visit schools in British Columbia and Alberta, because they're quite far.


Galaxy girl, I tried to send you a PM but your mailbox is full....


Sorry about that... I fixed it.


i strongly advise that, if you can- i know canada is a big place, look around the universities you are interested in.


I'm leaving VERY early tomorow morning for Nova Scotia, where I'll be visiting Dalhousie, Acadia, and St. Francis Xavier (which I recently found on the Macleans link TriangleMan gave). With the more distant schools, I'll probably only visit them if I get in.


I can't believe you're getting ready for university. You were like 15 when you joined on as a moderator for UT. :-0

Haha you're making me feel old ;) Funny how the time flys by so quickly.

[Gillianren]

Haha you're making me feel old ;) Funny how the time flys by so quickly.

Oh, please! When at least 90% of us were fifteen, there was no such thing as the internet, and you feel old?

[TriangleMan]

I'm leaving VERY early tomorow morning for Nova Scotia, where I'll be visiting Dalhousie, Acadia, and St. Francis Xavier (which I recently found on the Macleans link
While you're in Canada you might want to buy that issue of Macleans, it should still be in the stores.

[The Supreme Canuck]

McGill, Queen's, and U of T are the usual choices. From Wikipedia:

McGill:

McGill is consistently in the top ranks of Canadian universities and is among the best universities worldwide. It tied for first (with the University of Toronto) in Maclean's "2005 Canadian University Rankings" of medical/doctoral universities.[9] McGill ranked 24th worldwide (first in Canada and 13th in North America, after Columbia University) in the Times Higher Education Supplement. Shanghai Jiao Tong University, in its Academic Ranking of World Universities, ranked McGill 67th in the world and third amongst Canadian universities.[10]

Queen's:

It is usual to find Queen's ranked among Canada's top universities. In the Globe and Mail University Report Card, Queen's University received the most amount of A+s out of all the universities in Canada.

It currently ranks fifth in Canada by Maclean's Magazine in their annual ranking of universities in the Medical Doctoral category.[1]. Queen's finished second in the Canadian university rankings in 2006 to McGill in the Highest Overall Quality category and was tied for third in the Highest Entering Average with Western at 87.6%; this was a fall from the second place finish Queen's enjoyed in the same category in 2005 -- again behind McGill by just 0.3% with an 89.0% average for new undergraduate students. Queen's has the highest retention rate of first-year students out of any university in Canada at 95.6% and, once again with McGill, counts itself as the only school with 0% of its student body being accepted with an average under 75%.

In Maclean's University Rankings Queen's was ranked first in the Highest Quality category for Canadian universities in 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2001, 2003, and 2004.

U of T:

According to the academic ranking of world universities compiled at the Institute of Higher Education, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, University of Toronto has been ranked the world's 24th top university in the years of 2004 and 2005.[7]. For twelve years in a row, U of T has been ranked the top medical-doctoral research university in Canada by Maclean's Magazine (in 2005, it was tied for first with McGill University). It is ranked 24th in the world in terms of best science and 20th in the world in terms of biomedicine (Higher times Supplement 2005). It was also ranked 29th overall in the world, (2nd in Canada) by the Times Higher Educational Supplement's 2005 World University Rankings.[4]

You really can't go wrong with these three. Also, if you have any specific questions about Queen's, feel free to PM me: I'm a student there.

[Moose]

You might want to consider how close you want to be to (Boston?) Massachusetts (I had to look up the spelling)

You might be interested to know that there's rumors of a company looking to open a high-speed catamaran ferry line between Halifax and Boston.

I also suggest the McLean's ratings for solid information. As I've only attended Dalhousie, I can only comment on that. It has solid programs in each of the fields you've mentionned, although the neuro would probably be attached to the School of Medicine. I really don't know much about it, but it's supposed to be recognized internationally in terms of medical research.

[BigDon]

I forgot to mention that UBC has a clothing-optional beach as well (Wreck Beach). That's a feature you won't find anywhere else. ;)

This is Canada right? The whole country could be clothing optional and nobody would notice! Global warming has you up to what? 50F?

[Gillianren]

This week, the southern part of BC (right across the border from Washington) is at least in the 90s.

[snarkophilus]

This week, the southern part of BC (right across the border from Washington) is at least in the 90s.

In the northern part, we've spent the last three days in the mid-80s, breaking all sorts of records. The southeastern part of the province is getting over 100 F.

While these aren't the hottest temperatures I can remember, the last two months have been consistently in the 80s (with the exception of a small snow-fall at the start of June and a normal week last week), which is very unusual.

I visited my family's house a few days ago, and I noticed that someone had a real estate guide sitting open on the coffee table... a Yukon guide! If it weren't for black flies the size of helicopters....

[Moose]

Oh yeah. In Northern NB, we've had an entire summer's worth of humid and >85F temps.

[davidlpf]

In southern nb it is about the same but a lot of rain so between the rain the heat humidity i can not get a lot done outside.

[Tim Thompson]

The University of British Columbia & the University of Victoria both have good programs in astronomy and astrophysics, if such things come to be of interest. I have spent a lot of time in the mountains of western Canada, especially around Banff & Jasper. Great country if you like real mountains.

But all I really wanted was an excuse to congratulate our Favorite Galactic Female on her transition into the "real world". Just remember us little folk on your way to the top.