Canadian PhD programs?

[hkmousey]

Hello all - I am an American graduate student who applied PhD programs to three Canadian universities, McGill, University of Toronto and University of Western Ontario. I thought it will be harder for me to get into McGill and UofT programs than UWO. I am so surprised with the outcomes. - I got a rejection letter from UWO but I got into the PhD program at McGill with Graduate Fellowship. So ... does it mean the ranking of these three unviersities is: UWO, UofT and McGill? I am a little bit confused... according to the Gradcafe forums, Mcgill and UofT are far better schools than UWO... Any ideas?

[saharel]

Hello all - I am an American graduate student who applied PhD programs to three Canadian universities, McGill, University of Toronto and University of Western Ontario. I thought it will be harder for me to get into McGill and UofT programs than UWO. I am so surprised with the outcomes. - I got a rejection letter from UWO but I got into the PhD program at McGill with Graduate Fellowship. So ... does it mean the ranking of these three unviersities is: UWO, UofT and McGill? I am a little bit confused... according to the Gradcafe forums, Mcgill and UofT are far better schools than UWO... Any ideas?

McGill and UofT are top ranked as medical schools, but not for comprehensive research, they don't even make the top 10 for this category. For comprehensive research, you have simon fraser, victoria and waterloo in top 3. In both case UWO doesn't make the top 10. Still mcgill and UofT have overall great reputation, so being accepted to these university is great, you shouldn't bother about UWO rejection

Since UWO is smaller then McGill and Toronto, is it possible that they were no researchers available to supervise your research there or no researcher with funds? UofT and Mcgill, also receive a lot more funding then smaller university, so maybe that is why you got accepted there with fellowship.

congratulations for your mcgill offer

[thepoorstockinger]

McGill and UofT are top ranked as medical schools, but not for comprehensive research, they don't even make the top 10 for this category. For comprehensive research, you have simon fraser, victoria and waterloo in top 3. In both case UWO doesn't make the top 10. Still mcgill and UofT have overall great reputation, so being accepted to these university is great, you shouldn't bother about UWO rejection

Since UWO is smaller then McGill and Toronto, is it possible that they were no researchers available to supervise your research there or no researcher with funds? UofT and Mcgill, also receive a lot more funding then smaller university, so maybe that is why you got accepted there with fellowship.

congratulations for your mcgill offer

Oh for god's sake... Are you basing this opinion off of the MacLean's magazine ranking?

(I am asking this before I explain why you're wrong so that I don't go off in the wrong direction)

[saharel]

Oh for god's sake... Are you basing this opinion off of the MacLean's magazine ranking?

(I am asking this before I explain why you're wrong so that I don't go off in the wrong direction)

Well this is not my personal opinion and I don't personally follow these rankings. I have been at mcgill...not always faithfull to its reputation. It is facts from McClean's listing thought. I am going in waterloo, but not in the department that makes its reputation. I believe you should always go where you find a research subject for which you are passionate. I gave this answer, since he expressed doubts about the opinion of people on GradCafe, so I confirm that the opinions of people on the forums are not false, since in some serious listings, they do rank well these university. In my field Toronto and McGill are really good and UWO as well. I don't know his, but reputation of a university in your field should always be considered....for better future perspectives, and Toronto+ McGill definitely have a good reputation compared to UWO, again, in my field.

so what is your opinion?

[thepoorstockinger]

Well this is not my personal opinion and I don't personally follow these rankings. I have been at mcgill...not always faithfull to its reputation. It is facts from McClean's listing thought. I am going in waterloo, but not in the department that makes its reputation. I believe you should always go where you find a research subject for which you are passionate. I gave this answer, since he expressed doubts about the opinion of people on GradCafe, so I confirm that the opinions of people on the forums are not false, since in some serious listings, they do rank well these university. In my field Toronto and McGill are really good and UWO as well. I don't know his, but reputation of a university in your field should always be considered....for better future perspectives, and Toronto+ McGill definitely have a good reputation compared to UWO, again, in my field.

so what is your opinion?

Aside from all concerns people may have about the very concept of quantitative rankings of university programs I would point out two major problems with what you said above:

1) The Macleans rankings only ever claim to represent the quality of undergraduate education at Canadian universities. (Obviously people can debate if they actually do a good job of that, I am on the side of the rankings being silly at best, dangerous at worst) This is a minor issue with your post referencing the rankings.

2) The much bigger problem is this:

McGill and UofT are top ranked as medical schools, but not for comprehensive research, they don't even make the top 10 for this category. For comprehensive research, you have simon fraser, victoria and waterloo in top 3. In both case UWO doesn't make the top 10. Still mcgill and UofT have overall great reputation, so being accepted to these university is great, you shouldn't bother about UWO rejection

You fundamentally misunderstand how Macleans categorizes schools in its annual rankings. The first category you're talking about isn't medical schools it's "medical-doctoral." Macleans divides up all schools in the rankings into three categories: "Medical-Doctoral" (medium to large institutions which award a large number of graduate degrees across multiple faculties and have large professional schools), "Comprehensive" (medium to large sized schools which offer some graduate programs and may or may not offer some professional programs), and "primarily undergraduate" (generally small to medium sized schools which offer, as the title suggests, primarily undergraduate degrees and perhaps a few masters programs and MAYBE a few PhDs or professional programs). The break up the groups so that you don't have giant research schools ranked against tiny SLACs. No school appears in more than two or more of these categories. The reason why neither McGill nor UofT rank in the top ten in "comprehensive" is because they're not ranked in that grouping of schools, they're ranked in the Medical-Doctoral group. This doesn't mean that SFU, UVic and Waterloo are higher ranked than UofT or McGill - it means they're not being compared to each other.

[thepoorstockinger]

re: the OP's question

People get rejected from "lower ranked" schools and accepted into "higher ranked" schools all the time. Different programs are looking for different things and are drawing on different applicant pools in a given year. I certainly wouldn't think that just because school A rejected you and schools B, C and D accepted you that school A is the best school.

[saharel]

Thanks for the detailled explanation of how the mcclean actually does the ranking. When I met advisor in the past, well it is their job they should have known better apparently not (maybe you should consider career as an advisor!! you would do better then them) they explain the difference between medical and comprehensive was actually university w/medical schools and applied research vs university w/fundamental research. I appreciate your explanation, it clarifies many things.

The fact is that everybody consider these rankings plus the reputation of a university when they apply even if the university doesn't have a great department in their field of interest. And we have to be realistic, if you say, oh I did my degree at concordia in montreal vs mcgill....well no matter how great your department/supervisor was, McGill still impress a lot more than concordia

I believe that every university has its strenght and weakness in different field, and this is known among professionals and companies ect. Like everybody knows Toronto is a good medical school, while Waterloo, if I am correct is good in computer science or something like that and all this is despite ranking.

Actually if people knew better about rankings....maybe they wouldn't consider them as important

You should spread the word

[johndiligent]

In terms of ranking/prestige, Canadian universities are far more standardized than American universities (by far the majority are public), so the whole idea of ranking top schools doesn't really work in Canada as well as it does in the U.S. When comparing departments you have to look more at the people who compose it than the university name, in order to get an idea of quality. There are some departments that are worldwide #1's in their field lodged away in universities you never really considered.

Not really knowing which departments you applied to, my immediate impression is that UWO, Toronto, and McGill have essentially the same amount of prestige in most fields of graduate study.

[johndiligent]

The fact is that everybody consider these rankings plus the reputation of a university when they apply even if the university doesn't have a great department in their field of interest. And we have to be realistic, if you say, oh I did my degree at concordia in montreal vs mcgill....well no matter how great your department/supervisor was, McGill still impress a lot more than concordia

I disagree with this. I think if Concordia had a very, very strong programme in a given field (with all of the things that count toward a very strong programme including well-known, well-connected faculty, a programme that is known for preparing students well, etc.) then I think that one would be better served by attending Concordia's programme than one with a comparatively poor reputation at McGill.

While someone only remotely connected to the world of academia would think McGill more prestigious, the people who matter in your discipline would know the difference. "Oh, so you studied under so-and-so?! What's he really like?" goes further than "Oh, McGill. I guess I did hear that they were trying to resurrect that programme."