Anyone familiar with Queens University in Kingston?

[febreze]

Just as the title says...I'm wondering if anyone knows anything about the art history program there. I'd be slightly nervous to apply to a school as an international student.

Thanks.

[Seeking]

If you are talking about the Queens in Canada, it's one of the four or five top-ranking schools in Canada - think of it as an Ivy of Canada, though lower-ranked than U-Toronto and McGill.

 

The Art History program is quite good there. It has some very promising professors - and mostly PhDs from top-ranking US schools, which means they would have contacts in the US. But of course, it also depends upon what you want to study within Art History and whether your area is represented there.

Edited October 27, 2013 by Seeking

[febreze]

Yes their baroque (my focus) program is quite strong from what I understand and I have done research on some things in their collection. I just don't know if I'm up for taking a leap to an international school.

[Seeking]

I suggest you apply to some funded Masters (there are a couple of threads on that topic here begun sometime early this year), to Queens in Canada and to some PhD programs in the US. That way, you'll have a wide range.

 

If you're a non-traditional candidate and you don't have many chances on your hand, then perhaps applying to just US funded Masters and PhDs would be better.

 

Queens is definitely good, but whether your advisers there will help you to get a job in the US cannot be comprehended at this stage. It will depend upon how you fare there and what kind of rapport you create with them there. If you are the outgoing type who can establish a friendly rapport with people easily, you can include Queens in your list.

Edited October 27, 2013 by Seeking

[febreze]

I'm applying to a variety of schools. Luckily money for applications and support from my letter writers is not an issue but yes, I am a non traditional candidate. I am very drawn to the program and faculty at Queens and even if it's a long shot I don't think it will hurt to apply.

[Seeking]

Yes, exactly. The program is certainly very attractive. So you can cast a wide net and when the time comes to decide, you can think about it - certainly better than feeling you didn't apply there.

 

Good luck with your application!

[febreze]

Thanks!

[TakeruK]

Hi, I was at Queen's from 2010 to 2012 for a MSc. I was there for an Astronomy degree, so my field is pretty different! So, I cannot comment on the specific academics of your field, but I can tell you about graduate studies at Queen's as a whole.

 

First of all, Seeking is right that in Canadian ranking magazines, Queen's tend to rank around 4th or 5th nationwide. However, it's important to note that the main Canadian school ranking -- Maclean's magazine -- divides up the schools in Canada into three categories "Medical/Doctoral", "Comprehensive", and "Primarily Undergraduate". Here are the rankings:

 

http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/2012/11/01/2013-medical-doctoral/

http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/2012/11/01/2013-comprehensive/

http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/2012/11/01/2013-primarily-undergraduate/

 

The names of these categories are a bit misleading, because what they really mean is the first category has a wide range of PhD programs and does research in all categories, which is what most US "research universities" do. The middle category would have limited research/PhD programs, while the last category would have very few, if any, graduate research programs. Finally, like in the US, these rankings are mostly for undergraduates.

 

Okay, I had to say all that to explain that there are only 15 universities in this category! Even in Canada, Queen's is not a household name unless you live in the Ontario/Quebec region (which, to be fair, an overwhelming majority of Canadians do). But people on the west coast of Canada and people outside of the upstate New York region of the US would not know what Queen's was or where it is. 

 

In my opinion, there is a very large difference between the top 3 universities in Canada and everyone else. Due to the much smaller size of Canada, I would say that the top 3 in Canada would compare with the top 20 or top 30 in the US. 

 

Queen's views itself as an "Canadian Ivy" school, but I think this is only true in the attitude of the people and students there, not in the quality of their (undergraduate) programs. I personally found a huge difference between the undergraduates at Queen's and those at UBC, my own undergraduate program. It's just my opinion (I think it's shared by others but I can't provide evidence!) but the undergraduate students at Queen's, in general, come from more affluent families, and there is a lot of preference towards admitting family of former alumni. One colleague who went to undergraduate at a nearby school said that at their school, if you owned a car, you were a somebody, but at Queen's, if you didn't own a nice car, you were a nobody. Again, I am generalising a lot here, but I just want to convey the message that in my opinion, I felt that Queen's acted and looked like an "Ivy" quality school, but when you dig deeper, you will find something very different.

 

But that's all superficial stuff. I also did not appreciate the administration at Queen's. If you'd like to send me a PM, I can describe more details. But, in brief, this is what I'll say:

 

1. I feel there is very little support for graduate students. For example, the Principal (Scottish university, so it's the equivalent of the President) meets with each department about once a year. Graduate students sit in on departmental meetings and we introduced ourselves so he knew we were there. At this first meeting, he told the department that they should cut costs by stopping to fund Masters-level students. In Canada, everyone does a 2-year Masters then a 3-4 year PhD, so this is the equivalent of US PhD programs saying that they won't fund you until year 3. 

 

2. In Canada, all major universities have unions for graduate students (usually through their TA roles, but sometimes through their RA role as well). Queen's is one of the last large universities in Canada to do so. Although it seems like most of the physical sciences departments support their students well, our colleagues elsewhere were not! There are lots of struggle between our Union and the University for basic employee rights (such as being recognized as an employee, being paid for mandatory training, having actual cost-of-living stipend increases annually etc.)

 

3. The administration is steering Queen's to focus mostly on its Business school. While I was there, I got the sense that Queen's wanted to produce undergraduates that would become future CEOs and politicians at the expense of having well funded research and outreach programs. Their new budget model basically penalizes each department for activities that do not make money for the school (e.g. outreach). 

 

4. This happened: http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/11/18/queens-university-marching-band-suspended-for-materials-deemed-offensive-to-women/ (not particularly safe for work). This happened while I was there and I was horrified to find out about this story. Then I was even more horrified to learn that some people have opinions that this was actually okay, e.g. http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/11/28/todays-letters-immoral-no-they-are-simply-kids-having-fun/ (This example was from someone in Calgary, who may or may not be an alumni. But it was the only example I could find online now. Maybe you'll take my word that this opinion was common amongst current students and alumni).

 

Anyways, I don't know how much of this is relevant to you. Obviously, I am not a big fan of my alma mater so I am very biased in my writing but I think it's important that you hear the negatives as well. I also think it's really important for you to find people who have great things to say about Queen's so that you get the full big picture. Then you can decide what is the best. Overall, I still do not regret my time at Queen's because I still learned a lot and gained useful skills and experience during my MSc. But I am elsewhere for my PhD and pretty happy about that. 

[Seeking]

Takeruk,

 

Thanks for your very realistic insider's picture of the Queens.

 

From the outset, yes it does appear very attractive, but only insiders know that there are some systemic problems there.

[TakeruK]

I did say this in the above post, but I should again clarify that the majority of the problems present at Queen's is at the University-wide / administrative level. My interactions with my own department were pretty good! This was also true for some of my colleagues in other departments, but not all of them. So, I would say that my day-to-day life wasn't affected by these university-wide problems, and I felt very supported from my own department (most of the time, no dept. is perfect). However, once in a while, something would happen and it is pretty crappy to feel that your own University consistently takes actions that either directly or indirectly show that it does not really support its graduate students.

[Seeking]

Takeruk,

 

Thanks for your very detailed description. I'm sure it will help candidates to decide about Queens.

[febreze]

TakeruK - thank you so much for your detailed reply. If you wouldn't mind I would like to ask you a few more questions. I am new to this forum and I'm not sure how to PM someone though

[TakeruK]

Yce3f7c -- I'll send you a message but if you have more general questions I can answer them here, I just don't want to go into too many more details outside of a PM.