This is the weirdest thread hijack ever. We went from bashing eachother about our war stance to bashing eachother over which educational system is better. Weird.

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Originally posted by partyprincess The SAT range for acceptance to McGill and U of T are around 1200...for Ivy schools it is 1400+. These score ARE recognized and considered by Canadian Universities so that means that they do matter. What possible argument does anyone have against that? You have to score higher to get into the top US schools than into the top Canadian schools, you have to have better grades as well. People with Bs is the US get into our best schools, doesn't that say anything. To get into the same schools Canadians have to score a lot higher.

Does anyone know what the hell she's talking about? Canadian schools don't look at SAT scores. Maybe you need one if you're applying from the USA?

I will not quote my SAT score since this is not a personal discussion, but the SAT I is a joke. The American schools that actually do have high standards, like MIT, all require SAT II scores, which test your knowledge of *somewhat* (not much) more advanced topics.

Even if I were to concede that a lot of Americans with B's get into your best schools (the reason I question this is because Ivy schools are not considered the "best" by as many people as you seem to think), the main reason for that is, as I said, international quotas. Since as I already said, Canadian schools do not use letter grades, it's impossible to draw any conclusion from that.

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quote:

Originally posted by Ray_Finkle This is the weirdest thread hijack ever. We went from bashing eachother about our war stance to bashing eachother over which educational system is better. Weird.

Sorry. A few of us just don't want to see *certain people* get away with their ignorant statements.

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quote:

Originally posted by partyprincess The SAT range for acceptance to McGill and U of T are around 1200...for Ivy schools it is 1400+. These score ARE recognized and considered by Canadian Universities so that means that they do matter. What possible argument does anyone have against that? You have to score higher to get into the top US schools than into the top Canadian schools, you have to have better grades as well. People with Bs is the US get into our best schools, doesn't that say anything. To get into the same schools Canadians have to score a lot higher.

Every university has a quota on a number of people they can accept. If McGill imposed 1400+ acceptance rate, the classes wouldn't be full. US has a much larger population than Canada, hence even with 1400+ acceptance rates, Top US schools they are going to fill their classes to capacity.

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BTW, it is a well known fact that university of Waterloo for example is just as good as MIT at undergraduate level, but I have to agree that if you want to go to Grad school, MIT and other top US schools are better.

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Originally posted by partyprincess I would like to add that I am merely making the point that it is harder to get into Ivy league schools than into top Canadian schools. I have now clue if it is harder there. But on a personal note, I found that my peers at U of T seem to be a lot less educated than my peers at the American HS I graduated from.

Again depends which schools you are talking about. There are bad schools and there are good schools. TOP high-schools in US are probably better than TOP high-schools in Canada(for instance in US there is a school called Thomas Jefferson, which has 2-3 students every year who excel at international olympiads). But on average I'm pretty sure Canadian schools are better.

EDIT: I'm talking about high-schools here

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Originally posted by partyprincess I am considering a B to be the American standard of 80-89...where as you need above 90 from a Canadian HS to get into U of T. So only the top 10 percent of Canadians get in, and the top 20 percent of Americans. This means that the universities find that 80 percent students from America can compete with 90s from Canada. Think about that.

That might have to do with the fact that US students pay a lot more for studying at Canadian universities, than Canadian students. University will get more money from international student, than from a local one.


BTW, again you are pulling those numbers out of your ass.. Graduate of some Harlem school will probably not get into U of T even with A+.

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Originally posted by Durafei That might have to do with the fact that US students pay a lot more for studying at Canadian universities, than Canadian students. University will get more money from international student, than from a local one. BTW, again you are pulling those numbers out of your ass.. Graduate of some Harlem school will probably not get into U of T even with A+.

Why don't we just make up a sample case.

Say a student at an average suburban HS gets a 4.0 (100% average) and involves him/herself in a harder classes than most students over the course of 4 years of high school (only 2 of which would be looked at by Canadian schools). This bright young lady/gent goes ahead to score perfectly their SAT as well (1600). Now the student applies to all the top American and Candian schools. This type of background would assure him/her addmission to any Canadian school of his/her choosing. The top American schools only recieve applications from this type of student, so they will obviously have to reject even those with perfect records. American schools are more selective, that's just a fact.

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quote:

Originally posted by partyprincess I am considering a B to be the American standard of 80-89...where as you need above 90 from a Canadian HS to get into U of T. So only the top 10 percent of Canadians get in, and the top 20 percent of Americans. This means that the universities find that 80 percent students from America can compete with 90s from Canada. Think about that.

As Durafei pointed out, you're completely mixing up these numbers. I sincerely hope you're not studying stats.

80-89 is what the American high schools consider to be a B. However, American universities do not care about this. If you are from the USA, they look at your GPA (which is directly proportional to the letter grade). If you are from Canada, the numeric mark is translated into a GPA, an 80% being a 4.0. Do you understand that this is why 90% students from Canada are accepted on the same basis as "80%" students from the U.S. now? It is because an 80% and a 95% from a Canadian school are translated into the exact same GPA. Since the Ivy League cutoffs for GPA are relatively low (I think around 3.5?) then that's good enough for B students over there. For us, there is this massive 20% range near the top where all international students are treated the same.

Please, get your facts straight. Students with 80% from American high schools are most certainly not competing on an academic level with 90% students from here. The Ivy League universities simply have low international quotas, and even then Canada only gets a tiny fraction of it. You seem to be ignoring this fact over and over again - the reason Canadians and other international students need higher grades to get into American universities is because there are a lot less spots for them, and so it is a lot more competitive for us.

Edit: I really hate to bring this up, but on most of the American application forms they also have sections asking information about race, "legacy" info, etc... there is some politics involved in the selection process as well. Please don't shoot the messenger, but it's obvious that they ask those questions for a reason.

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Back to the war topic...let me just ask you guys...If the UN weapons inspectors did find WMD in Iraq, and Saddam went on to deny deny deny and accuse the US of planting them or something of the sort. Then would it be ok to go to war in order to disarm him?

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quote:

Originally posted by oceanlab Why don't we just make up a sample case. Say a student at an average suburban HS gets a 4.0 (100% average) and involves him/herself in a harder classes than most students over the course of 4 years of high school (only 2 of which would be looked at by Canadian schools). This bright young lady/gent goes ahead to score perfectly their SAT as well (1600). Now the student applies to all the top American and Candian schools. This type of background would assure him/her addmission to any Canadian school of his/her choosing. The top American schools only recieve applications from this type of student, so they will obviously have to reject even those with perfect records. American schools are more selective, that's just a fact.

American universities are definitely a lot more selective. But NOT because they are better - but because there is a lot more people applying. Obviously they can't accept everyone.

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