debunking a myth...

[Guest UWOMED2005]

Thought I'd throw a bit of irony in here. . .

 

My Dad was one of the original Guelph graduates back in the 1960s (can't remember the exact year.) The irony is that when he enrolled at the University of Guelph he enrolled as a student of U of T - at that time, The University of Guelph was a campus of the University of Toronto!!

 

And yes, my Dad was disappointed when I didn't pick Guelph myself for undergrad. . .

[Guest Jennifer Y]

MYING:

Do I understand you correctly that you meant had you known the info re clerkship at Western, you would have chosen UWO over Queen's? or have I got it the other way around?

Thanks for the info.

[Guest mying]

Well, basically yes. I think UWO's clerkship timing will work out well for me. But honestly, I would have gone anywhere and the biggest deciding factor was still just location. (ie, had the UWO system of clerkship been at Queen's instead, I would still have gone to UWO.) Med school is med school, all the Ontario schools kick ass so I don't think any one school is any better than the other. It's all just what you make of it.

 

Or maybe I'm just far too laid back and I'll regret it all later. Whatever. (Sorry, I know this doesn't help y'all much.)

[Guest Liana]

To "uneasy schooling":

 

Maclean's grouping of their schools is a bit misleading. While most schools may follow this trend, it is not necessarily true that the schools in the Medical/Doctoral have the highest entering averages. The grouping simply reflects the focus of the school. Almost all of the Med/Doctoral schools have a medical degree program and similarly boast extensive doctoral programs. Especially in Ontario, most of these universities are some of the oldest universities, and therefore the most well rooted in the educational system. The Comprehensive category simply means that the institution does not have a Medical School, but does have several professional schools and a reasonable number of graduate programs. The Undergraduate category means that a school has few grad programs and tends to consider itself focused on undergrad education.

 

It's true that the schools with graduate programs tend to attract the largest numbers of highly qualified students, but this does not necessarily mean that their averages are the highest. For instance, Waterloo is a Comprehensive university, but its Computer Engineering program has potentially the highest entering average for an undergrad program (~94% OAC average or so). Guelph does have one of the highest entering averages. The cutoff for admission to science programs is an 80% high school OAC average (which must be composed of your English mark + the marks of 3 science or math courses). The last I looked, U of T has about a 75% or so cutoff. Not that the 5% makes a huge difference, but it would be incorrect to say that science students at Guelph are less intellectually capable, by any means. It is true that U of T challenges you more, in an academic sense of the word, and many people can't keep up with the pace. However, Guelph challenges you more in the non-traditional text-book forms of education. From what I understand, Guelph has much more emphasis on labwork, group projects, presentations, teacher interactions, and on other experiential learning techniques like co-op (which U of T does have, but it's a less prominent program), so you're not just learning the facts, you're learning how to use them.

 

Ultimately, you'll learn some things at any school you go to. You'll learn social and life skills, academic knowledge, and whatever else you open yourself to. Some of these things you will forget after you graduate; others will stay with you for most of your life. For that reason, it's totally a personal choice, and no school is right or wrong for every student in general.

[Guest UWOMED2005]

Uhh. . . this is completely off topic, but the OLDEST universities in Canada are NOT in Ontario. . . they're in Quebec and the Maritimes! The oldest university is Laval in Quebec City (1660s, I believe), and the oldest English-speaking schools are all in the maritimes - King's College (1789), Dalhousie (1818 ) , and UNB (not sure, but I've heard it was founded in 1786.) I don't know the dates for the other schools, but I'm pretty sure SMU, Acadia, St. FX and Mt. A date back to the early 1800s. . . many of these schools are older than U of T or McGill (most Ontario Universities weren't founded until the late 1800s or even 1900s. . . in fact, Ontario was pretty much a "backwater" colony until the mid to late 1800s. . .) So Ontario's education system is NOT "the most well rooted."

 

Freaking Upper Canadian Arrogance! Oh wait, I am from Ontario. . .

 

BTW - the rest of your points are excellent.

[Guest Tal]

What a historic city, you should all go visit! That's all I wanted to say Having said that, at the moment I'm pretty glad I'm not going to Dal. Thankfully they're back in class now but ... (well that's another discussion)!

[Guest Liana]

Sorry, that was an unqualified remark.

 

What I meant was, the oldest universities in Canada are usually the ones with the medical schools. Outside of Ontario, there are provinces with newer universities that have medical schools, but in Ontario, you're basically looking at schools that were founded before 1900.

 

The newest schools (in Ontario anyway; this doesn't necessarily hold as true outside of the province) generally have to struggle much harder to get a good reputation. Any school that gained university status in the 1960s or beyond still has a stigma attached to it, and only the most innovative in offering unique programs can move beyond this. Guelph and Waterloo are some of the most reputable in this bunch (deservedly or not, you can be the judge) but, as you can see from comments on this board, are still fighting to overcome the bias that a quality education can only be obtained from a more firmly rooted institution.

 

I do realize that there are many older institutions east of Ontario (I was *almost* a Dal student myself, and have done a lot of touring of the university areas in Quebec and NB). However, historically, U of T and McGill have been regarded as the most reputable Canadian universities due to the errant notion that Toronto and Montreal are somehow the "best" Canadian cities and that any other institution is only in place to service individuals from "less fortunate areas". This certainly isn't true at all, especially in current times (since the 1960s or so), but some people retain that notion, and it is a fundamental deciding factor in determining which schools have the best "reputations".

 

Ultimately, reputation counts for little, but it does play a role in how an institution is funded. The problem, however, is that in order to get a good reputation, a school show innovative, through attracting creative minds who can develop new theories. Money is a factor in this, so you end up with a circular dilemma where only the schools with money can afford to attract the best researchers; but only the best researchers can produce the results to get more funding. That's what I mean about being firmly rooted. A school with a century-old reputation can attract benefactors with little effort, while a newer school needs to struggle just to see a bit of funding. Whether or not the institutions are investing the same effort to grow does not matter; what matters is how deep the roots grow.

[Guest UWOMED2005]

True. I agree wholeheartedly with your all your points. . . I was just nitpicking about the oldest Universities (BTW. . . neither of the oldest two English speaking schools, UNB or King's, have a medical school. . . sorry, more nitpicking.)

 

I think you're bang-on with U of T and McGill's reputations being a large part attached to the cities there in. . . Montreal and Toronto ARE the two largest cities in Canada and those are the dominant schools of those cities (no slight towards Concordia, York, Ryerson, or the Montreal french language schools intended!) In fact, if you take a historical perspective, when Montreal was the "dominant city" in Canada (ie when Montreal was the largest city in Canada, most of the bank and corporate HQs were in Montreal, Montreal was producing many of the PMs - St. Laurent, Trudeau, Mulroney, and the Habs won every Stanley Cup ) McGill had a better reputation than U of T (at least that was the case when my parents were attending University). Since Toronto has exploded over Montreal (many of the Banks and corporations moved their HQs out of Montreal with the rise of Quebec Separatism) U of T has been rising in reputation over McGill.

 

The "U of T is the be all and end-all of University Education" attitude reminds me of a guy I met in first year of UG from Toronto. He lorded the fact he was from Toronto over those who weren't from T.O, looking down on me as I'm from Ottawa. Funny thing is, he honestly thought Ottawa was a backwater town with a population of 10,000 (actual pop is about a million) just demonstrating his ignorance! (Who should be looking down on who?)

 

One last note. . . much of the top research in the country DOES get done at the big schools like U of T, McGill and UBC. There is also world class research done at all of the other schools, but these schools do have the most Nobel Laureates and the most facilities/funds/resources devoted to research. Thing is, as an undergrad, there's no real advantage to going to a school with that research. Let's be honest, as an UG you're just trying to learn the basics! Sure, having worked in Polyani, Tak Mak or Penninger's lab during the summer (if you can somehow manage to get hired to work there) looks great on the resume but the fact is you're at such an early stage in your training that working in any advanced laboratory will allow you to pick up what you need to know. And any research looks good on a med school admissions resume, it doesn't necessarily have to have been with a Nobel Laureate. And I've never found a correlation with research prowess and TEACHING ABILITY - which is what you really need as an UG (actually, the same pretty goes for medicine. . . you're just learning the basics in med school!). In fact, I've almost found a negative correlation - I took a number of classes at Dal with researchers supposedly to be the "world expert" in their field and while there were a few good teachers among them, many of them tended to be so focussed on the research that their teaching suffered as a result! Of course, that can be overgeneralized - I'm sure there's excellent TEACHERS at UBC, U of T and McGill.

 

Bottom line - for UG (both Bachelors and MD) where you go to school (in Canada!) doesn't really matter.

[Guest Hmm]

I totally agree with UWOMED2005...

 

It really doesn't matter where you get your degree in Canada, it's really all for show. In fact,

no school in Canada has anything similar to an IVY LEAGUE reputation because the entrance averages are REALLY LOW(for most science and arts programs) and the universities are underfunded by the provincial governments.

 

Also, reading through the posts, I never realized how old\young some of our universities really are. Like UBC was founded in like the 1920's, and is now one of the best universities in Canada.

Strange.

[Guest Liana]

UWO2005 is right on the money. I want to add to the comments about research experience. I'm a student at Guelph, which, if you believe some of the comments made by U of T students, is supposedly an unrespectable grade-inflating school where half-rate students attend if they couldn't make it into U of T; I have held summer research positions at U of T and McGill, so I can pretty much tell you that your undergrad school will play little role in your ability to secure research positions. The only advantage you might have to attending school where you want to do research is that you may be able to get to know those researchers with whom you wish to work, before trying to apply for a job. However, especially as is the case with U of T, before 3rd or 4th year, your classes are so large that you probably won't even get to know your profs on a first name basis anyway.

 

Ultimately, in securing research positions, whether as summer jobs, or for graduate programs, researchers rarely care about the school you attend; those who actually do put weight on your academic institution (especially a U of t researcher who will only consider a student from U of T or McGill) probably have the personalities to match this trait, and will likely make lousy supervisors. Sure, the research might be groundbreaking, and the researcher might be an expert in the field, but ultimately what you should be getting out of a research experience (especially your first) is not your name on some swanky article, but the valuable laboratory skills that will serve you in the future - namely, communication of scientific information, patience, organization, and perseverence. If you look at the researcher as a mentor, you can begin to appreciate the opportunity to learn more than just scientific information from a position like this, and realize that there are great profs at every school. There is great research at every school, too, although you will find the labs with the most money most commonly at the larger schools.

[Guest me]

(this probably isn't very relevant cause I didn't read the whole thread.. but... it's fun anyways, I think :-) )

 

I think it's really interesting that McGill has (by FAR) the best reputation of Canadian schools in the US. (not wrt medicine, just as a school in general -- Americans will say things like, "McGill, that's the Harvard of Canada, right?" Honest! I've heard people say that!)

 

It has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of education, to be sure.. While McGill is certainly a good school, I don't think anybody would claim that it's head and shoulders above anywhere else in Canada. We are lucky to live in a country with a pretty much uniform quality of education at our universities.

 

So why is McGill considered so highly? Canadians who have lived in the US for a number of years all give me the same reason - the name sounds like a private school! Americans choose to go to McGill if they come to Canada because it's name sounds like a private school!

 

LOL! Anyways, *I* think it's funny :-)

 

I guess, to be fair to Americans, is IS true that quality varies greatly in the US and what school you go to can make a big difference later in life, and they're so mired in that system that one can't really expect them to pull themselves out of it when considering Canadian scools, but still.

[Guest bad hombre]

I attended an american highschool (overseas), so I can attest to McGill's reputation in the US. For many people, it's the only University they know. Actually, my profs and counsellors were trying to convince me to attend McGill instead of my current undergrad institution because they said the reputation would open doors for me in the US. Well, it would have made things a lot easier to be considered an in-province applicant there. But I don't regret baing where I am right now.

[Guest Liana]

Yeah, I've heard the same comments about McGill from Europeans. A lot of Europeans have never even heard of U of T (and it definitely sounds like the equivalent to an American state college), but McGill is an internationally recognized name.

 

You'd be surprised at the stats, though, McGill has a huge percentage of their student population composed of international students (something like 10%) whereas U of T's is quite small (~4% or so, which is lower than a lot of supposedly less reputable schools).

 

Reputation doesn't mean a lot, but it is true that if you're intending to find work outside of Canada in fields that place emphasis on status (especially if you want to get higher degrees) - especially in the States - then the name of your school can play an impact. However, the schools that Canadians regard as the most reputable and the schools viewed in such a way by other countries may not be the same.

[Guest hmm]

I think McGill's reputation has to do with Gourman's Rankings.

They always rank 1st in Canada followed by UT and UBC.

[Guest UWOMED2005]

You're right - McGill does rank #1 in Canada according to Gourman - 4.91/5. U of T gets a 4.90/5 and UBC comes close behind with a 4.85/5 (Last I checked. . .) In fact, ALL Canadian med schools do fairly well on the Gourman (no school scores below 4.1/5)

 

But how reliable is the Gourman report? This subject came up in a different forum, but does anyone have any clue how the Gourman report comes up with their rankings? I've never seen any criteria published anywhere, nor have I ever seen anyone associated with Gourman checking out our medical school. More critically, I find it curious the gourman scores for any Canadian schools haven't changed by more than 0.05 over the last 15 years - despite massive curriculum changes at many of the schools, construction of facilities, changeover in faculty, differential funding cuts to the medical schools, and changes in Class size. These factors all affect the quality of medical education significantly and yet aren't factored into the Gourman ranking!

 

My impression is that the Gourman report rankings are based primarily on long-term reputation (not quality of education) and many of the factors discussed above.

[Guest space ace]

The report is pretty comprehensive I saw the the criteria list a while back. It looks at facility, faculty accomplishment, research quality, graduate achievements, cirriculum, entering class average, and on and on. Canadian schools you have have to remember are very small compared to any of the schools in the US and Europe both in terms of physical size but also in terms of research breakthroughs and outstanding facutly (again both correlated to funding of which many canadian schools receive very little of) I read somewhere that the University of Texas medical school / research receives funding that is equal to all the funding in total received by all of the med schools in Canada! So as you see how can we compete or provide equal opportunities that med students in the US get. I know people will come charging back about the greatness of schools here but if you experience the excellence in the US in terms of faculty, opportunity, research, technology you will see a HUGE difference. Of course it's all about money after all a Rolls Royce feels alot better than a tercel even though they both get you to the same destination

[Guest Ian Wong]

I personally think the Gourman Reports are dubious at best. The major problem is that you really need to evaluate each aspect of a medical school in order to achieve a ranking, and trying to compare between schools is so incredibly difficult. Rather, I think one should rely on other factors, perhaps that are more quantifiable, and relevant to your career. ie: tuition, city, job opportunities in that area, residencies, ability of current graduates to match into residencies, PBL vs didactic vs hybrid curriculums, Pass/Fail vs Honours/Pass/Fail grading, amount of clerkship rotation time, amount of elective time, scholarships and bursary availablity, cost of living, etc, etc, etc.

 

Just on a quick search of Google for the Gourman Report, I ran across these two articles, which criticize it heavily:

 

www.siop.org/tip/backissues/TIPJan02/07bedeian.htm

chronicle.com/free/v44/i11/11a00101.htm

 

Ian

UBC, Med 3

[Guest ion]

why canada doesn't want to use SAT and MCAT type standardized tests to decide the admission? i hope everybody accepts that grades in any schools are very subjective. but standardized tests are the same for everybody, do not depend on schools policy or on profs emotional status that day. now be honest: i get a 4.0 at a college in a very small and remote undergrad school and you get a 3.5 at UofT. can you compare them. so we must have unique standardized tests SAT/MCAT style.

[Guest Champ]

Certain sections tend to be culturally biased.

 

Champ

[Guest UWOMED2005]

Excellent point. . . particularly the verbal section, I find myself answering questions in a way that I didn't think was right, but the average American trained in the American High School/University system would think was right. Ugh.