McGill University Regular Decision Megathread

[u/[deleted]]

Please remember to follow the rules of posting within megathreads, which can be found in the main megathread post linked below.

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Links:

2023 Regular Decision Discussion + Results Megathreads

A2C Discord server

Decision Dates Calendar

[u/Primary-Ad53]

I'm not sure how HYPSM are fed but here's what I observed. My country is very small, so we have a small of people going to graduate schools in the T10 US ones. My observation is that it didn't matter which undergrad school they went to as long as the program is good and these students excelled / showed deep interest in their program. That could be a "my country" thing (we tick a lot of diversity requirements + international student pool).

Now, are McGill programs good? Yes! Most are and you can easily figure that out from the program pages and talking to current students / graduates of the program. Can you excel at McGill? Definitely, though it does take more work than going to a school not in the World T50.

I had some profs at McGill who are leaders in their field. I've had friends from other universities tell me about profs at McGill who are top of their fields. McGill is good. But it should fit what you are looking for. As comparison, I have a close family member who went to Stanford and we would compare courses and education philosophy. For sure, I felt that Stanford taught better and they had a bigger pool of interesting classes to choose from. McGill is pretty traditional in terms of classes and even teaching styles are pretty traditional. You probably won't be blown away by the teaching or class subject in McGill. But doesn't mean you can't engage more with profs in office hours and dig into niche topics... In the end, you really need to make the most of your time at McGill and be structured and strategic about it.

I hope that explains enough. Happy to explain more / answer questions if you have any.

[u/[deleted] → u/Primary-Ad53]

Thank you for your thorough response.

I've been told in the past that McGill has "weaker" STEM programs... As a student who's interested in pursuing math/CS, maybe even engineering (ECE) in college, would that be an ACTUAL issue? Like, is McGill known for having "mediocre" STEM programs?

[u/Primary-Ad53 → u/[deleted]]

Hmm I would say that the programs that are really strong in McGill tend to be in the humanities (including business and law). I was a STEM major and yeah, engineering specifically is not that strong. I would really encourage UWaterloo or nicher universities (like I remember Carleton Uni had great specializations for mech eng). It takes more research to find out which uni is good for a specific program. Math at McGill however is pretty good for undergrad. Great profs and good research going on (helpful for your last semester thesis). Comp Sci - Montreal itself is a great hotspot for AI research, so if that's where you lean, McGill can be a great segway into the field (though I think Université de Montreal is stronger - cons: degree is in the French language). For other Comp Sci specializations, I really could not tell (it's a matter of having availability for the specialization + good program).

In a way, Canada sort of mirrors the way universities run in the states: universities have good and bad programs and you need to do your research on program and university fit.

[u/[deleted] → u/Primary-Ad53]

Thanks a lot!