Canadian vs. American Universities

My students and their parents often ask me if it is better to go to university in Canada, or in the United States.

I should tell you that I am biased! I am Canadian and I went to McGill for undergrad, before heading to Berkeley for graduate school.

The first thing you have to identify is what is important to you:

- is it the specific subject and specialization that your son or daughter will study?

- or is it the name of the university that your son or daughter will attend?

If your child is particularly enamored with a certain subject, then the absolute best university for them is the one which offers the best possible program in that subject area, irrespective of which country the university is located in. So for example, if your teenager would like to study with the best engineers in North America, I would argue that he or she should apply to Caltech, or the University of Michigan, or MIT. This, of course, assumes that your son or daughter is highly motivated and (all other things being equal), he or she is already a top student.

If a teenager does not know what they would like to study, I usually ask them in which country they would like to work after graduation and whether they would like to go to graduate school, law school, business school or professional school after their undergraduate degree. By and large, I find that the general quality of undergraduate education — especially during the first two years of undergraduate work, and especially in large lecture courses — is generally the same across most large Canadian an American universities.

For example, the undergraduate history courses that I was a Teaching Assistant for at Berkeley were largely similar to the undergraduate history courses I took at McGill a few years beforehand. So if your son or daughter is planning to do a professional or graduate degree after their undergraduate studies, I usually recommend that they attend a Canadian university for their undergraduate work, and then apply to an American university for the second part of their education. This is the path I chose: I chose this because Canadian universities are just as good in terms of general undergraduate education, they are much cheaper than their American counterparts, and their prestige (at least at the top of the list) is equivalent.

However there remains the question of the prestige of the university. On a grand scale, American universities are more prestigious than Canadian ones and, if money (and your student’s grades) permit it, I certainly think that an American education carries more prestige and weight.

Good luck on your academic journey!