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McGill and IB


Chocaholic

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Hi everyone,

I was just wondering if anyone has had any experience with McGill university and IB (scholarships, acceptance, etc). I can't decide between going there or going to the states. If McGill doesn't suck I would like to go there as it will probably be much less expensive.

I don't graduate for another two years but I'm just curious.

Thanks!

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All I can say about McGill and scholarships is that you will need a score of around 40-41 to be considered for a Major Entrance Scholarship. ;) I think they tend to look at your application and your community involvement, though - the marks are all menial in comparison; a simple stepping stone, if you will.

I'm in the same rut as you, except I've only got a couple weeks left to decide. Sigh.

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  • 2 months later...

All I can say about McGill and scholarships is that you will need a score of around 40-41 to be considered for a Major Entrance Scholarship. :D I think they tend to look at your application and your community involvement, though - the marks are all menial in comparison; a simple stepping stone, if you will.

I'm in the same rut as you, except I've only got a couple weeks left to decide. Sigh.

I'm also doing some research on McGill, when you say 40-41 are you including the EE and TOK points too?

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All I can say about McGill and scholarships is that you will need a score of around 40-41 to be considered for a Major Entrance Scholarship. :D I think they tend to look at your application and your community involvement, though - the marks are all menial in comparison; a simple stepping stone, if you will.

I'm in the same rut as you, except I've only got a couple weeks left to decide. Sigh.

I'm also doing some research on McGill, when you say 40-41 are you including the EE and TOK points too?

As I recall, their website says they require "an average of 6.9 in all IB courses" to be considered for major entrance scholarships. It's very unclear what they mean there, but I took it to mean that they require a total of 41 before extra points for those particular scholarships. Seemed a bit absurd to me at the time; I may be misremembering.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Im sure that there normal offer is around 36-7 points to be competitive. also, doing IB will help with ur extra-curriculars because of CAS.

It will be very hard do get a scholarship for McGill but its cheaper than the US and genereally most ppl think its in a much better city.

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Unless you get into an Ivy, there is no point whatsoever in attending an American university over a Canadian one. In terms of prestige and reputation, UBC, McGill, and UofT will all match up to any American university ranked in the top twenty-five that is not an Ivy.

In terms of scholarships, I'd like to note that (even though I did not apply to McGill), most Canadian universities look at your provincial marks as opposed to IB marks if the provincial marks are higher (and they generally are). The university I am going to attend in September has three tiers of scholarships. If they were looking exclusively at my IB marks, I'd only get the bottom tier scholarship of one thousand dollars. However, since they look at whatever is higher, I'm getting two thousand because the Ontario system of conversion of IB marks is rather overinflated.

Also, I think you'd benefit from knowing that one of the biggest turnoffs for me when I was considering McGill as a university was the fact that McGill FORCES you to take your IB credits if your IB grades are adequate. For me, who would've applied to the science programme, I would be basically jumping into second-year organic chemistry, thermodynamics, and all these other difficult courses in my first year. You have to realize that regardless of the rigour of IB courses, it is not TOTALLY EQUIVALENT to the first-year university courses. First-year university courses are generally designed for people who have special interest in that particular field, and are hence taught at a depth that is greater than even that of IB higher level courses. You'd be MUCH better off NOT taking your IB credits and redoing the courses in university so that you can get a higher GPA.

Remember, in Canada, most undergrad degrees are useless. Grad degrees will get you a job and you need to maximize your GPA in university to get into a decent graduate programme. Don't just go to a university for the sake of bragging rights. Sometimes, you are much better off being the creme de la creme at an inferior instutition as opposed to just mediocre at a "prestigious" one.

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Unless you get into an Ivy, there is no point whatsoever in attending an American university over a Canadian one. In terms of prestige and reputation, UBC, McGill, and UofT will all match up to any American university ranked in the top twenty-five that is not an Ivy.

In terms of scholarships, I'd like to note that (even though I did not apply to McGill), most Canadian universities look at your provincial marks as opposed to IB marks if the provincial marks are higher (and they generally are). The university I am going to attend in September has three tiers of scholarships. If they were looking exclusively at my IB marks, I'd only get the bottom tier scholarship of one thousand dollars. However, since they look at whatever is higher, I'm getting two thousand because the Ontario system of conversion of IB marks is rather overinflated.

Also, I think you'd benefit from knowing that one of the biggest turnoffs for me when I was considering McGill as a university was the fact that McGill FORCES you to take your IB credits if your IB grades are adequate. For me, who would've applied to the science programme, I would be basically jumping into second-year organic chemistry, thermodynamics, and all these other difficult courses in my first year. You have to realize that regardless of the rigour of IB courses, it is not TOTALLY EQUIVALENT to the first-year university courses. First-year university courses are generally designed for people who have special interest in that particular field, and are hence taught at a depth that is greater than even that of IB higher level courses. You'd be MUCH better off NOT taking your IB credits and redoing the courses in university so that you can get a higher GPA.

Remember, in Canada, most undergrad degrees are useless. Grad degrees will get you a job and you need to maximize your GPA in university to get into a decent graduate programme. Don't just go to a university for the sake of bragging rights. Sometimes, you are much better off being the creme de la creme at an inferior instutition as opposed to just mediocre at a "prestigious" one.

Sorry if I go a bit off topic, but do the IB credits cover most of the first-year course material or not much of it?

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  • 3 weeks later...

Unless you get into an Ivy, there is no point whatsoever in attending an American university over a Canadian one. In terms of prestige and reputation, UBC, McGill, and UofT will all match up to any American university ranked in the top twenty-five that is not an Ivy.

In terms of scholarships, I'd like to note that (even though I did not apply to McGill), most Canadian universities look at your provincial marks as opposed to IB marks if the provincial marks are higher (and they generally are). The university I am going to attend in September has three tiers of scholarships. If they were looking exclusively at my IB marks, I'd only get the bottom tier scholarship of one thousand dollars. However, since they look at whatever is higher, I'm getting two thousand because the Ontario system of conversion of IB marks is rather overinflated.

Also, I think you'd benefit from knowing that one of the biggest turnoffs for me when I was considering McGill as a university was the fact that McGill FORCES you to take your IB credits if your IB grades are adequate. For me, who would've applied to the science programme, I would be basically jumping into second-year organic chemistry, thermodynamics, and all these other difficult courses in my first year. You have to realize that regardless of the rigour of IB courses, it is not TOTALLY EQUIVALENT to the first-year university courses. First-year university courses are generally designed for people who have special interest in that particular field, and are hence taught at a depth that is greater than even that of IB higher level courses. You'd be MUCH better off NOT taking your IB credits and redoing the courses in university so that you can get a higher GPA.

Remember, in Canada, most undergrad degrees are useless. Grad degrees will get you a job and you need to maximize your GPA in university to get into a decent graduate programme. Don't just go to a university for the sake of bragging rights. Sometimes, you are much better off being the creme de la creme at an inferior instutition as opposed to just mediocre at a "prestigious" one.

Sorry if I go a bit off topic, but do the IB credits cover most of the first-year course material or not much of it?

i heard of ppl doing IB that go directly into the second year, but im pretty sure IB content does not cover all of the first year material.

so its probly harder to get a good GPA.

Also, i checked with my Uni counselor guy at school and he said around 39 points would get the smalest available scholarship of $3000 and they also consider EC's as well

but, im not sure if its predictred or final

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