Seeking Ivy Amid the Maple

As Oliver Monday prepared to graduate from high school in Berkeley with a 3.5 grade point average and 1400 SAT score, he hoped to be admitted to either UCLA or UC Santa Barbara.

When both schools rejected him, he knew just where to look for a fine public university experience: Canada.

Monday ended up a freshman here at 174-year-old McGill University, known to some as “the Harvard of Canada.”

He has no regrets.

“I’m definitely getting what I worked for ... a cheap, good education,” he said, noting that he is paying only slightly more than he would have at a UC campus.

With more than 2,300 colleges and universities, the U.S. remains the destination of choice for students from around the world, including many who are shut out of elite schools in their home countries.

But in recent years, as competition has grown for slots at the most selective U.S. schools, American students such as Monday increasingly have gone against the current, deciding that Canada is now the land of opportunity.

The number of American university students in Canada has nearly doubled in the last five years, to more than 4,200 this year, according to the Canadian Embassy.

The Canadian colleges, which originally drew most of their American students from the Northeastern states, increasingly are attracting applicants from California, Texas and Florida. San Francisco and Los Angeles high schools now are regular stops on recruiters’ routes.

The schools are taking some students that the most competitive UC campuses don’t. UC Berkeley and UCLA reject a majority of applicants with grade averages of 4.0 or higher, and, as a recent report by UC Board of Regents Chairman John J. Moores suggests, extremely high SATs are no guarantee of admission either.

Because of the country’s relatively small population -- 31 million -- Canada’s top schools have not had the same rush for spaces.

“The system’s that much more tame because it’s that much smaller,” said Paul Beel, who directs McGill’s international recruiting.

In addition, even the most prestigious Canadian universities have resisted the steep tuition hikes characteristic of the top U.S. colleges.

Canadian universities are heavily subsidized. Tuition at McGill for foreign students is roughly $8,000 per year. Although that is much more than Canadians pay, it is less than one-third of what some private U.S. colleges charge, and also lower than in-state tuition at many public universities.

Jonathan Meyer, a McGill freshman from San Rafael, Calif., said he was accepted at the University of Chicago but was reluctant to go there because “I didn’t want to make my parents poor” by saddling them with the $28,689 annual tuition there.

Sylvain-Jacques Desjardin, a McGill spokesman, explains the school’s appeal to Americans as “Ivy League at a steal.”

Although Canadian universities do not provide need-based financial aid for U.S. students, Americans can get scholarships based on merit. In addition, they can obtain U.S.-guaranteed loans and are allowed to work part-time jobs on campus.

For Americans, undergraduate admission at even the most selective Canadian schools is refreshingly simple, based mainly on whether high school grades and test scores meet that year’s numerical standards. Canadian students are evaluated on grades alone.

Essays, recommendations and interviews are seldom required. There are no early decision, alumni preference or affirmative action programs to complicate the process.

Of the Canadian universities, McGill draws the most Americans -- about 500 per year or 2,000 total, Beel said. Americans make up 11% of full-time McGill undergraduates.

Three other leading Canadian schools -- the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, the University of Toronto and Queens University in Kingston, Ontario -- have drawn more Americans by recruiting jointly in the United States, calling their group “Canadian Ivy.”

Donald Wehrung, a University of British Columbia professor who directs international recruiting for the school, said the number of U.S. undergraduates has more than tripled in five years, to 241 students in the last school year.

Wehrung said rising UC standards have helped boost U.S. applications to his school, not only from Californians, but also from students in such states as Washington, Alaska and Oregon who want to study out of state but find that UC schools are out of reach.

Their more relaxed approach to admissions reflects a different view of what defines educational quality, McGill officials say.

“We are a competitive university. Some of our students have turned down really good schools,” Beel said. But he added that admissions are “based very much on the fact that we are publicly funded. We believe everyone should have access if they make the grade.”

Selectivity is “absolutely” related to quality -- but only to a point, said Heather Munroe-Blum, who is McGill’s principal, the Canadian equivalent of the university president. “Do I feel we have to keep pressing it? No.”

McGill accepted 43% of undergraduate applicants for the current freshman class. U.S. students with a B-plus grade average and an SAT score in the 1200s (out of a possible 1600) generally will be admitted, the university’s admissions office said. The system resembles the relatively simple process used by the UC system years ago.

By contrast, Stanford and Harvard typically admit fewer than 15% of applicants, and UC Berkeley and UCLA fewer than 25%. The low acceptance rate helps American colleges rise In influential rankings such as those published annually by U.S. News and World Report magazine, but “in Canada, a high refusal rate is not a source of pride,” Munroe-Blum said.

That approach makes Canada a perfect refuge for Americans wary of today’s often-frenzied admissions race.

Dan Seeman, a McGill freshman and high school classmate of Oliver Monday, recalls feeling “pretty disillusioned about the whole college application process.”

Seeman finished high school with a 3.7 grade point average and an SAT score in the 1200s. He was admitted to three UC campuses and the universities of Iowa, Oregon and Colorado, but not his first choice, UCLA.

Rather than obsess over college admissions while in high school, Seeman said, he preferred to spend his time writing for the school newspaper, reading or listening to music. He watched others hire private admissions consultants or join clubs they weren’t interested in, simply to add to their resumes. He considered the admissions process a game.

Seeman began to research Canadian schools after a University of British Columbia recruiter visited his high school, and was drawn to McGill partly because it was in a French-speaking province. He had attended a French-language private elementary school in Berkeley.

For Americans, Canada combines the allure of a foreign land with the familiarity and proximity of a North American neighbor. Although French is the dominant language in Montreal, English is widely spoken and locals are tolerant of monolingual Americans.

McGill classes are taught in English and the undergraduate curriculum is compatible with that of U.S. colleges, making it easier for those who wish to return to the United States for graduate school.

The Canadian school has had ties to the U.S. since its earliest years, when its athletic and academic competitors were schools in the Northeastern United States. Like Harvard in the U.S., the university predates the country. Canada did not become a nation until 1867, 38 years after classes began at McGill.

Although it is not included in U.S. college rankings, McGill, by at least one important measure, is considered a top-tier North American school. It and the University of Toronto are the only non-U.S. members of the Assn. of American Universities, an elite group founded in 1900 and made up of 62 research universities.

Alumni say their diplomas are respected when they return home. Aline Normoyle, a 1995 McGill graduate, found a job as a software engineer in Cambridge, Mass. She said her classmates were admitted to top U.S. graduate schools, including Stanford and Harvard.

On campus, one might momentarily forget being abroad as students stroll by in “Cal” or “USC” sweatshirts. But look closely, and some differences emerge.

McGill, for instance, attracts students not just from over the border but from all over the world -- far more than most U.S. schools. Nearly 20% of students are from outside Canada, and many Canadian students are immigrants themselves. Also, a fifth of McGill students are native French speakers, and a quarter speak a first language other than English or French.

Canadians say American students add another flavor to the mix.

“Campuses thrive on diversity, so students from Angola, Thailand or the U.S. are all beneficial to the learning environment,” said Ian Boyko, a University of Windsor student who heads the Canadian Federation of Students, a national student group.

The diversity is the natural result of a relatively open admissions process, rather than an elaborate attempt to enroll students of varied backgrounds. And it gives the campus a cosmopolitan flavor.

Johnson recalls debating Mideast politics in his dorm hallway with students from Lebanon and Israel, and working on the school newspaper staff with colleagues from Hong Kong, India and Pakistan.

“I was a classics major, and there were Greek-speaking students in a number of my classes who could speak with authority about these regions in modern times,” he said.

Though there is no club for American students, they manage to find one another -- especially at times like Canadian Thanksgiving. The celebration is much like its American counterpart, but occurs in October, leaving Americans and other foreigners alone on campus.

The Americans say they can easily identify countrymen by the way they talk. “If somebody says ‘out’ you’ll know,” said Lesley Wake, a McGill freshman from Monrovia, referring to the cross-border differences in pronunciation of some vowels.

Students from the U.S. say they appreciate the atmosphere, on campus and off. At the base of a mountain, McGill is full of ivy-covered 19th century stone Beaux-Arts buildings that were once the mansions of the city’s wealthiest families. The school’s main entrance fronts downtown Montreal’s luxury hotels and office towers.

Just east of the campus is one of the city’s nightclub zones, which students roam freely in a country whose drinking age is 18. Dan Seeman’s mother, Kris, recalled that her son and Monday made up their minds during a visit last year after seeing what McGill -- and Montreal -- had to offer.

“The clincher was what a nice place it is,” Kris Seeman said. “After we had been to two or three unbelievably good restaurants, Dan and Oliver said, ‘We think we’ll go here. There’s no downside.’ ”

Now that so many Americans have warmed to McGill, however, Munroe-Blum does not see the university enrolling U.S. students much beyond current levels, even if it makes admission tougher for Americans. “We’re not going to become an American university. That’s not the goal,” she said.

For some Americans, at least, that is precisely Canada’s appeal.