Magazines

Maclean's November 19, '01

Choosing the Right University an Insider's Guide

By Ann Dowsett Johnston (excerpted)

Choosing the Right University an Insider's Guide By Ann Dowsett Johnston (excerpted) What really tells the tale is the surge in applications. Faced with a more competitive landscape, many students are hedging their bets. Let's look at McGill. Of the 15,700 applications received for 4,000 first-year places, there was a growth of 29 percent from Ontario high-school students, 24 percent from Americans, 16 percent from the rest of Canada and 13 percent from overseas. But McGill's intake in all undergraduate faculties rose less than two percent. Fewer than one in five applicants to their computer engineering program received an offer. And according to registrant Rogin Geller, McGill has no plans to significantly increase the undergraduate class. "No doubt," she says, "getting in is only going to get tougher."

Actually, many Canadians - students and parents - are playing catch-up with that mother from Connecticut. Coming as she does from a culture that has made a tradition of the college visit, she is well schooled in doing her homework. To be fair, her homework was assigned years ago. After all, hers is the land of the SAT, where students will still and re-sit standardized tests until they get them right, or closer to right. A land where New York City's Katherine Cohen, an independent college counselor and founder of IvyWise, is currently charging $43,493 for her "platinum package," helping high-school students get into their university of choice. This year, Cohen signed on her youngest client ever, a seventh grader.