I don’t understand why top Canadian universities have such high acceptance rates compared to the U.S.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think Canadian schools tend to have higher acceptance rates, but lower 4-year graduation rates than US schools. There’s less advising and support generally. Please check me on this.

Correct. Canadian school grad here. They failed easily 1/3 of their engineering students out the first year.

+1 my friend's son goes to the University of British Columbia and was told at the start of first year that they would fail 30% of the class. And he's not an engineering major. Fortunately, he survived the year but it was hard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Canadian colleges don’t look at low acceptance rates as a good thing. Once it gets close to a certain threshold, they increase the seats.

Why is that not the same in the USA? Is there a governing body that requires that? Or is it just cultural

Yes, there's an entire governing body that decided this behind the curtains. But it's corrupt like the governing bodies of India and US (soon) so there you go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because not everyone can apply. They have a GPA cut off just to get your application read. McGill's cut-off is A- so it eliminates all the B students and below applying. Essentially, you start with a much smaller and pre-vetted denominator.

This is the only answer you need. The other things mentioned here may factor into the process for potential US applicants, but the main difference is that there’s far more transparency in the application process, which allows students to not waste their time if they aren’t qualified to make it past the first round. Many super smart kids from our high school use Toronto and McGill in particular as matches because both have the academic stature to qualify as “reaches” but they function more as “matches” thanks to fairly clear criteria for admission to your major of interest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think Canadian schools tend to have higher acceptance rates, but lower 4-year graduation rates than US schools. There’s less advising and support generally. Please check me on this.

The way it should be! University of Rome, the same. Look, we are learning the brain doesn’t fully develop til 26! Judging the brain at 18 leaves a lot of smarties (late bloomers) out of the mix in US. Good on them

?? I think you have this backward.

[Anonymous]

Canadian schools have app requirements so you don’t apply without meeting them. That weeds out many students who would apply in a US model of trying for ‘reach’ schools.

Also once you’re there, these schools are challenging. Anecdotally, I think more challenging than their American equivalents, so a degree from there has value

[Anonymous]

The other big difference is that Canadian colleges don’t believe it is a main responsibility to house or feed students.

They do provide options for both, but for hosing nothing that comes close to housing even a fairly small percentage of students.

I gather it would be far easier for US schools to expand if it was made abundantly clear that student housing just isn’t their problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The other big difference is that Canadian colleges don’t believe it is a main responsibility to house or feed students.

They do provide options for both, but for hosing nothing that comes close to housing even a fairly small percentage of students.

I gather it would be far easier for US schools to expand if it was made abundantly clear that student housing just isn’t their problem.

It's not even just housing--US universities are like their own towns with medical care, psychological care, activities, police, convenience stores, multiple food outlets in addition to dining halls, major sports teams , multiple concert halls, research facilities, business incubators etc. It's a big part of the US higher education experience, why it costs so much, and why it's been attractive internationally. For better and for worse, in many ways it's an entirely different enterprise than many international colleges and universities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think Canadian schools tend to have higher acceptance rates, but lower 4-year graduation rates than US schools. There’s less advising and support generally. Please check me on this.

Correct. Canadian school grad here. They failed easily 1/3 of their engineering students out the first year.

+1 my friend's son goes to the University of British Columbia and was told at the start of first year that they would fail 30% of the class. And he's not an engineering major. Fortunately, he survived the year but it was hard.

This sounds brutal, but I see some advantages to this way of doing things. Give students a chance to try and see if they can handle the rigor, but at the same time, don't lower standards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The other big difference is that Canadian colleges don’t believe it is a main responsibility to house or feed students.

They do provide options for both, but for hosing nothing that comes close to housing even a fairly small percentage of students.

I gather it would be far easier for US schools to expand if it was made abundantly clear that student housing just isn’t their problem.

It's not even just housing--US universities are like their own towns with medical care, psychological care, activities, police, convenience stores, multiple food outlets in addition to dining halls, major sports teams , multiple concert halls, research facilities, business incubators etc. It's a big part of the US higher education experience, why it costs so much, and why it's been attractive internationally. For better and for worse, in many ways it's an entirely different enterprise than many international colleges and universities.

It coddles budding adults, keeping them as stifled children and isolated from the larger community, before dumping them out, desperate and alone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think Canadian schools tend to have higher acceptance rates, but lower 4-year graduation rates than US schools. There’s less advising and support generally. Please check me on this.

Correct. Canadian school grad here. They failed easily 1/3 of their engineering students out the first year.

+1 my friend's son goes to the University of British Columbia and was told at the start of first year that they would fail 30% of the class. And he's not an engineering major. Fortunately, he survived the year but it was hard.

Shows how terrible the Canadian high school education and college admissions system is.

[Anonymous]

This again PP?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have the common app, and it is easy to apply to 20+ schools. Students apply to schools whether they have the stats or not. U Chicago encourages apps from
unqualified students because numerous Americans think a low acceptance rate means a school is good.

Innumerate Americans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been comparing the admissions statistics of top Canadian universities with those of similarly prestigious U.S. public institutions, and the differences are striking. When we look at applicant volume, acceptance rates, admitted numbers, first-year enrollments, and total student populations, it becomes even more apparent.

Top Canadian Universities

University of Toronto (U of T)
Applicants: ~60,000–70,000+
Acceptance Rate: ~40–43%
Admitted: ~25,000–30,000
Enrolled Freshmen: ~14,000
Total Student Population: ~90,000+ (across all campuses)

University of British Columbia (UBC)
Applicants: ~40,000–45,000+
Acceptance Rate: ~50%
Admitted: ~20,000–22,000
Enrolled Freshmen: ~8,000–9,000
Total Student Population: ~65,000+

McGill University
Applicants: ~35,000–40,000
Acceptance Rate: ~40–46%
Admitted: ~14,000–18,000
Enrolled Freshmen: ~6,000
Total Student Population: ~40,000

Top U.S. Public Universities

UCLA
Applicants: ~149,700
Acceptance Rate: ~9–10%
Admitted: ~10,000
Enrolled Freshmen: ~6,400
Total Student Population: ~46,000 (undergrad + grad)

UC Berkeley
Applicants: ~128,000+
Acceptance Rate: ~14–15%
Admitted: ~15,000
Enrolled Freshmen: ~6,700
Total Student Population: ~45,000

University of Michigan (Ann Arbor)
Applicants: ~83,000+
Acceptance Rate: ~18–20%
Admitted: ~15,000
Enrolled Freshmen: ~7,200
Total Student Population: ~51,000

University of Virginia (UVA)

Applicants: ~56,000+
Acceptance Rate: ~19–21%
Admitted: ~9,950
Enrolled Freshmen: ~3,900
Total Student Population: ~25,000
UNC Chapel Hill
Applicants: ~57,000+
Acceptance Rate: ~19%
Admitted: ~10,300+
Enrolled Freshmen: ~4,200
Total Student Population: ~30,000

Looking at these figures side by side, Canadian universities are admitting a significantly larger proportion of their applicants, often 2–4 times the acceptance rate of the U.S. schools listed. Despite these higher acceptance rates, Canadian institutions like U of T, UBC, and McGill still maintain strong academic reputations, appear prominently in global rankings, and consistently produce high-quality research.

It raises the question: Is something off in the way the U.S. system is structured? Are ultra-low acceptance rates in the U.S. more about prestige and scarcity than educational quality or capacity? Meanwhile, Canada seems to strike a balance—large, top-ranked schools admitting a greater share of qualified applicants and still delivering excellence.

What are your thoughts? Is the U.S. higher education model broken or overly exclusive? Could U.S. public universities adopt strategies from Canada—such as more robust infrastructure and funding—to support larger incoming classes without compromising on standards? It’s a puzzling contrast, and I’m curious to hear what others think about it.

ding, ding, ding. US parents are hung up on “the exclusive experience”, even though these so-called “elite” universities have ample resources to enlarge their student population considerably. Every time a college tries to expend, there’s wailing and gnashing of teeth and pearl-cutching about “destroying the brand”.

Well no, that’s not it. If say UCLA tripled its class size and by necessity reduced student support and extras even more, then parents of “advanced kids” would be crying about class size and how ugly the dorms are.

Also all of the states OP listed have additional less exclusive state colleges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The other big difference is that Canadian colleges don’t believe it is a main responsibility to house or feed students.

They do provide options for both, but for hosing nothing that comes close to housing even a fairly small percentage of students.

I gather it would be far easier for US schools to expand if it was made abundantly clear that student housing just isn’t their problem.

I think this goes back to education in Canada being less about individual maximizing and everyone being anxious about competition. School (including college) is in your neighborhood. You don’t go traipsing all around everywhere to maximize the resume.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have the common app, and it is easy to apply to 20+ schools. Students apply to schools whether they have the stats or not. U Chicago encourages apps from
unqualified students because numerous Americans think a low acceptance rate means a school is good.

This has been repeated so many times and is such a silly take. How many robustly unqualified candidates do you think enjoy writing long essays in response to UChicago’s prompts? Here are a few examples of the type of essay needed just to apply:

Heisenberg claims that you cannot know both the position and momentum of an electron with total certainty. Choose two other concepts that cannot be known simultaneously and discuss the implications. (Do not consider yourself limited to the field of physics).

Susan Sontag, AB’51, wrote that “[s]ilence remains, inescapably, a form of speech.” Write about an issue or a situation when you remained silent, and explain how silence may speak in ways that you did or did not intend. The Aesthetics of Silence, 1967.

Superstring theory has revolutionized speculation about the physical world by suggesting that strings play a pivotal role in the universe. Strings, however, always have explained or enriched our lives, from Theseus’s escape route from the Labyrinth, to kittens playing with balls of yarn, to the single hair that held the sword above Damocles, to the Old Norse tradition that one’s life is a thread woven into a tapestry of fate, to the beautiful sounds of the finely tuned string of a violin, to the children’s game of cat’s cradle, to the concept of stringing someone along. Use the power of string to explain the biggest or the smallest phenomenon.