Rankings
Financial Times Executive M.B.A. Ranking 2009
The FT’s E.M.B.A. evaluation looks at a variety of performance measures for each school
Similar to the Financial Times’ regular M.B.A. rankings, the FT’s E.M.B.A. evaluation looks at a variety of performance measures for each school: the career progress of students, faculty quality and the diversity (female and international) of both faculty and students.
Source: FT.com
Canada’s E.M.B.A. Programs: for the working professional
Executive M.B.A. programs normally allow their participants to remain at their jobs, pursuing the degree part-time
Targeted at people who already have a career but want to take it to the next level by earning an advanced degree, executive M.B.A. programs normally allow their participants to remain at their jobs, pursuing the degree part-time. Tuition, often covered by employers, is generally high.
Information is for the 2010-2011 academic year. **Tuition differs for international students: $44,025 at Guelph; $39,874 at UPEI; $36,000 at Regina; $53,975 at Royal Roads. UQAM program open to Canadian residents only (tuition higher for out-of-province students).
Source: Canadian universities
How do Canada’s business schools stack up internationally?
Canadian schools didn’t crack the top 20 in either of the Financial Times’ rankings, but York (Schulich) placed first on the alternative Beyond Grey Pinstripes survey
Beyond Grey Pinstripes M.B.A.
Ranking 2009-2010
Beyond Grey Pinstripes is an alternative ranking of business schools, conducted every two years by the Aspen Institute’s Center for Business Education. The ranking assesses the degree to which leading M.B.A. programs integrate issues concerning social and environmental stewardship into the curriculum.
Source: Beyondgreypinstripes.org
Applications high, success rates low: the stats tell the story
Plus, average GPA and test scores and which schools require the MCAT
Gaining admission to medical school is a competitive process. In the table below, Success Rate indicates the percentage of applicants who received at least one offer of admission. Note that success rates for in-province applicants are generally higher than for out-of-province, because most medical schools reserve nearly all of their seats for local students. The grade point average (GPA)—or R score in Quebec’s CEGEP system—shows the average for successful applicants. The medical college admission test (MCAT) is a standardized test required for admission at many faculties. CLICK ON CHART TO ENLARGE
Statistics on applicants, admissions and success rates are for 2008-2009. MCAT scores are for students entering in fall 2009. GPA scores are for students entering in 2010, except those flagged with an asterisk, which are from 2009. ††All figures for Queen’s are from 2006-2007. †Includes all Maritime provinces. **Located at Lakehead and Laurentian universities. Note: higher international success rates at some universities may be misleading, given that at some institutions the number includes students who applied for positions available under contract with foreign governments or educational institutions.
Source: Office of Research and Information Services, Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada; MCAT scores obtained directly from Canadian medical schools.
How much does medical school cost?
First-year tuition for academic year 2010-2011
Gaining acceptance to medical school is the first hurdle. The next challenge is paying for it. The figures listed below show first-year tuition for academic year 2010-2011.
Two Canadian tuition figures are listed for schools in Quebec: the first applies for residents of Quebec; the higher figure is charged for students from outside the province. *Tuition for residents of Quebec or New Brunswick.
Women outnumber men at most medical schools
2009 figures show enrolment continues to increase
The medical schools listed below are sorted by size of enrolment: from the largest, Université de Montréal, to the smallest—and newest—Northern Ontario School of Medicine. These 2009 figures show enrolment continues to increase (up 15 per cent compared to 2006), with women outnumbering men at most institutions.
*Northern Ontario School of Medicine is located at Lakehead and Laurentian universities.
Source: Office of Research and Information Services, Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada
Engineering schools still have fewer females
Undergraduate enrolment for women is less than 25 per cent almost across the board
Undergraduate enrolment at Canadian engineering schools ranges from a few dozen students to more than 4,000 at Waterloo and Toronto. As these 2009 figures show, the number of female students remains low: less than 25 per cent at all but a handful of institutions.
Source: Engineers Canada *2007 figures
Engineering’s hot fields
Environmental and software numbers are up by roughly half, while mining or mineral enrolment has nearly tripled
Across 13 disciplines, mechanical, electrical and civil continue to be the top draws, but other fields have grown significantly over the past four years. Environmental and software numbers are up by roughly half, while mining or mineral enrolment has nearly tripled.
Source: Engineers Canada
Want to be an engineer? Aim for 80-plus in your last year
Average final-year high school grades of undergrads starting engineering school in fall 2009
Admission is competitive, as shown by these average final-year high school grades—or the R score in Quebec’s CEGEP system—of first-year undergrads starting engineering school in fall 2009.
Eight universities with engineering programs are not listed here. These institutions did not release their average entering grades to Maclean’s. *Grade average for fall 2008 incoming class. **Majority of students enter engineering after first year (University One).
Source: Engineering faculties and departments; Common University Data Ontario
Canada’s best professional schools 2010
EXCLUSIVE RANKINGS. Plus: where to go, how to get in, the hottest programs, and the biggest pitfalls
Coast to coast, getting into professional schools has never been more competitive than it is this year
ENGINEERING
From building bridges to running Bay Street
Technical geeks? Hardly. Today’s new breed of financial engineers take the lead as global innovators.
If you build it . . .
Robots, stem cells and green scenes: what engineers are making now
Aim for 80-plus
Average final-year high school grades of first-year undergrads starting engineering school in fall 2009
Engineering’s hot fields
Across 13 disciplines, mechanical, electrical and civil continue to be the top draws, but other fields have grown significantly over the past four years. Environmental and software numbers are up by roughly half, while mining or mineral enrolment has nearly tripled.
Sizing up engineering enrolment across the country
The number of female Undergraduate enrolment at Canadian engineering schools remains low
MEDICINE
Want degree, will travel
‘Think of the passion that comes from people willing to go halfway around the world to study’
No science? No worries
Getting a C in chemistry may not be a barrier to that white coat, as med schools reassess their admissions
How many get in
2009 figures show enrolment continues to increase with women outnumbering men at most institutions
How much they pay for it
Medical school first-year tuition for academic year 2010-2011
Applications high, success rates low: the stats tell the story
The medical college admission test (MCAT) is a standardized test required for admission at many faculties
M.B.A.
Northern exposure
‘The fact that the Canadian economy gets a lot of attention can only be good for Canadian business schools’
These doctors mean business
Fuelled by late-blooming entrepreneurs, business schools see doctoral enrolment double
McGill and Quebec Play chicken
A tuition hike is opposed by the province; so far neither side has blinked
Coffee, donut and an M.B.A
Slated to start in January 2011, a new morning M.B.A. class will run three mornings a week at the Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary
RANKINGS: How do Canada’s business schools stack up internationally?
Canadian schools didn’t crack the top 20 in either of the Financial Times’ rankings, but York (Schulich) placed first on the alternative Beyond Grey Pinstripes survey
Canada’s M.B.A. programs: a variety of options at 35 institutions
The traditional M.B.A.—two years, full-time—is no longer the only way to go, with many schools offering part-time studies
Canada’s E.M.B.A. Programs: for the working professional
Executive M.B.A. programs normally allow their participants to remain at their jobs, pursuing the degree part-time
RANKINGS: Financial Times Executive M.B.A. ranking 2009
The FT’s E.M.B.A. evaluation looks at a variety of performance measures for each school
Law
Ranking Canada’s law schools
How do faculty measure up? How do grads fare? Maclean’s fourth annual survey reveals all
Last year, maybe. This year, no way.
Getting in has never been easy. But now, it’s nearly impossible.
The letter of the Law
J.D. vs. LL.B degree
RANKINGS: Toronto and McGill law schools top the list
How successful are grads in landing top jobs? How often is faculty members’ work recognized by other academics?
Law School: what will it cost?
2010 tuition figures for first-year students
Law school: what will it cost?
2010 tuition figures for first-year students
Listed below are the 2010 tuition figures for first-year students, shown from the least expensive to the most. The numbers do not include other compulsory fees, which at some institutions can add well over $1,000 to the bill.
*Two figures are listed for law schools in Quebec and Nova Scotia: the higher figure is charged for students from outside the province.
Hot engineering jobs
Robots, stem cells and green scenes: what engineers are making now
As University of Toronto dean of engineering Cristina Amon puts it, “Hot engineering careers combine innovation and creativity, and allow engineers to create things that didn’t exist before.” But in addition to dreaming up objects that improve lives—like artificial organs or medical imaging devices—today’s engineers are being enlisted to address global issues, such as warming. Here are other growth areas in the field of engineering.
Sustainability: From teaching students to design and build eco-friendly buildings and infrastructure to implementing green government policy, sustainability has become a dominant theme in engineering education. A master’s of engineering in clean energy at the University of British Columbia is now open for students with undergraduate degrees in engineering who want advanced training in energy-efficient technologies. At the University of Calgary, undergraduates in the engineering B.Sc. can enrol in a specialization in energy and environment. Carleton University offers its bachelor of engineering students a new option in sustainable and renewable energy, and the university has established a master’s program in sustainable energy, which students can finish with either an engineering degree (M.A.Sc. or M.Eng. in sustainable energy) or a public policy degree (M.A. in sustainable energy). Finally, the University of Western Ontario has a new green-process engineering undergraduate program, which teaches the fundamentals of chemical engineering to design commercial products and processes that are both economical and environmentally friendly.
Biomedical: The intersection of biological systems and engineering has led to innovation in medicine that could only be dreamed about a decade ago, and now biomedical engineering is one of the fastest growing areas of the profession. These engineers grow tissue and stem cells, build devices that can be implanted in the body to deliver drugs or detect illnesses, and design substitute body parts like pacemakers and artificial joints. In 2009, École Polytechnique de Montréal launched an undergraduate degree in the subject. The University of Guelph offers its undergraduates a biomedical engineering option. At the University of Calgary, undergraduate students can complete a biomedical specialization in conjunction with their engineering degree. The University of Manitoba will begin offering a new master’s in biomedical engineering in January, and Queen’s University, McMaster University, and the University of Toronto give graduate students the opportunity to take the interdisciplinary approach to biomedical engineering through collaborative programs.
Mechatronics: Mechatronic systems are all around: from industrial robots to the antilock brakes in your car. As society advances technologically, the demand for these computer- controlled electromechanical devices will only grow. As such, universities across the country have established degrees or specializations in this subject. The University of Waterloo, for example, offers an undergraduate program in mechatronics engineering. At McMaster University, students can enrol in mechatronics programs at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. The University of Guelph gives graduate students in the engineering systems and computing program the option to research mechatronics, and the University of British Columbia, University of Calgary, University of Toronto, and University of New Brunswick offer a mechatronics option to mechanical engineering undergraduates.
Photo by Andrew tolson
Canada’s M.B.A. programs: a variety of options at 35 institutions
The traditional M.B.A.—two years, full-time—is no longer the only way to go, with many schools offering part-time studies
Tuition and program length vary considerably—the differences are often determined by the type of program—as do size, diversity and the average GMAT score of incoming students. The traditional M.B.A.—two years, full-time—is no longer the only way to go, with many schools offering part-time studies.
CLICK ON CHART TO ENLARGE
Information is for the 2010-2011 academic year unless indicated otherwise. Enrolment figures are for full-time students. Tuition is shown for the full cost of a program and includes compulsory fees. Tuition can vary depending on length/type of program. Two figures are shown for schools in Quebec and Nova Scotia as tuition is higher for out-of-province students. Sherbrooke program open to Quebec residents only. Regina program is part-time. *2009 figure. †2006 figure.
Source: Canadian universities
Coffee, donut and an M.B.A
Early morning M.B.A. classes at the University of Calgary accommodate people with jobs and night lives
This summer, the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary announced a program for the bright-eyed and bushytailed. Slated to start in January 2011, a new morning M.B.A. class will run three mornings a week, from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m.
“We already had the evening program,” says Robin Hawes, administration officer at the Haskayne school. “It seemed like a perfect complement.” The difference is that the morning classes will be held in the new downtown campus, instead of the main grounds outside the Calgary core. “It’s literally a five-minute walk from the downtown companies,” says Hawes.
The Haskayne school is one of just two schools in Canada that offer the early bird option. The other is the “Morning M.B.A.” at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. The program graduated its first class of students this June.
“The morning seemed like a completely untapped market,” says Kimberley Neutens, director, M.B.A. program services, who helped conceptualize the 32-month degree. Most students are about 30 years old with six years of work experience. “They want to go to school,” says Neutens, “But don’t want to give up soccer games or family dinner.”
The morning classes see a different sort of M.B.A. student than the usual type-A personality. “The fact that everybody already has a job means it’s not as cutthroat,” says Jaime Stein, a recent graduate from the Rotman program and a manager at the Canadian Football League. Stein says he found an unexpected support group in the class. “There’s a baby boom going on,” and many of his classmates have young families. “All my friends were single,” says Stein, whose wife is expecting their first child. “Now I have all sorts of people giving me advice on strollers.”
Today, with the morning and evening M.B.A. programs running at Rotman, the school is virtually open round the clock. Neutens says she refuses to get up earlier than six in the morning. But, she says, “We joke about a midnight M.B.A. every once in a while.”
Want medical degree, will travel
Getting into into med school abroad may be easier, but it’s tough to come back
Amie Dmytryshyn did everything right. She volunteered to counsel patients at Vancouver General Hospital on Thursday nights. She spent three days a week assisting a quadriplegic teenager. On weekends, she attended intensive all-day MCAT prep and on weeknights she squeezed in two extra hours of studying to prepare for the exam. She did it all while maintaining an A average in her chemistry-heavy human kinetics program at UBC. “Then I got one letter and my dreams were crushed,” says Dmytryshyn, now 30.
Erik Vakil, 28, was so determined to get in that after being rejected from a dozen programs in 2006, he marched straight back to Dalhousie and retook every class in which he didn’t have an A. The following January, he was rejected again. “It was only after the second rejection that I realized I wasn’t going to get in,” says Vakil. A friend suggested he try Ireland. He stayed up late that same night to finish his application. Weeks later, he was called for an interview with the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI).
Considering only one in five of the nearly 11,000 students who apply to medical schools across Canada each year are admitted, Dmytryshyn and Vakil are not alone. Some apply again. Most move on to other careers. But for students who see medicine as a calling, who can’t imagine doing anything else, there are other options. Six years after she got that fateful letter, Dmytryshyn is preparing to take over as chief resident of pediatrics at B.C. Children’s Hospital in her hometown, Vancouver. In August, she married her long-time partner, Byron Hyttenrauch, and the couple are planning a honeymoon in Tahiti. Meanwhile, Vakil is entering his fourth year of med school in Ireland with contacts at the Cleveland Clinic and the Mayo Clinic already in his address book.
It was a gamble, but both students are glad they applied overseas. “Originally, it was Plan B,” says Dmytryshyn, who attended St. George’s University on the Caribbean island of Grenada (pop. 110,000). “But as soon as I got there, I realized that everyone’s there because being a doctor is all they ever wanted to do. Think of the passion that comes from people willing to go halfway around the world to study.”
It certainly takes passion to go to an international medical school. An estimated 1,500 Canadians were studying at foreign medical schools in 2006. While there’s no clear 2010 estimate, medical schools in the big three countries where Canadians study—Australia, Ireland and Grenada—all report triple the number of Canadians just four years later. Admissions aren’t as tough in these countries, but tuition can be jaw-dropping. St. George’s, for example, costs $200,000 for a four-year degree, compared to the $80,000 it costs to attend the University of Toronto. On top of that, most international medical graduates (known as IMGs) are unable to return home for several years after graduation, because—despite a doctor shortage—the number of residencies in Canada is tightly capped. What’s worse, provincial governments and medical schools give first pick of residencies (three to five years of postgraduate training) to Canadian-trained doctors and leave only scraps for the often-discouraged IMGs. This spring, 88 per cent of graduates from Canadian medical schools got their first choice of residency; only 21 per cent of IMGs received a position at all.
Dmytryshyn wasn’t even allowed to apply for the first round of residency placements in her home province of British Columbia. She could have found a spot more easily if she had been willing to sign a “return of service agreement” that says she would work for five years in an area of the government’s choice (usually an isolated northern community) in exchange for a spot. A northern town is not the type of place Dmytryshyn could see herself spending five years, especially considering her husband works in shipping, a field that requires him to live near the ports of Vancouver. She knew her chances weren’t good, but she crossed her fingers and held out hope for a spot near home. “I lost sleep over it, of course,” says Dmytryshyn. “When applying back to Canada after being in school for eight years, you really hope you can be near your family.” Dmytryshyn is one of the lucky ones.
What’s frustrating for many IMGs is that, even with the small chance of getting a spot, the equivalency process can be gruelling. In Quebec, equivalency includes both language tests and the Medical Council of Canada Evaluating Exam (MCCEE), an advanced, $1,500 test that Canadian graduates don’t have to take. Students say the process requires taking a year off after graduation to complete. Even more frustrating for IMGs is the fact that residency spaces reserved for domestically trained doctors sometimes go unfilled without ever being offered to them. Joe Schwarcz, a Ph.D. chemist and head of McGill’s Office for Science and Society, sits on the medical school’s admissions committee. He says it’s a “torturous job” to choose 160 students for first-year medical school each year, because it means rejecting “at least as many equally qualified applicants.” Considering those painful decisions, he wonders why IMGs can’t apply for leftover spots reserved for students at Canadian universities. “These students are getting residencies in the U.S., so why are they good enough for the U.S. but not Canada? It’s crazy,” says Schwarcz.
These doctors mean business
Fuelled by late-blooming entrepreneurs, business schools see doctoral enrolment double
Valerie Sheppard’s been self-employed, she’s worked in government (in the tourism sector), and now she’s headed back to school. Sheppard, 50, who says she has an entrepreneurial streak, is one of four candidates in the University of Victoria’s new business Ph.D. program (UVic welcomed its first cohort this month). “I don’t see myself retiring,” says Sheppard. “Getting a Ph.D. will give me the flexibility to keep working.” After spending years out in the workforce, going back to school is a bit “scary,” she admits, but she’ll have someone close for support: daughter Leah, 26, is doing a Ph.D. in business, too, at the University of British Columbia.
A mother and daughter both doing business Ph.D.s might sound unique, but it speaks to the booming popularity of the degree. The number of doctoral candidates enrolled in business programs nearly doubled in a decade, from 696 in 1998 to 1,227 in 2008, Statistics Canada figures show. (That year, about 31 per cent of students were aged 30 to 34, and 24 per cent were 40-plus, the two biggest age groups.) UVic decided to offer the Ph.D. because “there’s a shortage of business school professors out there, and we knew there’d be a demand for graduates,” says academic director Charlene Zietsma.
Indeed, as countries like Brazil, China and India became financial hubs, the number of business schools worldwide tripled from the 1980s to the mid-2000s, drawing North American-trained academics, says John Fernandes, president and chief executive officer of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, a leading accreditation agency. (Most of the grads leaving for developing regions were international students, he says, heading back home.) At the same time, North American business schools cut back on Ph.D. programs, investing in the more lucrative, and high-profile, M.B.A. instead.
Job prospects have suffered in this gloomy economy, but they’re expected to improve. “The market for academics with a business Ph.D. has been good, and will be again,” predicts Debbie Compeau, who directs the Ph.D. program at the University of Western Ontario’s Richard Ivey School of Business.
But academia isn’t the only option. Many of those who pursue a doctorate in business have past work experience, and about 20 per cent of all students will take their degrees into the workforce, Fernandes says. Among these people, a new type of degree is gaining traction: the doctorate of business administration. Unlike a Ph.D., which is scholarly and research based, the D.B.A. encourages “applied research that’s relevant to the real world,” says John Ingham, who directs the three-year D.B.A. program at the Université de Sherbrooke, one of two in Canada to offer the degree. (The other is Athabasca University.)
Richard Vaillancourt, 54, is completing a D.B.A. online through Athabasca while serving as CEO of OMISTA Credit Union in Moncton, N.B. “I thought a D.B.A. would be more relevant and practitioner-oriented, whereas a Ph.D. is more research,” says Vaillancourt, who’s considering a career in credit-union consulting or teaching, post-retirement.
In January, Valerie Sheppard left her government job to take on an associate faculty position at Royal Roads University; getting a Ph.D. will “solidify my ability to teach in a university setting,” she says, and keep working for many years to come. And, she argues, the so-called Ivory Tower and the real world aren’t so far apart. As a professor, “you’ve got your own courses, and students; there’s some flexibility,” she says. “In a sense, it’s entrepreneurial. That’s what I’m looking for.”
Photo by Darren Stone
Ranking Canada’s law schools
How do faculty measure up? How do grads fare? Maclean’s fourth annual survey reveals all
Are a law school’s professors significant contributors to the intellectual life of their discipline? Do a law school’s graduates land the most sought-after jobs in government, the private sector and academia? These are the two questions Maclean’s annual law survey seeks to answer.
All of the data used in the Maclean’s law rankings are publicly available. All focus on law school outputs. Fifty per cent of the overall ranking is determined by faculty quality, and 50 per cent by graduate quality.
The four measures of graduate quality look at the success each law school has had producing graduates able to land the most competitive jobs. The indicators are:
Elite Firm Hiring: Maclean’s calculated how many of each school’s graduates are serving as associates at law firms on Lexpert’s list of the largest firms in Canada across all regions, or at one of the five leading New York firms, according to the employment website Vault. This was done by examining the online biographies of thousands of lawyers at dozens of law firms. To scale this measure to each school, the tally was divided by first-year class size, averaged over the past three years. This measure is worth 20 per cent.
National Reach: This indicator, based on the Elite Firm Hiring measure, is worth 10 per cent. It measures the proportion of each law school’s grads at leading firms who are working at firms other than the three that hired the most grads from this school. It’s a measure of the extent to which leading firms outside a school’s region hire its graduates.
Supreme Court Clerkships: A measure of how many of a school’s graduates have served as clerks at the Supreme Court of Canada, this indicator is worth 10 per cent. There are 27 clerks each year; it is one of the most competitive positions open to graduates. Maclean’s looked at the last six years’ worth of clerks. As with the other measures of graduate quality, the tally was divided by each school’s average first-year enrolment.
Faculty Hiring: Worth 10 per cent, this indicator looks at how many of a school’s graduates are professors at Canadian law schools, with extra weight given to grads hired by faculties other than their alma mater.
Faculty Journal Citations: In this measure of faculty quality, worth 50 per cent, Maclean’s employed the HeinOnline database of legal periodicals. The search included citations in international publications as well as Canadian journals in order to reflect the reality of a globalized academy. The number of citations recorded by each faculty member was measured; the tally for each school was then divided by the size of its faculty.
Next page: Which school is on top?
Canadian M.B.A. schools climb the global ranks
Despite not having brand-name cachet, Canadian business schools excel in attractive areas
Many of Sarah Kaplan’s former students at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School asked her the same question when they found out she took a job at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management last year: “Why Canada?”
It’s an understandable question. Wharton, after all, is one of the top business schools in the United States, if not the world. And while Rotman has made significant strides in climbing up the global rankings over the past decade, it is still a long way from being considered in the same breath as Wharton, Harvard and Stanford—the sorts of places where a mere mention of the institution’s name will instantly open doors.
In fact, only two Canadian M.B.A. programs made it into the top 50 on the respected Financial Times list for this year. They are Rotman (45) and the University of Western Ontario’s Richard Ivey School of Business (49). York University’s Schulich School of Business’s M.B.A. program was ranked 54th.
But rankings don’t paint a complete picture “Rotman has one of the top strategy departments,” Kaplan says. “If I look at the quality of research and quality of faculty, I’ve joined one of the top schools in North America.” For students, though, a lack of name recognition at Canadian schools presents a conundrum. While the education may be of high quality and more affordable than in the U.S., it can be more difficult to get on the radar of big U.S. companies and the recruiters that scour the globe for top talent.
The good news is that things are beginning to change. The meltdown that started on Wall Street and reverberated around the globe in a flurry of bank failures and government bailouts largely skipped over Canada, where a more conservative approach was credited for keeping the banking sector out of trouble. Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has since suggested that Canada be used as a model for other countries, an argument bolstered by global surveys and even U.S. President Barack Obama, who said, “Canada has shown itself to be a pretty good manager of the financial system and economy in ways that we haven’t always been.” And there’s reason to believe Canadian business schools are poised to benefit by association. “The fact that the Canadian economy gets a lot of attention can only be good for Canadian business schools,” Kaplan says.
The challenge will be successfully capitalizing on the spotlight to show the world that there’s more to the Canadian approach than being conservative about money—a trait that appeared admirable during a once-in-a-lifetime financial crisis, but may also be holding back the country when it comes to producing global champions.
The financial crisis, spawned by the risky mortgage-backed securities created by Wall Street, inevitably resulted in soul-searching about the roles of business schools in promoting a profit-at-all-costs breed of capitalism. By contrast, many Canadian schools emerged from the recession with comparatively little baggage, and even enjoyed a perception of being part of the solution.
It added up to a unique opportunity for those charged with attracting top talent north of the border. “When the American schools scaled back on their hiring, many of the Canadian schools took advantage of it,” says Rick Powers, Rotman’s associate dean, noting that Rotman has made several key hires as part of a drive that will see faculty grow from 115 to 150 over the next four years. In addition to Kaplan, new faculty includes: Kent Womack, a visiting professor of finance who has taught M.B.A. and executive programs at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College for over 10 years, and Partha Mohanram, an associate professor of accounting who came from Columbia University. Powers says, “Now Canada has become a very viable destination, not only for students, but faculty.”
No science? no worries
Getting a C in chemistry may not be a barrier to that white coat, as med schools reassess their admissions
If you ever wanted to be a doctor, but were scared off because of all the science you would have to learn, you may soon be in luck. Canadian medical schools are taking a closer look at their admissions practices, and prerequisites like the much-feared Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) are no longer seen to be as imperative as they once were.
Just how picky medical schools should be about students being well-versed in the scientific foundations of human anatomy is a decades-old debate. But now, lacking a solid grasp of science might not be a barrier to getting that white coat.
For 25 years, Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York has reserved around 30 spaces for students who haven’t taken physics, calculus, organic chemistry or the MCAT. A recent study on the Mount Sinai program, co-authored by the school’s dean emeritus Nathan Kase, concluded that students admitted through the humanities and medicine stream “performed at a level equivalent to their premedical classmates.”
In Canada, there are already two medical programs, McMaster University and the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, that have no science requirements, either through course prerequisites or the MCAT. Several others are reviewing their core application requirements.
The University of British Columbia is undergoing a curriculum review that could see a revamping of at least one first-year medicine course so that it no longer presumes an extensive science background. According to Joseph Finkler, associate dean of admissions for medicine, that could open the door to revising the selection process. “It is possible that we will end up with multiple admissions streams, including one without the prerequisites and MCAT,” he said. Lewis Tomalty, Queen’s University’s vice-dean, medical education, says that while some science is “necessary,” encouraging students with a range of academic backgrounds to apply is beneficial to the classroom. “We’re looking at how extensive [science prerequisites] have to be and are certainly looking to change the actual admissions requirements,” he said. Similarly, the Université de Montréal has put a committee in place to review whether its list of science requirements creates an unnecessary barrier to pursuing a career in medicine.
But the school that is farthest along in this process is McGill University. In July, McGill announced that it would no longer require prospective students to take the MCAT. The faculty of medicine will also be reserving three spaces for “non-traditional” students, giving great weight to things like work experience. They will also be exempt from having to complete their first degree full-time, a common prerequisite intended to ensure students can handle the workload. Saleem Razack, assistant dean of admissions at McGill, says these policy changes are needed “so that the excellence that students with diverse life experiences can bring to the medical profession can be assessed and valued.”
The key is finding the right balance, says Miki Rifkin, who oversees the humanities and medicine program at Mount Sinai. While her students are exempt from most science prerequisites, they still have to take introductory chemistry and biology, and have an otherwise exemplary academic record. The goal is to encourage students who might otherwise be deterred at the prospect of the MCAT to pursue medicine. “We want to make a difference for students passionate about some non-science area,” she said.
“The older way of thinking is that doctors should be scholars and scientists first,” says Terry Wuerz, who earned his medical degree from the University of Manitoba in 2007. “I think it’s great that med schools are starting to recognize the different roles doctors play.”
There are, of course, hurdles to reform. Using the MCAT and having science prerequisites are very useful for sorting through thousands of applications. “How do you choose the ones you’re going to interview?” asks Tomalty. While Mount Sinai non-science students do well overall, they do struggle during their first two years, and perform less well on medical licensing exams.
This is consistent with the experience at Canadian schools, says Harold Reiter, chair of admissions at McMaster, but that doesn’t detract from the generally high performance of the non-science students, he said. “Once they have caught up, they do every bit as well as their science-background peers.”
Getting into law school is harder than ever
Getting in has never been easy. But now, it’s nearly impossible.
When Kerry Kaukinen applied to law school last fall, she didn’t think the reason she’d be packing her bags in August would be to move back home.
Kaukinen, who finished a political science degree at Concordia University this spring, didn’t expect schools to fight over her—she knew her 3.4 GPA was a few points lower than the average applicant. Still, her best Law School Admission Test (LSAT) score was in the 90th percentile, and she had been a guard on the national university women’s water polo team, a 20-hour-a-week extra-curricular commitment that was sure to look good on her applications.
She got her first responses in April, and those were rejections. By mid-August, the rejections started to seem like blessings, simply because they were a straight answer. The messages she was getting from other schools were more confusing, but they all boiled down to the same thing: in any other year, yes. This year? Probably not.
Getting into law school has never been easy, but this year there has been a steeply competitive coast-to-coast rise in applications, the explanation for which could be yanked straight from the popular parlance of 1992 America: it’s the economy, stupid.
“Job prospects for young people are not as good. One alternative is for young people to go back to school,” said David Duff, associate dean for academic affairs at the University of British Columbia law school, which received roughly 2,200 applications this year, compared to 1,700 the year before. He was expecting a jump, but “25 per cent is pretty significant.” The last time the university’s law school received more than 2,000 applications was in the early ’90s—during the last recession.
Across the Georgia Strait, the University of Victoria’s law school saw a nearly one-third increase this year over last. Donna Greschner, University of Victoria’s dean of law, wasn’t surprised: she sees law school as the most accessible professional school option for a lot of recent undergrads, many of whom are struggling to find work.
The University of Ottawa also saw a 20 per cent rise in applications to its civil law school and a 27 per cent increase to its basic English common law degree, but it was the specialty programs that saw a real eye-popping change. The university offers a program called the “programme de droit canadien,” which allows students to earn both a common and a civil law degree in three years. “That went up from 45 applications to 157,” says Feldthusen—a whopping 249 per cent increase.
Making it even harder for borderline applicants such as Kaukinen, many law schools also saw a rise in the average GPA and LSAT scores of the incoming class. Schools don’t generally compile the median GPA and LSAT scores of classes until around October, when the first-year cohort is set in stone. But, anecdotally at least, admissions committees said they noticed a change.
“In an average year, our GPA is around an A- and LSAT is around 80th percentile,” said Michael Deturbide, associate dean of Dalhousie University’s Schulich School of Law, which saw a 25 per cent increase in applications this year over last. “With the increase in numbers,” he said, “there are a lot of very, very strong students.”
The University of New Brunswick’s law school saw a relatively small increase in applications—from 897 to 952—but law admissions officer Wanda Foster found applicants had more competitive GPAs and LSAT scores. Duff said the same was true at UBC. “It’s harder to get into law school than it was last year or two years ago,” he said.
