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Higher Education in Canada

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  1. #11

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    - Bad weather
    - Strange accent
    - Liberal minded population- Legalised weed
    - Poorest quality immigration controls

    Not a place I would ever consider in the future


  2. #12
    "Canada is a smaller country population wise than UK or US and has a smaller economic market. I don't see why you would expect Canada to rank equally alongside US/UK as a destination for students."

    Regrettably this doesn't stop the global university rankings from putting expensive private US or UK schools in the same rankings as any other schools from any other nations, not just the Canadian ones.

  3. #13

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mao C Chung:
    Sorry to say, if you would write off an entire nation of schools despite it's a developed nation with high OECD education ratings, I don't think it's biased at all to think their decision might have been made out of misperception or ignorce. I don't doubt the decisions concerned were "rational" from the parents own point of view and in their own way.
    You need to use the quote function, or an @username, otherwise nobody knows which post you are addressing and this makes for a very confusing thread.


    Edit: @shri, "username" is an actual user?!

  4. #14

    Arguably all the points that could be applicable to different parts of the US, except in the US the weed is replaced by guns

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  5. #15

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mao C Chung:
    Sorry to say, if you would write off an entire nation of schools despite it's a developed nation with high OECD education ratings, I don't think it's biased at all to think their decision might have been made out of misperception or ignorce. I don't doubt the decisions concerned were "rational" from the parents own point of view and in their own way.
    http://cdnis.edu.hk/sites/default/fi...f%202018_2.pdf

    Canadian International School. 1/3 of the students end up in Canada for university. I would say they are going to be the most informed cohort of students and families in HK on this topic and still the majority choose elsewhere. So really I don't think you can just say it's ignorance. For some reason the majority choose to go elsewhere, that's a perfectly valid choice.

    When I was in graduate school there were a number of students from Canada who would act outraged that non-Canadians had never heard of their undergraduate university. They were actually shocked that we didn't know what Queen's or Western was. It's not an attack on your country (assuming you're Canadian) but your universities just don't have that brand name.

  6. #16

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mao C Chung:
    Arguably all the points that could be applicable to different parts of the US, except in the US the weed is replaced by guns
    But it's not worth it for Canada.

    Visas and PRs are a dime a dozen.

    You trying to cope?

  7. #17

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    Quote Originally Posted by merchantms:
    When I was in graduate school there were a number of students from Canada who would act outraged that non-Canadians had never heard of their undergraduate university. They were actually shocked that we didn't know what Queen's or Western was. It's not an attack on your country (assuming you're Canadian) but your universities just don't have that brand name.
    This was quite different from my experience- I found the local students to be quite aware that their universities were not world famous. Western, especially, as anyone from the US assumes that it's some hillbilly campus.

    Quote Originally Posted by DimSumBond:
    - Bad weather
    - Strange accent
    - Liberal minded population- Legalised weed
    - Poorest quality immigration controls

    Not a place I would ever consider in the future
    Are you saying... they need more guns?

  8. #18

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    Even though university ranking often does not mean a great undergraduate experience, it still will count for a lot in HK. And even the lower-tiered universities in the US and UK often rank more highly due to "name-brand" research.

    I think Australia has some universities similarly-ranked to Canada and I think has a much more realistic chance of employment/immigration after university but I don't hear about a lot of HK students going there (although plenty of mainland I understand). If I had a choice between Canada and Australia as a HK parent I would think Australia is closer, closer time zone for calling and chatting, better immigration potential. And still doesn't seem to happen.

    I see my coworker angsting over kindergarten to have a decent primary, secondary school...it starts early.


    I went to a "name brand" school (often ranked 1st in the world lately) and I doubt it was the great teaching there but there was a very high quality student population and that made things very interesting for me. Went to a crap high school and wanted a completely opposite school for university. And it has helped with employment over the years... Probably why my daughter wanted a "name brand" UK school as well and I think she was pretty happy about the quality of her experience.

    But then I went to a "name brand" law school and transferred to a state school. Had great learning experiences there, the teaching was good, students were good but on the employment front...yeah, not a "name brand"- people asked me why I transferred, etc. Even though my state school had many more opportunities in patent law (my field). So now I kind of understand the whole "name brand" thing but don't agree with it.

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  9. #19

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    @MABinPengChau there do seem to be a lot of Australian-educated doctors in Hong Kong though. So maybe for medical school HK students do consider it seriously.

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  10. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by jgl:
    This seems to be a heavily biased statement, why does it have to be either? Perhaps the parents are making well informed, rational decisions.



    Supporting evidence? This isn't something I've been particularly aware of, and I've studied in Canada.
    To be fair and be honest though have you really been paying attention to these indicators?

    As a start you could look at OECD education figures on Canada versus UK and US. I have looked at them but I'm not about to quote them here as I am not writing a paper here. Then look at other indicators such as the world's most affordable major cities which I believe UBS has done a 2018 study. Also safety indicators like crime rates of major cities including Canadian ones and US UK ones. There are also rankings for Most Livable Cities and Student Friendly Cities. Cost indexes are unnecessary as you could easily look at university websites but then again I don't it's hard to imagine that Canadian schools are in general cheaper than US schools. Then of course you have the global university rankings but that in fact would be the last thing I'd look at.