MONTREAL — 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.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday December 05, 2003 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 41 words Type of Material: Correction
Canadian colleges -- An article on the front page of Section A on Monday about American students attending college in Canada incorrectly stated that the legal drinking age in that country is 18. It is 18 or 19, varying by province.
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.
