UofA is more "prestigious" than SFU, but I wouldn't necessary use "prestigious" to describe UofA either. I do know that UofA is more highly ranked and it's a more respectable school, imo.

Yay, I'll see you there next year, I'm going into sciences too!


Like most people said, it's more "prestigious" than SFU.
SFU is.. mehh... But I come from the west coast, maybe that's why I don't see why it's such a good school.
Science isn't really what SFU is known for, SFU is known for their business program.

I wouldn't use prestigious to describe U of A either.
It's not super well known, but there has been TONS of research and such done at U of A by top-notch researchers and professors, so I'm sure you'd be in good hands if you went into sciences at U of A next year. :)

Yeah, U of A typically is the fourth highest ranked Canadian school, after U of T, McGill, and UBC.

UoA has one important thing going for it: it has a ****load of money.

> its research income is comparable to UBC, and greater than McGill

http://www.researchinfos...media/2011Top50List.pdf

> it has the second-greatest operation fund per student ratio of the Canadian RIs, only behind UoC

http://www.mcgill.ca/budget/financial-situation

(first graph, left side)

> it has the third-largest endowment of Canadian universities, greater than UBC

http://en.wikipedia.org/...iversities_by_endowment

(yes, Wikipedia, but it's just an aggregate list, and each datum is sourced at the bottom.)



This has a few interesting implications. In theory, UoA should be able to offer comparatively healthy financial assistance to its students, but I don't go there, and never wanted to, so I don't know if this is actually true in reality. Its relative wealth also means a promising future for its ability to attract talented faculty. If you'd like your research funded, UoA will be a safe bet - but only if you're working in biomedical, engineering, or similarly for-profit fields (i.e., only if the university can wring out cash from your work down the line.) If you're going to social science/humanities disciplines, you'll be far better off trying your luck elsewhere.

UoA will be more prestigious, not because Alberta is well-off economically (not directly anyways) but because it itself is well-off. In all likelihood, UoA will move up incrementally (because such changes always take years, if not decades) because it has so much money to move around.

Thanks for your insight. The financial advantage of going to University of Alberta has always been the number one reason why McGill pales in comparison to it for me. I'm just worried about personal aspects of my life there, such as social life and how exciting my university experience is going to be. I just feel that University of Alberta might be a boring experience... please prove me wrong, whoever has gone to U of A.