University of Toronto visits EF Academy Oxford

EF Academy Oxford was very fortunate to host a visit by Valentina Lopez of the University of Toronto. Valentina, as an international admissions officer, visits schools around the world to talk about the university and answer questions on programs, admissions requirements and student life in the city. Valentina also has a role in transition guidance, helping international students coming from many different social and educational backgrounds progress smoothly to studies at a large university.

A number of Oxford students have gone on to attend “UofT” in the last few years including three acceptances in 2017. Javad Siahkamari, an IB Diploma student who followed our Engineering Pathway in Oxford, is now pursuing the prestigious Aerospace Engineering major, for example. Victoria Orevkova (IB Diploma: Business, Finance & Management Pathway) is studying International Business there as well.

And no wonder – Toronto is by several measures the most multicultural city in the world, and with a thriving economy and arts scene, it is an attractive destination for our globally-minded alumni. More importantly, UofT is one of the top-ranked universities in the world, regularly being featured in the QS World University rankings and consistently #1 in Canada.

Valentina gave us a taste of Toronto’s offerings – a full range of disciplines are taught, from Management to Minerals Engineering to Medieval French Literature. The main St George’s campus is downtown, with all the bustle of city life but also several residential colleges on the model of Oxbridge. Scarborough and Mississauga are more compact and have the traditional north American college feel of a place where you can study, live and socialize all on one site.

Application to Toronto is very simple – no personal statements, references or standardized tests are required: just a transcript and predicted grades. This makes things easy for your university guidance counselors! A few courses, like Engineering, do have a video response as part of the application, but this is good opportunity for the admissions staff to see you “in person” and get a feel for your potential. Not surprisingly for a top university, Toronto does ask for strong grades – typically mid 30s and up for the IB Diploma, and A/B grades for A-Level – and for really strong candidates scholarships are available.

The Toronto visit was part of a week of events at EF Academy based around our Pathway for students applying to North American universities. On Saturday, a number of students visited the Fulbright Commission USA College Day in London to meet representatives from over 150 US colleges and universities. The USA and Canada have quite different university systems from the UK, so it is important for EF Academy to provide students with the right information and support to help make successful applications.

Canadian universities have become increasingly popular with EF Academy students and it is easy to see why. As the Canadian national anthem says, plus brillants exploits!

Originally published October 3, 2017.