Best Urban Planning Program in Canada

I'm looking to apply for a graduate program in urban planning, and I was wondering if you guys know of heard of which ones are the best!

As of right now, I am looking at U of T, Ryerson, McGill, Calgary. I prefer UBC over all of those, but they require 76+ in every course for the last two years of your undergrad, jeez!

76 is high? If that's the case don't even think of applying to U of T or Mcgill. I had a significantly higher average and didn't get in to either because they only accept a small number of students.

I'm in York's Urban planning program and I'm enjoying it so far. Its a part of the Faculty of Environmental Studies. It's a very big program for a grad school (roughly 75 students admitted into the faculty, and about half of those go into the Planning stream) and they dedicate a lot of energy and resources towards their grad students. Also, it's very flexible in terms of courses and subject matter. From planning students that I've talked to they were impressed that I'm going to York (They were at Queens and Dal). Maybe look into it

On the list you gave Ryerson had a good post-bachelor program and I'd imagine a lot of that has been implemented in the new masters program. It's new though, so that should be taken into consideration.

Do the programs use Robert Moses or Jane Jacobs as their guide?

The best is pretty subjective. I recently graduated from U of T's master program in planning. It was pretty good, but I can't compare it to other programs.

The faculty was really great, most profs are always available for help or just to chat about planning. A negative, I often found course selection was limited. A lot of the U of T program is theory based, preparing students for PhDs or policy wonk work, not development review. So if you are looking for a more practical planning program, you might want to look elsewhere.

The numbers are also going up. They are accepting more and more students, so class sizes are getting either bigger or more difficult to even enroll in (especially seminar courses).

What was your undergrad degree in?

Numerous people who had planning undergrad degrees from say Waterloo, found the master program core courses to be repetitive.

I did my undergrad at U of T in Urban Studies and Urban,Economic, and Social Geography. The Urban Studies program didn't really cover at all; it was just a lot of talking about governance and why cities are important and theoretical stuff.

In response to jn_12, I think UBC actually has higher requirements than any other school I looked at because every course you have taken in your last two years of your undergrad has to be at least a 76, while U of T for example requires an average of (B+) 3.3 only in your last year.

What do you guys know about the Planning Accreditation Board? It appears the only Canadian schools that are "accredited" by it are UBC and Montreal.

http://www.planningaccreditationboard.org/index.php?id=30

http://www.cip-icu.ca/web/la/en/pa/5580378D83DC444EB76DE6A461BB2E21/template.asp

U of T might say B+, but that probably won't get you in. Not to say that you couldn't, but odds are you wouldn't. By all means though, go for it. You don't know until you try. I was just being realistic and when you consider that these applications cost around $100 each, if you apply over your head you're pretty much just wasting money. They won't even look at your references or statement without meeting the minimum grade requirements. So just make sure you meet those.

As for accreditation, no one seems to be too interested in the PAB, and in fact it hasn't even been mentioned by anyone (professor or student) in my program and many are CIP/OPPI members. The CIP and in Ontario the OPPI are pretty much all you need to worry about here. I'm 99.9% certain that if you're accredited with CIP and OPPI it is international recognized (otherwise Canadian planning firms wouldn't get international contracts). Perhaps someone who is actually accredited on the UT forum could chime in on this one, but I don't think the PAB is anything to be concerned about.

76 is actually pretty low. I go to Universite de Montreal and have heard of some people with 85+ averages not getting in at McGill. UBC's is the oldest I think. And Calgary is the Dubai of Canada, where you could really put your ideas into real-world practice (although I could never live there). If you understand enough french, I recommend UdeM : you have the opportunity to see a wholly different aspect on the idea of 'planning'. But then again, UdeM is the only grad school in Canada I've attended.

When it comes to grad school, all schools are good - they just each offer or focus on something a little different. McGill-Urban Design whereas UofT-Theory

And just a note: they take your letter of motivation very seriously!
Good Luck

Have you considered an American school? Planetizen releases a top ten list.

Also, what about Waterloo?

Has anyone gotten into Ryerson?