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I'm going to approach this from the perspective of a teenager that's currently growing up in Palo Alto. I attend Palo Alto High School. There are many Pros and many Cons.Pros:Great weather (according to most). Although I personally would have loved to grow up in an area where there are actual seasons, the weather here is pretty darn good. It's always pretty warm. It doesn't snow, and it doesn't rain much.It's very safe. There isn't much crime (at least, compared to other areas). It's the type of environment where you could [mostly] trust your child to walk around and explore on their own.The community is very accepting of LGBTs. While there is a lot of things we aren't as accepting of, Palo Alto is extremely liberal, and so it makes sense that it reflects a very socially liberal viewpoint.Kids don't worry as much about being popular. While almost every teenager makes an effort to fit in, Palo Alto doesn't really have popular kids. Maybe it's that high schools in general aren't at all like what they're reflected to be like on tv, or maybe it can be credited to Palo Alto's uniqueness, but the high schools in the area don't really have many cliques. They do however, worry about not being smart enough (being a nerd is cool here!)Kids here value hard work. While below I did make the case that many of us are spoiled, I feel as if it's a different type of spoiled then what's usually meant. Sure, we live in an area where people make a lot of money, but every single one of those people worked hard for their money. We are surrounded by people who put in the time, effort, and dedication to get to where they are - they weren't handed any money, they earned it. Living in Palo Alto may have influenced us to like nice things, but it's also influenced us to pursue our dreams. I'm almost positive that every one of my friends would choose to work (even if they didn't need to), because we're ambitious people. We have huge career goals for ourselves and we will stop nowhere short of accomplishing them. Not every teenager gets their own iPhone and laptop, but at the same time, the average teenager comes nowhere near to exhibiting the level of hard work and dedication that a Palo Alto teen does.You're surrounded by brilliant and innovative people. Most people surrounding you are very smart and educated. Kids that grow up here have very high educational standards. They strive to be the very best, and while many times that leads to unbearable stress, it also leads to incredibly innovative and intelligent teenagers.The public schools have great resources. The public schools are well funded and offer many classes. Note that I didn't say the public schools offer a good education (will be discussed in the cons)...There are plenty of extra curricular opportunities. This is especially true for people interested in STEM based jobs. Plenty teens have internships at UCSF and Stanford. There are also plenty of other programs in the area; Stanford has a few summer programs and internship availabilities for teens interested in scientific research and medicine. Silicon Valley is also very active and many kids participate in club sports.Cons:Everyone buys into stereotypes. As Emilya Burd mentioned, if you're Asian or Indian, everyone expects you to be smart. To the point where everyone (even parents) are in shock if asians/indians aren't at least in the highest math/science lanes, or even a year ahead. If you're white, you have to prove that you are smart. Worst of all, if you're of a minority (black, hispanic), people automatically assume that you aren't smart. I recently overheard a girl exclaiming how surprised she was that an African American girl was in the highest math and science lanes. She was genuinely shocked.The public schools aren't great. You hear a lot of good things about the public schools in the Bay Area - they're well ranked and the students go on to do amazing things. However, I would say that most of the students' successes come from their own merit, not the schools they attend or the teachers they have. As many of the students are naturally smart and come from families that expect a lot from them, they do well in high school. Teachers take this as an excuse to rely on iPads and self-learning - they barely teach (or at least, they don't teach well) and they never get confronted for it because just enough students do well that their failures as teachers go unnoticed. This is one of the major causes for the divide between the wealthy and the not so wealthy; the teachers "teach" to the students that have tutors. If a student isn't receiving "extra help," they won't succeed.It is VERY stressful. Going to high school here is EXTREMELY difficult academically, and causes the teenagers here an immense amount of stress. The standard at Palo Alto schools is very high. People that would be top of their class at any other school, are completely lost in the middle. They sometimes barely even make the top 20% of their class. It makes you feel pretty worthless. You work your butt off and yet there will always be a ridiculous amount of people that are way better than you are. I'm talking about people that are taking multivariable calculus as freshman. People that got 2300s (or higher) on the SAT in 7th grade. People that went to your middle school, and yet somehow now attend a world class university such as Berkeley or Stanford (at the age of 14). These are teenagers whose parents made them take all of the AP science classes in middle school, and who have a tutor for every single subject. There are so many of these people that it has almost become normal. These people may be the exception, but you don't need the whole student body to be filled with geniuses to make you feel incompetent. As long as there are those few, you just know that they will be taking your spot at any of the colleges that you dream of attending. Don't get me wrong, after high school, most of the kids that grow up here tend to do better than other teenagers. While many people that go to college from other areas are completely unprepared, people coming from Palo Alto usually don't find it as hard, because the jump is not as large. However, high school is a living hell for many of us (but, I guess this is true for most people...). Don't get me wrong, it's awesome that as kids we are pushed to work hard and that we are surrounded by very intelligent people. However, many times it gets to be way too much. The stress here causes an enormous amount of competition; some parents don't even let their kids disclose their college counselors or SAT/ACT because they want them all to themselves. Every student is on their own. Teens lie about their grades, about what's going to be on a test, and there is a huge cheating problem in Palo Alto High Schools. Hell, teens here compete over how little sleep they get; it is not uncommon to hear people bragging about getting only 3 hours of sleep every night, or about having 8 hours of homework a night. It's a ridiculously complex and contradicting cycle of the students here wanting to act as if they have the most stressful lives, and yet at the same time that they're just so smart that everything comes easily to them. The stress and ridiculous expectations turns many of these kids into living, breathing, cheating, robots.In addition to what I said above, all of the teenagers are incredibly fake. Everything they do is for college. To give you an idea of just how fake (and shameless) some of these kids are, I have multiple indian friends who were told by their parents to choose incredibly dark photos of themselves and to not state their ethnicities in any of their applications, as an attempt to pass off as black (shockingly, it actually worked). Every move these kids make, activity they participate in, and article they post on Facebook is calculated in such a way as to make them the ideal ivy league applicant. They sweep glass at a Stanford lab for 2 hours a week and call it a "research internship." They get jobs at their parent's companies and they play it off as their own accomplishments. As I mentioned somewhere above, these kids have 4 tutors and yet they pretend that school just "comes naturally" for them. Every grade they get, they tell people they got 5% - 10% higher. They're so caught up in getting As that they have no clue what makes them happy. Most of the students here don't even have real friends; if you look at some of these high schools during lunch time, 70% of the students will be sitting on the grass in small circular groups, eyes glued to their phones, small talk occurring every few minutes. Most of these students don't have many (if any) real friends, because how can you be friends with someone you're competing against? How can you be a true friend to someone, when every time they get a better grade than you, your jealousy overcomes how much you care for them. How can you be a true friend to someone, when every time you have to submit an assignment, or have a test, you pray they do poorly, because their failures mean all the more chance of you getting into your dream college. How can you be a true friend to someone, when you can't even tell them your top college choices because you don't want them to apply and take "your" spot. When a community like Silicon Valley expects so much of its teenagers, how can you possibly expect them to be themselves?The culture is extremely toxic (at least to teenagers). In the point above I explained just how stressful the high schools are. However, to be honest, school is but one of the stressful things in Silicon Valley. It isn't fair to blame the schools, because the schools' ideals mimic the community's ideals. Silicon Valley is obsessed with being the best, often at an incredibly shallow level. They want the ones that went to ivy leagues and that live perfect suburban lives. They want "natural intelligence" -- you know, Stanford smart. The type of smart where everything just comes easily to you. School may cause us teenagers stress, but growing up in Silicon Valley, with the community's ridiculous expectations and judgments, that's what really screws us up.The people here are too liberal. Being an extremist on either side of the political spectrum is bad (be it liberalism or conservatism). Many of the people in Silicon Valley are extremely liberal, to the point where they are completely biased and ridiculous in their beliefs (and statements). For example, the history classes in Palo Alto are unbelievably biased. The teachers are so worried about being politically correct that we as students suffer, and end up getting an incredibly biased, sheltered, and inaccurate education. Not only that, but most people in Silicon Valley blindly look down upon conservatives. Silicon Valley schools may pride themselves on being accepting, but I have most definitely seen people be ridiculed for holding moderate conservative beliefs.It gives you a relatively naive view on the world. We live in a very rich and privileged area. Everyone surrounding us went to a top university, founded their own start up and has maybe even become a billionaire before the age of 25 (Mark Zuckerberg)... We have no idea what the real world is like. I wasn't even going to mention it at first because it seemed so normal to me, but the reality is, most people do not have the newest iPhones and iPads. Most people don't own macbook pros or have their own google glass. It's not normal for your high school's parking lot to be filled with cars that cost over $20,000. Not even that, but most families can't afford to give their children enough money to buy coffee and get lunch at Town and Country (an area across the street that features restaurants and shops) every day. Some of these things may be little, and we most likely don't even stop to think about them, but over time, they add up. They're small things, but they represent an immensely different lifestyle.There is a huge divide between the wealthy and the not so wealthy. The area is so expensive that most of our teachers can't even afford to live within a 20 mile radius of the schools they teach in. Some of them drive over two hours every morning just to get to school. There are also a lot of kids that live in East Palo Alto that attend Palo Alto High School. Their lives are drastically different from ours; there is a huge divide between the kids living in East Palo Alto and between the kids living in Palo Alto. Although people are generally accepting, there is definitely this (often subconscious) idea of them not being "as good" as us. If your parent isn't an engineer, doctor, or lawyer, then people generally look down on you. It may not be evident in our actions, but it's definitely what the people around here think.We barely value anything other than STEM classes. Most people that I go to school with think that English and History are a joke. Math and science are ALWAYS the classes that people place emphasis on. A large number of my friends' parents let them (and encourage them) to skip these classes in order to study for their math and science classes. This is even worse for the arts. The kids and parents here barely care about the arts; we have been raised to value careers in STEM and so we barely hold any value for other career options.Teens are robbed of their youth. Not only is there no such thing as a "rebellious stage" for most Silicon Valley teens, but our youth ends by middle school. By 7th grade teens are getting private tutors to get ahead, are already taking AP classes, and are taking (aka acing) the SAT/ACT. By age 10 we start calculating which extracurriculars will look best on our college applications. I cannot remember the last time once of my friends participated in an activity for fun (or hell, for the sake of their happiness). It's such an important thing, and yet it is widely ignored by almost every Bay Area teenager.In conclusion, I'm still very undecided on this subject. The area is fantastic! As a parent I would most definitely want my child to grow up in an environment like this! But as a student, I'm not so sure...NOTE: This is describing more of the Palo Alto, and generally wealthier areas in Silicon Valley. As many people have pointed out in the comments, there are also quite a few poor areas in Silicon Valley, for which what I wrote above doesn't necessarily apply to.

2021 answer (based on knowing many of them and integrating many of them into my network): It depends on which industry you want to crack into. Some industries (like finance and VC, are often hard to access unless you enter an Ivy League school, or at least a school in the northeast where many of these connections start off [eg Will Manidis went to Olin rather than an Ivy])You can get *so* many of the social benefits of an Ivy League school by just living next to the school and joining in on student organizations/sitting on classes/hanging out with undergrads at the schools. Many students at Ivies have less “tunnel vision” than students at state schools simply because they’re exposed to people from all over the world and have richer life experiences.I updated this after I finally ended up surfing Ivy League schools, living next to Harvard, and watching as many Harvard and Princeton students changed my internal psyche from within (in *really really* good ways). They often had the highest amount of insights on my psyche that people from elsewhere did not have, and smart undergrads are often the best people to “develop” with because they have insane amounts of fluid intelligence, are not super-attached, and are more likely to find you fascinating than older professors are. [the story of this, btw, will take pages and pages to really write up, but it needs to be written]. Many of the “best” (or “most compatible”) students at top universities, incidentally, end up disappointed with most of the other students at their own university (or only end up discovering the “good ones” in their last year, when it’s almost too late), but discovering the “good ones” is not always difficult when there are certain routes of finding them (it sometimes depends on luck, but they sometimes also gravitate towards certain organizations, and they are easier to find over social media than before).The level of resourcefulness students have with navigating their own school is also *much* higher for students at Ivies than students at most “state universities”.Being “good at the Internet” can make you more impressive than the vast majority of students at top schools, but if you want to *truly* make the most out of every minute of your life to make the most optimized and fulfilled life ever, you *own* the internet *and* spend your IRL surrounded by some of the smartest most neuroplastic people you can ever meet in your formative years (there are now a few other alternatives, such as Thiel Fellow, Interact Fellowship, and Mercatos Center networks, and you can get far more out of hanging out with Thiel Fellows than students at top universities, but there aren’t that many Thiel Fellows so it may be easier for many just to hang with students at top schools.)Old answers: It depends.There is a fairly well-known 1999 study (by Stacy Dale and Alan Krueger) [1] that basically shows that students who apply to Ivies but ultimately don't attend Ivies just do as well as students who ultimately attend Ivy League schools, income-wise. Most students who apply to Ivies usually have certain characteristics (along with academic qualifications) that tend to be quite beneficial to them no matter where they end up.Below is a summary of the study: (another summary at How much does where you go to college affect earnings? )Who Needs Harvard?But maybe the kids who got into Yale were simply more talented or hardworking than those who got into Tulane. To adjust for this, Krueger and Dale studied what happened to students who were accepted at an Ivy or a similar institution, but chose instead to attend a less sexy, "moderately selective" school. It turned out that such students had, on average, the same income twenty years later as graduates of the elite colleges. Krueger and Dale found that for students bright enough to win admission to a top school, later income "varied little, no matter which type of college they attended." In other words, the student, not the school, was responsible for the success.Keep in mind, though, that this original study tracked students who graduated in 1976, and tracked their incomes by 1995. So it may not necessarily be as applicable today (as top colleges have become even more competitive today, and the applicant pool is most likely stronger).There is one newer study (http://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/51889/1/664668143.pdf ) that tracks students who were freshman in 1989 and which tracks their incomes through the mid-2000s, and which comes to fundamentally similar conclusions.As you can see from the link below, however, some students benefit more from attending top colleges than other students.Revisiting the Value of Elite CollegesIt’s important to note, though, that a few major groups did not fit the pattern: black students, Latino students, low-income students and students whose parents did not graduate from college. “For them, attending a more selective school increased earnings significantly,” Mr. Krueger has written. Why? Perhaps they benefit from professional connections they would not otherwise have. Perhaps they acquire habits or skills that middle-class and affluent students have already acquired in high school or at home.There should be a number of other important points to make (regarding whether or not going to an Ivy is worth it).(1) Harvard, Yale, and Princeton generally offer generous financial aid to most students. So going to those places generally shouldn't break a student financially. This could be different for other Ivy League schools, which don't necessarily have that level of financial aid.(2) A lot of it depends on what you ultimately want to do. Going to an Ivy League school definitely helps if you want to, say, become an investment banker. There are a number of other types of careers that hire very heavily from Ivy League schools, and where having an Ivy League degree can literally mean the difference between whether or not your resume gets read or not. Also, the Ivy League connections matter more for some fields than for others (and can be quite big if you go to, say, UPenn's Wharton).That said, 1st-year college students often change their idea of what they want to do in college (as horrible as it sometimes sounds).(3) Location. Much of it could also depend on resources available at the school that you can't necessarily get in your home state. Many Ivy League schools are in the Northeast, and if you're interested in fields like journalism or finance, it's much easier to get opportunities in the Northeast than it is to get in one's home state (of course, this also applies for universities like NYU and Boston University). And also since (somehow) the Northeast urban corridor doesn't have any particularly strong public universities at the level of Berkeley/Michigan/Washington.(4) Risk. If you're not the most conscientious person (and aren't prone to getting the highest grades - or if you want to spend significant time on extracurriculars), it may actually be safer to go to an Ivy League school than a state school. There is more grade inflation at Ivy League schools (see National Trends in Grade Inflation, American Colleges and Universities ) even when you control for student quality. Furthermore, people will at least be somewhat more likely to look at your resume/application if you came from an Ivy.Some schools (like the University of Washington) also don't seem to treat all their undergrads equally, in that admissions to some of their departments (like Computer Science) is competitive even once you're in. You don't see these types of hurdles at most Ivies (UPenn being a possible exception).(5) If you simply need more time to graduate, it may be easier to stay longer than 4 years to graduate at a state school than at an Ivy. Also, if for some reason you can't find a job/position post-graduation and have to live with your parents, it may be much easier to do this by attending the local state university (though this depends on the strength and opportunities of the local state university).This could be especially relevant if you have student debt left. If you couldn't secure a position post-graduation, the debt could be especially harsh on you (though most Ivy students eventually find some form of employment).(6) I think it would be especially informative if these studies tracked broke down post-graduation earnings by specific field. All of these studies are fairly old, and the job market could have changed since then (for example - computer science has definitely exploded in popularity since then). I'd be especially curious to see if Humanities students at Ivy League universities enjoyed an advantage in finding positions compared with Humanities students at state universities.Most Ivy League schools (other than Columbia and Cornell) also tend to be comparatively weak at engineering, which is one of the higher-paying fields. It's possible that in terms of average salaries, better engineering opportunities at some state universities could partially compensate for weaker opportunities in finance, journalism, and other fields.(7) It may be easier to make friends at Ivy League schools (especially for students who are smart enough to get into Ivy League schools to begin with). As Sean Carroll says in an article quoted below, the best part about Ivies is your fellow students. The students who you will be friends with are more likely to be the world-changers of the future (though many Ivy students I know don't seem to have those connections). And perhaps most importantly, they're more likely to be the people who will push/nudge you to be at your very best (both inside and outside the classroom). It takes a certain type of pressure to do that, and it's hard to find that at state schools.Many state universities are commuter schools, and it's generally much harder to closely bond with other students when you're not living with them all the time (though this probably doesn't apply as much for isolated schools like UIUC and Penn State). Furthermore, many in state universities remain in the same friend groups as the ones they had back with their high school friends (though not all of them), and it's often harder to make friends in the larger 1st-2nd year introductory courses offered in state universities. By the time class sizes get smaller in people's 3rd-4th years, most students are already somewhat more established and harder to become friends with.Many Ivy League students seem to bond particularly well with their peers and with their alma mater. But this does not happen with all Ivy League students - I know several who pretty much felt lonely and isolated in their own school. One advantage of state schools is that they have so many students compared with Ivies, which also means that there's often a wider diversity of student organizations and clubs at them.(8) As I've hinted several times before, much of it really depends on the opportunities that exist within your state (and your local university). If you lived in California, for example, then there's a much weaker argument for going into debt just to go to an Ivy because there are so many amazing opportunities at the UC schools. But if you live in a state that doesn't have especially strong public universities (which tends to be true for New England, for some reason), then you may benefit a lot from going to an Ivy, even if it meant taking out student loans.If you want to go to grad school, then it the relative strengths of state university vs Ivy also must be taken into account. If you come from California, for example, you can get amazing research opportunities within the University of California system - opportunities that may even beat those that you get at most Ivy schools. On the other hand, you may be interested in a specific field that your local university may be weak at. When it comes to graduate admissions in some programs, letters of recommendation and research are often the most important factor. In that case, the strength of a program (or the professor you work under) can be an extremely important factor, especially if things don't go perfectly for you and you're unable to get stellar grades in undergrad.Unsolicited Advice, Part Three: Choosing an Undergraduate School gives some amazing advice on choosing an undergrad school (from an astrophysicist's point of view). As Sean Carroll says, the best part of an elite private university is the other students.The best thing about an EPU is the other students. So much so, that at a place like Harvard it’s generally acknowledged that a large fraction of your education comes from extracurricular activities. You’ll meet people, in your field and out, who will be running the world a few years down the line. The professors will be great researchers who may or may not be interested in teaching; there will likely be some opportunities for research and individual contact, but not all that much.The college years are a very formative period of one's life, and they can really change someone. I believe that one of the most important things that students can do is to try to do things that can expand their imagination of what's possible. Some of the experiences that people have from fantastic college experiences are impossible to quantify in terms of dollars or debt - they're worth it despite all the debt. Some students are better at getting these experiences than others - they're not guaranteed at either an Ivy or a state school. But for many students, they might be somewhat more likely at an Ivy.[1] Page on Nber. Also see 2002 paper at http://faculty.smu.edu/millimet/classes/eco7321/papers/dale%20krueger.pdf

I find that many of the answers here are helpful, but I’m not sure they address the issues that are really going to matter most to Americans moving here. I’ll do my best.Some background: I moved from the US to Canada in late 2004. I chose to move mostly because I’d recently been laid off from my job, and my best job offer was in Vancouver, and anywhere on the coast looked like a nice change of scenery from Dallas. But the fact that I’d also become increasingly disillusioned with how post-9/11 America was shaping up, and that this job was in Canada and a chance to try out life on the other side — that certainly contributed and gave it an edge over another offer based in Chicago.The pros: For me individually, moving to Canada has been one of the best things I’ve ever done. There are a number of things I really love about Canada, some of which I didn’t even fully appreciate until after I was here. A sampling:Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, and many other places in Canada are world-class cities in their own right, and great places to live regardless of what nation they’re in.Diversity and multiculturalism. Particularly, women, LGBT, and non-white people are treated way more like equals in Canada than they are in the US. It’s not perfect, but definitely better. And when you have a population where multiculturalism and acceptance already the norm, racial tensions and sexism and homophobia have far less of a foothold.MUCH less violence and violent crime than the US. I regularly walk on foot through objectively the “worst” neighbourhood in Canada, whereas there were plenty of places in in the US that I wouldn’t even drive through in a car, let alone walk around on foot.Healthcare, parental leave, general health benefits, higher minimum wage - Just about everyone you meet is happier, healthier, and more productive. Doesn’t mean it’s perfect, but it’s better, and I also suspect this is a huge reason behind the lower crime rate. When people are healthy and have the right support structures to get and keep a good job, there’s less reason for them to rob you (among other things), and the economy in general is stronger.Better community resources. The libraries, community centres, public programs, festivals, etc, are really terrific here. More than in the US, people’s lives happen outside, in public places, with each other.More rational political climate. I think the 4+ party system helps with this, but maybe it’s cultural, too. Canadians as a rule are far less polarized, less angry, and less dogmatic than Americans tend to be. It’s refreshing.Not a militaristic nation except for peacekeeping and defence. The world sees Canada as a country that swoops in and saves the day (WW1, WW2), promotes the peace otherwise, and is never a big bully that other nations need to fear, hate, or retaliate against. Canada is a respected nation almost everywhere in the world, and Canadians are proud of that.Now the more tricky considerations:Most importantly, you can’t just up and move to Canada. There’s a process. You may not even be approved at all. It’s easier than immigrating to the US, I think, but not negligible. It’s hard. For all the thousands of Americans who TALK of moving to Canada for political reasons from time to time, the reality is that in the past twelve years I’ve met 1) a couple dozen 1970s Vietnam-era draft dodgers (BC seems to be full of them), and 2) only one (ONE!) couple who moved specifically because of politics. And they’re the same couple who are also regularly interviewed by CBC, The Guardian, and so on about packing up and moving to Canada, which really reinforces the idea that they really are the only couple most other people have ever met, too. I do know rumours of a few others, friends of friends, but only a few. So that tells you something about the cost and difficulty of actually following through on this plan rather than just talking about it.Most people in general immigrate to Canada because they already have a job here. Very few (other than refugees) move first for some other reason (politics, you say?) and then job-hunt later. And the ones that do it that way really struggle. There’s a reason for that….Immigration is expensive. You know how some landlords expect a huge deposit + first two months rent? Imagine that, for basically every aspect of your life (housing, car, telephone deposit, electric company deposit, new driver’s license, fees for new government IDs, 90 day healthcare premium period, new job expenses, etc). It takes a tremendous amount of cash, which you also need to convert into the new currency, which incurs a penalty. Also, still paying for your car? Prepare to pay it off or sell it; you can’t take that US loan with you. That 2 or 3 year cell phone plan that seemed like such a great deal at the time? Using it in Canada now means $2/minute or more in roaming fees — set aside some money to pay off that device subsidy balance or early cancellation fees. And if that weren’t enough, like any other move, you may also need new clothes. And housewares. Especially if you’re moving in wintertime.But I can just rack up some debt at first, right? Surprise, no. You have no credit rating here, and you may even be considered an international default risk when applying for new lines of credit. Mortgage lenders are usually willing to check international credit ratings, but literally no one else is (credit cards, auto loan lenders, banks, phone company, electric company). They literally have no idea who you are, as if you were born yesterday. So strengthening the point above, 1) be prepared to pay a cash deposit for EVERYTHING, 2) including locking some much needed cash behind a cash-secured credit card, because it’s the only kind you’re allowed to get and you’re going to need one for certain kinds of purchases, and 3) okay, you can keep your US credit cards for a while to carry some debt, but remember that every time you use them there’s one currency conversion to convert the CAD purchase into USD for your card, a second currency conversion the other direction to change your CAD earnings to USD to pay the card balance (unless you stashed even more cash away in a USD savings account), and then further international purchase fees on top of that — a $100CAD purchase can end up costing you $140CAD or more after all those fees and currency conversions.Temporary worker status. Until you become a permanent resident (like a US “green card”), and eventually a citizen, each of which can take several years, you will likely be living in Canada on a temporary work visa. That means all that money you paid to move your stuff up here? Well, if you lose your job, commit the wrong legal infraction, etc, etc, etc, you could be paying that same money all over again to move right back to the US where you started. It’s like a Damocles Sword that hangs over your head every single day. “I hate this job, but if I quit, I could be deported. If I don’t do well enough and get fired, I could be deported.” Think about it. Also listen to the news in the US with this in mind: Every time you hear people talking about wanting to reduce the number of temporary foreign workers, about someone being deported for whatever reason, about immigrants stealing Americans’ jobs . . . imagine that’s now you, and imagine how you’ll feel hearing those kinds of stories from the opposite perspective. You need to be ready for that.One more thing on worker status. There’s a significant chance your spouse won’t be approved to work at all. Say goodbye to that dual income for a while. Exactly when you need it most.Travel. Another thing new immigrants to Canada fail to fully account for is that now any trip to the US is an international flight. At international flight costs. With international border-crossing restrictions. And related to work visas, permanent residence applications, and so on, there will even be large blocks of time (a month or two at a time) during these processes where you’re not allowed to leave the country, or if you do, you may not be let back in. Ageing parents back in the States? Other emergencies that could pop up and demand immediate travel? You’ll have to make some tough choices from time to time. Even a phone call is an expensive international call now, unless you can teach them how to use Skype or Facetime. You’re a lot farther away.Professional considerations. The US has better standing than some other countries when it comes to professional certifications and experience, but it’s not perfect. Don’t expect all your “credits” to transfer. Add to this the context that the Canadian hiring culture puts a huge premium on specifically Canadian work experience, even for English-speaking white American male applicants who unknowingly take for granted the special edge they get back home. Now you’re just another of those immigrants “stealing people’s jobs” so to speak, and official government policy supports employers in legally discriminating against you in favour of Canadian citizens. Expect that you’ll likely have to take a lower-paying, lower-title job when you arrive, and that may last for a while. Or, if your chosen field already suffers high unemployment numbers, your immigration application may be rejected entirely.General culture shock. Canada is a lot like the US, but just different enough that you’re guaranteed to feel homesick about SOMETHING: missing your favourite foods or your favourite places, already knowing the processes for renewing license plates and driver’s licenses rather than constantly having to figure out new bureaucracy, missing your family as you work through US Thanksgiving and other mismatched holidays, not having to deal with the constant reminder of being an outsider when people joke about your accent and spelling and pronunciation (I personally focused on quickly assimilating in that regard, because otherwise people’s comments, even when well-meaning, were a constant painful reminder that I didn’t fit in here — you’ll feel it, too), general differences in social habits, and generally just a lot of little things that feel foreign or a little weird. It’s like those parallel universe sci-fi shows where the guy thinks he’s home but keeps having an odd feeling, and sooner or later goes outside and realises the sky is green instead of blue. For the first week, the little differences are fun, but then they really start to wear you down until you finally learn them and accept them. Navigating from day to day in even a marginally different environment takes far more work than you think.And generally, you’re really starting from scratch: no friends, no family other than those you bring with you, not even a favourite place you like to go eat or hang out when you’re at the end of your rope. It sounds silly, but most people are totally unaware of how many safety nets they have in their current life until they lose them.In conclusion, I’ll reiterate that in the long term, moving here turned out to be one of the best choices I ever made for my own life. But I can’t emphasize enough how hard it is, and that it may not be the right thing for many people. My company was hiring a bunch of people all at once for a major project, and of the Americans who moved for the job, roughly 70–80% moved back to the US within 3 years or so, for various reasons. What Americans forget is that moving to Canada makes you an immigrant, just like the immigrants coming to you. Look how hard their lives are. Ask yourself honestly if that’s the life you’re willing to sign up for in order to get the benefits you’re hoping to find in Canada. The benefits are here, but they don’t come to the weak of heart.But I do guarantee: if you do it, you will totally rethink the way you see immigrants and refugees, foreigners and minorities, outsiders in general, all around the world. You’ll realize they’re not the villains in this story; they’re the lonely voyagers, the fearless adventurers, the faithful mothers and fathers, the loyal friends, the people who sacrificed everything for themselves for a better life for their families. That’s one of the things I value most about my move here. It’s a gift that can be earned few other ways than by becoming an outsider yourself. Decide well, and good luck. If you make it here, I’d love to meet you.