> All the universities are pretty easy to get into as long as you have the grades, especially for undergrad.

The is partially true but leaves out an important difference between Canadian and American admissions. In Canada you are admitted to a particular major, not the university as a whole.

E.g. At the University of Waterloo, CS and some of the engineering majors can have < 5% admissions rate and are extremely merit based. At the same time, applying for the general Bachelor of Arts at UWaterloo is uncompetitive and very easy to get admitted.

Pretty sure this is true for most universities in the US as well. It was for me nearly 30 years ago at a big state school