In this year’s edition of the QS World University Rankings, only three Canadian universities made it into the top 50, with McGill University coming in at the top.
The rankings are published annually by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), a UK-based company that analyzes higher education and provides comparative data.
McGill University is 31st on the list, scoring 81.9 out of a possible 100.
The University of Toronto is not far behind, at number 34 on the list, achieving a score of 81.5.
Rounding out the top three Canadian universities on the list is the University of British Columbia in 47th place, with 77 points.
The top five universities in the world, according to QS, are Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA), Cambridge University (UK), Stanford University (USA), Oxford University (UK) and Harvard University (USA). This is the 11th year in a row that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has reached the top spot.
The entire list includes more than 1,400 universities from around the world.
A press release said this year’s rankings were their “biggest ever”, covering a total of 100 destinations “with the US, UK and mainland China being the most representative.”
Organizations are scored across several categories to create a final list. QS looks at a school’s reputation in an academic context and from employers. They then look at the faculty-to-student ratio and the international student-to-student or domestic faculty ratio. Finally, they review the citations per faculty member to gauge the impact and high quality of upcoming research from the university.
Canada’s next best performing universities between 100 and 200 on the list are the University of Alberta at 110, the University of Montreal at 116, McMaster University at 152, the University of Waterloo at 154 and Western University. at position 172.
Following them are the University of Ottawa (237), University of Calgary (242), Queen’s University (246), Dalhousie University (308), Simon Fraser University (328), Victoria University (359), Laval University , York University (456), University of Saskatchewan (473), all in the top 500.
QS first began publishing its annual rankings of the world’s universities in 2004.
This year’s rankings show Canadian universities taking a tumble from last year, with the University of Toronto at 26 on the list, ahead of McGill at 27, while UBC comes in at 46 in the list. list.
