Ranking the best universities in Canada on how hard they work—and party

When Maclean’s surveyed more than 15,000 students across Canada in 2016, we asked them how much time they spent hitting the books—and how much time they spent hitting the bars. Using those results, we created a new ranking of schools where they know how to work and party hard.

Nationally most students spend about 14 hours studying and about three hours partying. But there is a big difference between schools. We calculated the average number of hours students spent studying and partying for each school, using the total reported number of hours a week divided by the number of respondents.

MORE: A action-packed night at a Top 10 party school

In order to find the schools with the best work-party balance, we ranked the average number of hours students spent hitting the books and separately ranked the number of hours they spent partying. Simply tallying up the number of hours between studying and partying would skew the results. So we devised another approach. We assigned a score to each ranking out of 10. Schools where students spent the most time studying received 10 points, while the school with the lowest ranking received zero. We applied the same scoring system to partying. The two scores were added together to form the basis of our ranking.

While Queen’s didn’t place first for either partying or studying they came pretty close. Queen’s students claim they spend an average of 20 hours a week on their studies, the second highest on our report, and almost five hours partying, good enough for the third spot in that category. No other school came close to achieving that level of balance in their studies and partying.

MORE: Canada’s top party schools 2017

A minimum of 100 responses per school was required for inclusion in our second annual party schools list. Here, we present a list of the top 20 schools in Canada for students who are serious about both their studies and having fun.

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