/
1x
Advertisement

True North Strong Free. Subscribe today.

Students party at Laine Hall residence at St. Francis Xavier University.
(Photograph by Mikaela MacKenzie)
Students party at Laine Hall residence at St. Francis Xavier University. (Photograph by Mikaela MacKenzie) Photograph by Mikaela MacKenzie

Canada’s top party schools 2020

Which schools’ students log the most hours having fun? And how many hours on average are Canadian students partying? The results of our annual student survey.
Add Maclean's(opens in a new tab)

Maclean’s surveyed more than 18,000 university students across Canada in 2019 and asked them to estimate how much time they spend partying each week. We tallied the average weekly party hours for each school, removing extreme outliers to ensure a small number of “super partiers” don’t skew the results. We don’t know if it was the legalization of marijuana, a festive mood in the air, or something else entirely, but students across the country reported spending significantly more time living it up compared to the previous year. The average student in 2019 spent 4.7 hours per week partying, up from 3.0 hours the year before. Respondents said they spent an average of $12.86 on drinking each week—up from $11.80 in 2018—and consumed an average of 3.9 alcoholic beverages, compared to 3.3 the previous year. Contrary to what you see in the movies, however, most students don’t drink or party much at all, with about one-third reporting they never engage in either activity. Check out our ranking of schools where students party the most. All numbers are self-reported.

Party Schools 2020

RankUniversity Hours Partying
1St. Francis Xavier University10.6
2Bishop's University8.8
3Queen's University8.5
4Acadia University8.2
5Western University7.0
6Wilfrid Laurier University6.7
*7McGill University6.6
*7Mount Allison University6.6
9Dalhousie University6.2
10University of New Brunswick5.8
11Laurentian University5.4
12Lakehead University5.3
13Trent University4.9
*14Carleton University4.8
*14University of Ottawa4.8
16University of Guelph4.6
17Ryerson University4.4
18St. Thomas University4.2
*19Brock University4.1
*19Concordia University (Montreal)4.1
*19Ontario Tech4.1
*19Université de Sherbrooke4.1
*19University of Victoria4.1
*19University of Windsor4.1
25Nipissing University4.0
26Saint Mary's University3.9
27McMaster University3.8
*28The University of British Columbia (UBC)3.6
*28Memorial University of Newfoundland3.6
*28University of Toronto3.6
*28York University3.6
32University of Alberta3.5
*33University of Lethbridge3.4
*33University of Regina3.4
*33University of Waterloo3.4
36University of Saskatchewan3.2
37Simon Fraser University3.0
38University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC)2.9
*39University of Manitoba2.8
*39Université de Moncton2.8
41The University of Winnipeg2.7
42University of Calgary2.5
43Brandon University2.0

Get the Best of Maclean’s straight to your inbox.

Sign up for news, commentary, analysis and promotions. Join 80,000+ Canadian readers.