Canadian universities leap up QS World Rankings list

The University of Toronto has pulled ahead of McGill University and the University of British Columbia in the 2013-14 QS World University Rankings, one of three major annual global comparisons alongside Times Higher Education’s and Shanghai Jiao Tong’s. Those same three are also gold, silver and bronze in the Medical Doctoral category of the Maclean’s Rankings.

But beyond the top three Canadian schools, there are some big—mostly positive—changes. There is a 38 spot leap for Simon Fraser University, a 22 spot improvement for Montreal, 13 spot jumps for Calgary and Ottawa, 12 spot climbs for Alberta and McMaster and an 11 spot increase for Waterloo. Only three dropped significantly: Western (-26), Victoria (-22) and Queen’s (-14).

The weighting is 40 per cent academic reputation surveys, 10 per cent employer reputation surveys, 20 per cent faculty-student ratio (smaller is better), 20 per cent citations per faculty (to measure research) and five per cent each to the proportion of international students and faculty.

Here are all the Canadian universities on the QS list with how they placed in 2012 in parentheses:

17. University of Toronto (19)
21. McGill University (18)
49. University of British Columbia (45)
92. Universite de Montreal (114)
96. University of Alberta (108)
140. McMaster University (152)
180. University of Waterloo (191)
189. Queen’s University (175)
199. Western University (173)
201. University of Calgary (214)
227. University of Ottawa (240)
244. Dalhousie University (243), Simon Fraser University (282)
321. University of Victoria (299)
329. Laval University (324)
401-410. York University (401-450)
411-420. Universite du Quebec (401-450)
421-430. University of Saskatchewan (393)
431-440. University of Manitoba (401-450)
441-450. Universite de Sherbrooke (N/A)
461-470. University of Guelph (401-450)
481-490. Concordia University (501-550)
501-550. Carleton University (501-550)
601-650. Memorial University (N/A)
701+. Ryerson University (N/A), University of Windsor (N/A)

The top 20 schools include 11 in the U.S., six in the U.K., two in Switzerland and one in Canada:

1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2. Harvard University
3. University of Cambridge
4. University College London
5. Imperial College London
6. University of Oxford
7. Stanford University
8. Yale University
9. University of Chicago
10. California Institute of Technology, Princeton University
12. Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
13. University of Pennsylvania
14. Columbia University
15. Cornell University
16. Johns Hopkins University
17. University of Edinburgh, University of Toronto
19. Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, King’s College London