Volleyball. (University of Toronto)
With 14,000 faculty, more than 700 undergraduate programs and around 88,000 students on three campuses, the University of Toronto is in a class of its own. St. George, the leafy downtown campus, has historic stone buildings, while the newer Scarborough and Mississauga campuses are in quieter, suburban settings. U of T’s halls have echoed with the debates of future premiers and prime ministers. It is famous for research on insulin, bone-marrow transplants and regenerative medicine, and for pioneering work in artificial intelligence. U of T is the top-placed Canadian university in Times Higher Education’s 2017 global ranking on employability of graduates. The university also has many initiatives to support student start-up companies. Given its size, one might think professors would be too busy for undergraduates, but the university addresses this with small-group learning opportunities, such as first-year seminars. President Meric Gertler is on a mission to increase those types of opportunities. “We need to reaffirm the enduring value of a broad liberal arts education at the undergraduate level, but also to ask ourselves how we can help our graduates extract the full benefit from that education,” he says.
READ: Where to find the best place for a nap and more on campus
Standout Programs
• City Studies: A multidisciplinary program that teaches students how to tackle the problems of an increasingly urban world; provides skills relevant to fields in city planning, real estate development, transportation, urban governance, housing and more.
• Engineering Science: This multidisciplinary program has two foundational years followed by two years focused on one of eight areas, including aerospace, engineering mathematics and robotics. With diversity as a core value, more than 40 per cent of first-year students in 2016 were female.
• Computer Science: This program prepares students to work in programming, web design and research. It is a leading centre for artificial intelligence research; several of its grads have been recruited by Google.
Cool Courses
• Forensic Engineering: Covers principles of disaster and accident investigation, including automobile and aircraft accident reconstruction and probing possible causes behind fires and explosions.
• Foods That Changed the World: Offered at the Scarborough campus, explores connections between food, environment, culture, religion and society; includes analysis of the global food system and how food practices affect people of different identities.
| Minimum entering grades | Tuition | Number of students | Residence spaces | Graduation and retention rates |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Engineering: 85% to 92% Arts: 73% to 84% Science: 83% to 89% Commerce: 85% to 92% |
$7,774 | Undergraduates: 69,761 Graduates: 16,948 |
8,883 (5,153 reserved for first years) | Graduation: 79.1% Retention: 91.7% |
More Schools: York University, McGill University, Ryerson University, University of Waterloo, Queen’s University
