QS World University Rankings: McGill is Canada’s top university
McGill has been named Canada’s best university, according to the 19th edition of the QS World University Rankings, released today by global higher education analysts QS Quacquarelli Symonds. The University was ranked 31st university in the world.
This year’s QS World University Rankings is the largest ever, with 1,418 institutions across 100 locations, up from 1,300 last year.
This marks the first time in five years that McGill is Canada’s top-ranked university in the QS list. Its place in the rankings is underpinned by consistent performances across QS’ indicators. Specifically, it outperforms Canada’s other two top ranking universities in terms of research. It comes 203rd globally in Citations per Faculty while UT and the University of British Colombia come 313th and 332nd.
McGill ranked 77th in the world, and second in Canada, for the second-most international university in Canada ranked 77th in the world International Student Ratio indicator.
QS uses six indicators to compile the ranking. Academic and Employer Reputation is based on survey responses from more than 150,000 academics and 99,000 employers. Citations per Faculty measures research impact while Faculty/Student Ratio is used as a proxy for teaching capacity. International Faculty Ratio and International Student Ratio are used to record a university’s internationalization. This year, QS added two new unweighted performance lenses. Employment Outcomes assesses the employability of students while International Research Network analyses international research collaboration and knowledge transfer.
Canada is home to three top-100 universities, putting it joint-ninth in the world by this measure, alongside Germany and Switzerland.
“Canada has been steady, if somewhat stagnant for the past five years and this is exemplified in the back-and-forth we see in this year’s rankings when compared to last year,” said Ben Sowter, QS Senior Vice President. “However, its consistency is admirable and is often lost amid focus on the rise of nations like China and Malaysia or the decline of the United States in our rankings.”
“Canada stands out for its international scope and has seen international mobility rise steadily over several years. In 2019 around 16 per cent of its student population came to study from abroad. This record is particularly impressive when assessing student access from lower-middle income nations, who now compose 42 per cent of Canada’s international student population – far higher than the OECD average.”
Earlier this year, the QS Rankings by Subject rated two McGill subjects, Engineering – Mining and Minerals, and Library & Information Management, in the top 10 globally.
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