This is the 18th year that Maclean’s has published its Canadian university rankings. The universities are ranked in 3 categories:
•    undergraduate institutions - schools with few graduate programs
•    comprehensive institutions - schools with a significant amount of research activity, undergraduate and graduate programs
•    medical-doctoral institutions - universities with a broad range of PhD programs, research and medical schools.

The data used by Maclean’s is publicly available from the schools and third-party sources including Statistics Canada and other agencies. The six broad indicators were:

1.    student award winners and class size
2.    caliber of faculty
3.    research money and other resources
4.    student assistance and scholarships
5.    library resources
6.    reputation

Based on their findings these are the results.

UNDERGRADUATE INSTITUTIONS:

1.    Mount Allison in Sackville, NB
2.    University of Northern British Columbia
3.    Acadia in Wolfville, NS
4.    St. Francis Xavier in Antigonish, NS
5.    Wilfrid Laurier in Waterloo, ON
6.    Trent University in Peterborough, ON

COMPREHENSIVE INSTITUTIONS:

1.    Simon Fraser University in British Columbia and University of Victoria
3.    Waterloo
4.    University of Guelph
5.    Memorial University in St. John’s, NL and University of New Brunswick

MEDICAL-DOCTORAL INSTITUTIONS:

1.    McGill University in Montreal
2.    University of Toronto
3.    Queen’s University in Kingston
4.    University of Alberta
5.    McMaster University in Hamilton

The survey also found that there is an increasing interest by the institutions on improving their undergraduate programs. There is a decline in youth population in certain provinces, most notably in the Maritimes and this is impacting enrolment numbers. Canada many have to start actively looking to attract greater numbers of foreign students.

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