 The University College building at the University of Toronto. (Michael Peake/QMI Agency)
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MONTREAL - McGill University is the top-ranked Canadian school for the ninth consecutive year, just ahead of the University of Toronto, in the QS World University Rankings released this week.
The institutions, ranked 18th and 19th in the world, edged out Duke University which rounds out the top 20. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology was in first place this year, bumping Harvard and Cambridge a spot down to second and third place, respectively.
U of T has made a big jump in the past two years after placing 29th in 2010 and 23rd in the world last year. Its arts and humanities program placed 15th in the world and U of T also scored well in life sciences and medicine (18) and natural sciences (19).
McGill principal and vice-chancellor Heather Munroe-Blum said she was "pleased" by her school's consistently high placing in the rankings but a spokesman warned that the school's placing could slip without stable government funding.
Vice-principal Olivier Marcil said "it would be a miracle" if McGill was still in the top 20 next year.
When asked how his school has been able to compete with the likes of Harvard, Yale and Cambridge, Marcil replied "surely not by financial means. We're not in the same league."
He said the international flavour of the downtown campus and talented professors and researchers, coupled with the teacher-student ratio, has kept McGill in the big leagues.
Four of Montreal's largest hospitals are affiliated with McGill's medical school and the $1.5-billion McGill University Health Centre will be the largest hospital in Canada when it opens in 2015.
Other Canadian universities in the top 50 were Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique (41) and the University of British Columbia (45th).
The QS rankings rate such indicators as quality of research, graduate employability and student-faculty ratio.
The list is published annually by Quacquarelli Symonds, a London-based consulting firm.
