The University of Toronto is widely considered to be the most prestigious post-secondary academic institution in Canada, and its status was just reaffirmed once again in a recent global university study. 

The 2oth edition of the QS World University Rankings ranks U of T as the #1 university in Canada, #2 public university in North America, and 21st out of 1,499 universities globally. 

The results draw on the analysis of 17.5 million academic papers, and the expert opinions of over 240,000 academic faculty and employers. 

Ranking criteria includes academic reputation, employer reputation, faculty student ratio, citations per faculty, international faculty ratio, and international students ratio, as well as three new metrics this year:  international research network, employment outcomes, and sustainability. 

U of T received high scores in sustainability (99.9), academic reputation (99.7), and employment outcomes (96.4), but trailed behind in faculty student ratio (54.2) and citations per faculty (57.2).

The university's most recent ranking is the best it's been since 2015 — when it came in at #20 —and is a notable improvement from last year's 34th place. 

Here are the top 10 universities in Canada, according to the list: 

1. University of Toronto 
2. McGill University 
3. University of British Columbia 
4. University of Alberta 
5. Western University 
6. Université de Montreal 
7. University of Calgary 
8. McMaster University 
9. University of Ottawa 
10. Queen's University

Other universities featured on the global list, included York University at #353, University of Guelph at #486, and Toronto Metropolitan University, which was pooled with other universities in the 851-900 category.

The top 10 global list featured: 

1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) 
2. University of Cambridge 
3. University of Oxford 
4. Harvard University 
5. Stanford University 
6. Imperial College London 
7. ETH Zurich
8. National University of Singapore 
9. UCL 
10. University of California, Berkeley