University of Toronto makes list of top 50 schools in the world

A new global ranking has only recognized two Canadian universities among the top 50 in the world.

Shanghai Ranking released its 2024 Academic Ranking of World Universities on Thursday. The ranking examines 2,500 global institutions, including 27 Canadian schools.

The report considers several factors when ranking schools, including Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, the number of highly cited researchers, the number of articles published in journals of Nature and Science, papers indexed in major citation indices, and a university's per capita performance.

Each of those criteria is weighted, and schools are given a score out of 100.

The University of Toronto placed 26th globally and first in Canada, with a score of 39.6 out of 100. However, its ranking dropped two spots from last year as it fell from 24th place globally.

UBC in British Columbia was the second Canadian school to place in the top 50 spots and landed in 47th. It scored 33.3 out of 100 and dropped three spots from its 44th-place ranking in 2023.

Only one other Canadian school made it to the top 100.

Shanghai Ranking

McGill University placed 74th globally and third in Canada, surpassing the University of Alberta, which dropped drastically from the 91st-place ranking it received in 2023.

U.S. schools dominate the top 10

Once again, Harvard University took first place, receiving a perfect score of 100 in the ranking. The Ivy League school has topped the list for the past 22 years, noted a press release from Shanghai Ranking.

U.S. schools dominated the top three spots, as Standford and MIT came in second and third place, respectively.

Other prestigious universities also cracked the top 10, including the University of Cambridge (#4) and the University of California Berkley (#5).

You can find the complete ranking here.