U of C drops in Maclean’s rankings

By Hayden McBennett, November 6 2014 —

Maclean’s 2015 Canadian university rankings placed the University of Calgary twelfth among medical-doctoral universities, three positions down from last year’s ranking.

Two years ago, the U of C ranked eighth. McGill, University of Toronto and University of British Colombia claimed the top-three spots for the second year in a row.

This is in contrast to other university rankings. The U of C ranked high in Quacquarelli Symonds Limited top-50 universities under 50 years old, placing first in best “young” universities in Canada, second in North America and ninth in the world.

“We have some issues with the rankings themselves. We’ve been climbing in [other] rankings. It doesn’t match up,” said Students’ Union president Jarett Henry.

U of C provost and vice-president academic Dru Marshall was surprised by the ranking.

“We’re going to meet with the people at Maclean’s to actually talk about their methodologies, to understand it better, to understand why it might be inconsistent with some of the other national and international rankings,” Marshall said.

Maclean’s bases their rankings on a combination of factors, including financial aid, services available to students, quality of faculties and ability to gain research funding and grants.

“At no point do these rankings consider student feedback. I think that’s the best judge of how good a campus experience is,” Henry said.