U of C among the 250 best universities in the world
By Luis Armando Sanchez Diaz, June 25 2021—
Recently, the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) 2022 university ranking list was released where 11 Canadian post-secondary institutions made it to the top 250 best schools in the world.
For this year’s edition QS evaluated 1,300 universities around the globe making it “[the] largest ever,” as noted on their webpage.
The organization assessed six categories — Academic Reputation, Citation per Faculty, Employer Reputation, Faculty Student Ratio, International Faculty Ratio and International Student Ratio, each having an individual range of 100 points. However, they all have a different weighting in the overall calculation.
The University of Calgary ranked at the 235th spot, up nine places from last year’s list but still far away from the highest spot that it has ever achieved — in 2015 it landed on the 171st spot. It is worth noting that the U of C had been free falling in the annual rankings ever since 2017 up until now.
When it comes to Canadian universities only, the U of C secured the 10th place — one number below its 2021 position. Nevertheless, it saw gains in three evaluated categories, which include Academic Reputation, Employer Reputation and Citations per Faculty. U of C also continues to be one of the two universities in the prairies to make it to the top ten list along with the University of Alberta, which ranked fifth.
U of C was noted as having a “very high” research output and scored the highest in the two latter categories aforementioned. Overall, the Calgary-based university scored 39.7.
The top three universities in the Canadian list were the University of Toronto, McGill University and the University of British Columbia.
In the world’s ranking list, the top five universities were either British or American. The first and second place went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Oxford University, respectively. There was a tie for third place between Stanford University and the University of Cambridge, and Harvard University secured the fifth place.
In a statement provided to UCalgary News, Dr. Ed McCauley, president of the University of Calgary mentioned that the pandemic has posed many challenges but the U of C has been able to provide quality education as well student support during the last months in an online environment due to a committed faculty and staff.
“UCalgary’s rising global profile is a reflection of our exceptionally dedicated faculty and staff. They have made great strides focusing our energies on teaching, research and innovation and promoting a culture of creativity and entrepreneurial thinking across our campus community,” McCauley stated. “Despite the challenges that COVID-19 presented in remote teaching and research, these results indicate our collective commitment to student supports and academic excellence.”
To access the entire list click here. U of C’s QS profile is available here.