Three Canadian universities have made a list of the top-25 highest ranked computer science universities globally. The University of Toronto ranked at number 12, The University of British Columbia (UBC) at 21, and the University of Waterloo ranked 22nd overall.
The list is part of the QS World University Rankings, which the Waterloo EDC called a ranking of “the best of the best.” This year’s marks the 20th edition of the list, which features 1,500 institutions across 104 locations.
The results draw on the analysis of 17.5 million academic papers and the expert opinions of over 240,000 academic faculty and employers.
But taking into account 5,000 students enrolled, the University of Waterloo also had the largest number of undergraduate students studying computer science and computer engineering among the global top 25 schools, placing it at number one on the list in that regard.
U of T trails Waterloo slightly, with 3,354 students, but only tracks enrolment at one of its three campuses.
Combined, the two schools have more than 8,000 computer science students, equivalent to the enrolment of the 11 smallest schools that made the list.
UBC ranked 24th with 371 students.
The University of Waterloo said in a statement that this impressive showing speaks to the power of the Toronto-Waterloo Corridor, which it claims routinely ranks among the world’s top tech and startup ecosystems. For instance, Toronto-Waterloo, Vancouver, and Montréal were the only Canadian startup ecosystems to crack Startup Genome’s top 40 global rankings, with all three finishing in the same place as last year.
Once again, Toronto-Waterloo, which Startup Genome groups together, was Canada’s top-ranked startup ecosystem, placing highest at number 17.
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Internationally, U of T was ranked among the top 50 schools in 48 diverse academic subjects covered in the QS rankings–more than any other university in the world.
“This latest ranking confirms again that the University of Toronto encompasses world-leading excellence across an incredibly wide range of disciplines and professions,” U of T President Meric Gertler said.
Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), whose head office is in London, ranked nearly 1,600 institutions across 54 subjects this year. The results are based on a variety of data, including surveys of academics and employers, and citations per paper, an index that aims to measure the productivity and impact of published work. These indicators were assigned different weights depending on the subject.
Overall, the results draw on the analysis of 17.5 million academic papers and the expert opinions of over 240,000 academic faculty and employers. Massachusetts Institute of Technology celebrates 12 years in the top spot of the rankings, the University of Cambridge retains second place, while the University of Oxford climbs one position to third overall.