Here are the latest rankings for B.C.’s top universities

Good news for B.C. schools, but the province lags on one key measure

The go-to ranking for Canadian schools has once again shone sunnily on B.C.’s universities. UBC ranked third, after University of Toronto and McGill, among universities with medical schools in Macleans magazine’s annual ranking, while Simon Fraser once again took top spot among schools with “significant research, undergraduate and graduate programs as well as professional schools.” University of Victoria came second in that category. No news here—these schools have all ranked in similar spots in the past.

The real breakthrough went to University of Northern British Columbia, the Prince George school that ranked first in Canada (for the first time) among schools with no law or medicine and few graduate programs. Interestingly, Thompson Rivers was not included on the Macleans list.

Macleans’ ever-contentious annual ranking is more art than science, rewarding schools on the number of awards their students win, their student-to-faculty ratio, the number of awards their faculty win, their reputation (based on a Macleans poll of “business leaders”), and the amount of funding per faculty member from the provincial and federal governments. On that last measure, B.C. schools performed disproportionately poorly, with UBC and SFU placing sixth and fifth in their respective categories.