A fresh ranking of the world’s best universities is out, and McGill University isn’t sitting at the top of the Canadian pack this time. And given the Montreal institution’s recent fall in other academic leaderboards, we can’t say we’re surprised.
The Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings 2025 have just been released, ranking the world’s most prestigious universities based on feedback from 55,000 academics worldwide. This year, 300 institutions from 38 countries made the cut —including a dozen from Canada.
Here’s how Canada’s top schools fared on the global scale:
- University of Toronto — 21st
- University of British Columbia — 34th
- McGill University — 44th
- University of Waterloo — 97th (tied)
- McMaster University — 101st to 150th
- Université de Montréal — 101st to 150th
- University of Alberta — 101st to 150th
- University of Calgary — 151st to 200th
- Queen’s University — 201st to 300th
- University of Guelph — 201st to 300th
- University of Ottawa — 201st to 300th
- Western University — 201st to 300th
Put simply, McGill is still a top name in academia, but it’s not getting the same level of global recognition as U of T and UBC. Its vote score (38.1) falls behind U of T (66.5) and UBC (46.4), meaning fewer academics around the world listed it as a top university off the bat. That said, McGill’s high pairwise comparison score (97.0) shows that when it goes head-to-head with other schools, it still holds its own.
U of T, on the other hand, is in a league of its own, with the highest voter diversity score (99.4) and a strong pairwise comparison score (97.5), proving it’s widely respected across different fields and regions. UBC isn’t far behind, with a voter diversity score of 99.2, showing its global reputation is just as solid. Meanwhile, Université de Montréal’s lower pairwise comparison score (71.6) suggests it wasn’t ranked as favourably when directly stacked up against other institutions.
As for Times Higher Education’s global scale, the best universities in the world based on reputation are as follows:
- Harvard — 1st
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology — 2nd (tied)
- University of Oxford — 2nd (tied)
- Stanford University — 4th (tied)
- University of Cambridge — 4th (tied)
- University of California, Berkeley — 6th
- Princeton University — 7th
- Tsinghua University — 8th
- Yale University — 9th
- University of Tokyo — 10th
Love this? Check out our MTL Blog noticeboard for details on jobs, benefits, travel info and more!AI tools may have been used to support the creation or distribution of this content; however, it has been carefully edited and fact-checked by a member of MTL Blog’s Editorial team. For more information on our use of AI, please visit our Editorial Standards page.
