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Macleans magazine released its 2015 university rankings on Oct. 28, placing U of T first in such categories as Faculty Awards, Reputation, Medical/Science Research Grants, Citations and Total Research Dollars. 

The magazine groups universities into three categories: medical/doctoral (for institutions hosting a broad range of PhD programs, research and medical schools); primarily undergraduate and comprehensive. In the category of medical/doctoral, Macleans ranked the top three universities in Canada as McGill, U of T and UBC. 

Macleans ranked U of T #1 for reputation (followed by UBC and McGill) across all categories of universities, based on its survey of business people, high school guidance counsellors and university faculty and senior administrators across the country. Respondents were asked to assess universities' reputation for innovation, quality and “leaders of tomorrow”.

“The specific results for U of T are in the same range as results from previous years,” said Marny Scully, assistant vice-president, government, institutional and community relations. “In the most prestigious international rankings from this year – Times Higher Education, National Taiwan University, Shanghai and US News & World – the University of Toronto placed first in Canada in each ranking and between third and 25th in the world, again consistent with previous years.”

The Macleans methodology differs from the global rankings in that it highly weights input measures (such as financial investment) rather than output or impact measures (such as citations), Scully said. She added that it also differs in its focus on undergraduates rather than a more complete view that includes graduate metrics.

Despite these methodological limits, Scully said Macleans’ latest ranking includes a new metric on research impact.  

“For the first time, a citations metric has been added that measures research output and impact. While this is a positive change, the new metric is still one measure out of 14 used by Macleans.”