Maclean's rankings released

November 13, 2009

The University of Saskatchewan held on to ninth place in the Maclean’s 2009 University Rankings, sharing the position with the Universities of Ottawa and Western Ontario.

The news magazine’s 19th annual ranking was released Nov. 5 and showed McGill once again in top spot among Canada’s 15 medical doctoral universities. The University of Toronto was ranked second, the same as last year, while Queen’s dropped from a second-place tie with U of T last year to third spot this year. The remaining universities in the group and their position are UBC (4th), University of Alberta (5th), McMaster (6th), Calgary and Dalhousie (7th place tie), Laval (12th), Montréal and Sherbrooke (13th place tie) and Manitoba (15th).

A break-down of the ranking categories showed the U of S eighth among medical doctoral schools in the Maclean’s Reputation Survey, the same as last year. In the reputational ranking of all 48 participating universities however, the U of S made gains in every category: ninth overall, up from 10th last year; 13th in the highest quality category, up from 16th last year; eighth in the most innovative category, up from 11th; and ninth in the leaders of tomorrow ranking, up from 12th in 2008.

Below are the categories that determine the overall placement in the medical-doctoral ranking along with the U of S position in 2009. Its 2008 position is shown in brackets.

• Student awards: 15 (15)
• Student-faculty ratio: 3 (3)
• Awards per full-time faculty: 13 (11)
• SSHRC grants: 15 (15)
• NSERC and CIHR grants: 14 (14)
• Total research dollars per full-time faculty: 10 (12)
• Operating expenditure per weighted FTE student: 3 (3)
• Scholarships and bursaries as a percentage of operating expenses: 13 (12)
• Student services as a percentage of operating expenses: 10 (11)
• Library expenses as a percentage of operating expenses: 4 (2)
• Acquisitions as a percentage of library expenditures: 12 (3)
• Library holdings per student: 3 (3)
• Total library holdings: 8 (8)

The drop from third to 12th place in the library acquisitions category reflects a very volatile indicator, explained Robert Schultz, director of institutional effectiveness in Institutional Planning and Assessment. In 2006-07, there was a significant increase in spending on acquisitions for College of Medicine accreditation, which resulted is the U of S’s third-place ranking. In 2007-08, the period reported by Maclean’s this year, library acquisitions returned to average levels and the university’s position dropped to 12th.