Top medical schools keep their spots in new Maclean’s educational ranking

While University of Toronto often tops international rankings, here at home, McGill University wears the crown, at least as far as studying medicine in concerned.Maclean's magazine named the Montreal university as number one for Canada’s best medical doctoral universities in 2025. The University of Toronto was the top Canadian school in the U.S. News and World Report “best universities in clinical medicine” rankings and in the Times Higher Education’s top universities for clinical and health education. Maclean’s separates their rankings in terms of universities that have a medical school and PhD candidates, comprehensive universities and primarily undergraduate universities.Fifteen universities were assessed for the best medical doctoral universities ranking. The top six were the same as they were in the 2024 rankings: McGill UniversityUniversity of TorontoUniversity of British ColumbiaMcMaster UniversityUniversity of OttawaUniversity of AlbertaQueen’s University was ranked ninth last year, but tied with Dalhousie University this year for seventh place. The top 10 were rounded up with Université de Montréal in ninth and University of Calgary as number 10.Read: Two Canadian universities secure a top 10 place in Times Higher Education university impact ratingsMaclean's also provides lists of universities ranked by reputation, faculty awards, medical or science grants, retention rate, class size, graduation rate and other factors. Its overall rankings are based on twelve performance indicators, with a weight given to each indicator. The analysis includes the most recent publicly-available data.When all types of universities were combined and ranked according to reputation, Toronto, UBC, and McGill again took the top three spots, in that order. University of Waterloo and McMaster University rounded up the top five. Queen’s University tops as the university with the highest rate of students graduating within seven years, with 89.1% graduating. This is followed by University of Western Ontario (88.5%), University of Sherbrooke (88.2%), University of Calgary (86.4%) and University of Waterloo (86.0%). The rates are measured from students who entered in 2014 and graduated by 2021.The schools with the most money do not necessarily translate into the best scores. A ranking of operating expenditures per full-time student at medical doctoral universities puts UBC on top, spending $19,925 per student. It’s followed by University of Saskatchewan and Dalhousie University. University of Toronto appears as fourth, spending $15,435 per student. McGill University was eighth, spending $14,252 per student. While not in the top five of spending per student, McMaster University devotes more of its operating budget to student services than any other university included in the medical doctoral university rankings.The Maclean's annual university rankings were started in 1991 to help future students “choose the university that best suits their needs.” They're available on the magazine’s website.Read: See where Canada’s universities rank among the world’s best for clinical medicine

Top medical schools keep their spots in new Maclean’s educational ranking

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