University of Guelph Rankings

The University of Guelph is recognized annually as one of Canada's top comprehensive universities by various ranking organizations and our own U of G students. Check out some of our rankings highlights below.

Maclean's Magazine

Maclean's assesses universities on several key points, allocating a weight to each to calculate their overall rankings. Universities are ranked on performance indicators in five broad areas:

• Students: student awards, student/faculty ratio, and student satisfaction;
• Faculty: faculty awards, social science/humanities grants, medical/science grants and citations;
• Resources: total research dollars, operating budget, library expenses, and library acquisitions;
• Student Support: scholarships & bursaries and student services;
• Reputation: quality and innovation.

In 2023, U of G ranked #4 for Best Comprehensive University and in 2021, and were ranked #1 for Total Research Dollars! To read through the full rankings, check out the 2023 Maclean's University Rankings report, as well as the 2022 report.

THE (Times Higher Education) World University Rankings

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings provides the definitive list of the world's best universities.

U of G has been ranked as one of the World's top 500 universities! This ranking is based on U of G's strengths in teaching, international outlook, industry income, research and citations.

In addition to this consistent ranking, THE Impact Rankings also assessed the success of more than 1,500 universities from 100 countries and territories toward meeting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

 In addition, U of G earned high marks for the following development goals: 

• SDG 1 – No Poverty – 4th in the world 
• SDG 2 – Zero Hunger – 5th  
• SDG 14 – Life Below Water – 7th  
• SDG 6 – Clean Water and Sanitation – 11th 
• SDG 17 – Partnership for the Goals – 28th  
• SDG 15 – Life on Land – 43rd 

QS World University Rankings 

QS Stars University Rankings looks at everything that a university might offer; facilities, student engagement, employability, innovation, and awards universities between one and five stars. 

Overall, the University of Guelph ranks Top 20 in Canada and Top 600 in the World based on the QS World University survey rankings.

For the third year running, U of G’s Ontario Veterinary College (OVC) placed fifth worldwide and first in Canada in the 2022 World University Rankings by Subject.

U of G also tied for 20th place worldwide in agriculture and forestry. 

The University was also ranked in hospitality and leisure management, placing 2nd in Canada and within the top 100 in the world.  This is the first time this program was included in the ranking.

The annual World University Rankings by the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) international education network lists the world’s top universities in 51 academic subjects and includes some 1,300 universities from 80 locations around the world. 

The QS ranking methodology focuses on academic reputation, employer reputation, citations per paper, and h-index, which measures both productivity and impact of researchers.

Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU)

ARWU uses six objective indicators to rank world universities, including:

• the number of alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals;
• number of highly cited researchers selected by Thomson Reuters;
• number of articles published in journals of Nature and Science;
• number of articles indexed in Science Citation Index - Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index;
• and per capita performance of a university.

More than 1200 universities are actually ranked by ARWU every year and the best 500 are published. 

In 2022, U of G ranks in the Top 500 in the World and Top 16 in Canada.

Better World MBA Rankings – Lang School of Business and Economics

The 2021 Better World MBA rankings, compiled by sustainable business magazine Corporate Knights, ranked the Lang MBA program 5th in the world and 2nd in Canada for its focus on sustainability.