Maclean's released its 2025 university rankings Thursday (Oct. 10) morning, revealing that Dalhousie continues to place among the top half of Canada's best Medical Doctoral universities.
Dalhousie once again tied as the seventh best university out of 15 ranked in the category, which compares institutions that provide a broad range of PhD programs and research opportunities and include medical schools.
Meanwhile, Dal clinched fifth spot nationally for Nursing, 12th for Computer Science, and tied for 20th in Business in the latest Maclean’s program rankings — a separate feature that ranks university programs in five popular areas based on their reputations for research and overall quality.
Maclean's has published its annual rankings for more than three decades now as a resource to help students find a university that best suits their needs and interests.
The publication also produces lists of the best Primarily Undergraduate and Comprehensive universities as part of its annual rankings, ensuring institutions are ranked against others of a similar size or type.
'An amazing balance'
To produce its overall rankings, Maclean's collects and crunches recent publicly available data in five broad areas — students, faculty, resources, student supports, and reputation — based on 12 performance indicators.
Dal continues to outperform many of its peer in the Student area, which accounts for 20 per cent of an institution's final score and measures two key indicators: the number of student awards over the past five years and student access to professors (student-faculty ratio). Dal once again ranked fourth overall on each indicator.
“Dalhousie offers an amazing balance, with the community feeling you’d find at a smaller university and the research excellence you’d expect from a larger one,” Dal President Kim Brooks, pictured, told Maclean’s.
“We’re proud of our commitment to teaching and we believe in creating opportunities for learning outside the classroom. Our corner of the country offers the most magnificent ‘outside the classroom’ experience possible — from an outstanding culture and arts scene, to a thriving innovation and technology ecosystem, to the richness of Nova Scotia’s landscape.”
Dal also excelled in the Faculty area (worth 20 per cent of a university's score), ranking fourth again for faculty awards and rising three spots to fourth in Socials Science & Humanities Grants. It remained consistent at 14th spot for Medical Sciences Grants.
Resources (22 per cent), Student Support (18 per cent) and Reputation (20 per cent) make up the remainder of a university's score, tracking everything from the amount of money in the general operating budget per full-time-equivalent student and scholarships and bursaries to total research dollars and the percentage of a university’s operating budget allocated to library services.
To learn more about Dal's performance in each area and indicator, please visit the Maclean's rankings site.
Reputational rankings
Maclean's also produces a separate reputation ranking as part of its annual package based on survey data gathered about quality and innovation at Canadian universities.
This year, Dal ranked 15th Best Overall and 12th in Highest Quality in the reputational ranking, which combines all universities from all three categories (Primarily Undergraduate, Comprehensive, Medical Doctoral) into one group.
The reputation survey includes repsonses from faculty, senior administrators, and a variety of business people from across Canada.