U of T is dethroned by this Canadian school in a new world's best universities ranking

Canada has a new number one university!

university of toronto sign on campus

University of Toronto sign.

Senior Writer

A new ranking of the best universities in the world revealed that the University of Toronto has been dethroned.

Another post-secondary school in Canada just beat U of T to become the national leader.

Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) announced that the QS World University Rankings for 2026 are out now.

This list is based on research, employability, learning experience, global engagement and sustainability of post-secondary schools.

More than 1,500 of the world's universities from over 100 countries are included in the 2026 edition of the QS World University Rankings.

These are the top 10 universities in the world, according to QS:

  1. MIT
  2. Imperial College London
  3. Stanford University
  4. University of Oxford
  5. Harvard University
  6. University of Cambridge
  7. ETH Zurich
  8. National University of Singapore
  9. UCL
  10. California Institute of Technology

MIT is the best university in the world for the 14th year in a row. Imperial College London kept second place in the QS ranking while Stanford University surged to third.

Also, Oxford, Harvard and Cambridge all dropped spots in this ranking.

QS said that McGill University has overtaken the University of Toronto as Canada's national leader in the World University Rankings for 2026.

McGill is ranked 27th globally on this new list, which means it's the top university in Canada.

But the University of Toronto isn't far behind. It's ranked as the 29th best university in the world.

Then, the University of British Columbia is the third-highest ranked school in Canada at 40th overall.

So many more Canadian schools made the list. Here's where Canada's universities are on the 2026 QS World University Rankings:

  • University of Alberta — 94th
  • University of Waterloo — 119th
  • Western University — 151st
  • Université de Montréal — 168th
  • McMaster University — 173rd
  • Queen's University — 191st
  • University of Calgary — 211th
  • University of Ottawa — 219th
  • Dalhousie University — 283rd
  • Simon Fraser University — 308th
  • York University — 333rd
  • University of Victoria — 358th
  • University of Saskatchewan — 378th
  • Concordia University — 465th
  • Université Laval — 469th
  • University of Guelph — 504th
  • University of Windsor — 546th
  • University of New Brunswick — 622nd
  • University of Manitoba — 643rd
  • Memorial University of Newfoundland — 660th

Toronto Metropolitan University, Carleton University, Université du Québec, Université de Sherbrooke, University of Regina, and Brock University also made the 2026 QS World University Rankings.

But those post-secondary schools are further down the list.

  • Senior Writer

    Lisa Belmonte (she/her) is a Senior Writer with Narcity Media. After graduating with a Bachelor of Journalism from Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University), she joined the Narcity team. Lisa covers news and notices from across the country from a Canada-wide perspective. Her early coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic earned Narcity its first-ever national journalism award nomination.

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