Queen’s has held steady in Maclean’s annual university rankings, and administrators and students say the University could be doing better.
The University held its fifth place overall ranking from last year in the medical/doctoral category, behind tied first-place winners McGill University and the University of Toronto, followed by the University of Western Ontario in third place and the University of British Columbia in fourth place.
The fifteenth annual survey, released Monday, ranks schools in six categories: student body, classes, faculty, finances, library and reputation.
Queen’s placed first in the categories of student retention and awards won by faculty categories. The University also has the highest percentage of students with entrance averages over 75 per cent, tied with McGill.
The University ranked lower in categories such as reputation and percentage of operating budget spent on scholarships and bursaries.
Principal Karen Hitchcock told the Journal she’s pleased with the University’s placement, but said there’s room for improvement.
“I think these rankings are ones where we can do better,” she said. “I never like to look at program change or difference in procedure based on a ranking—we have to do it in terms of what matters to us as an institution.”
AMS President Ethan Rabidoux said the University should be concerned with long-term decline.
“You can’t look at these rankings in isolation,” Rabidoux said. “When I was in first year [in 2002], we were in second place.”
While the University saw improvement in 19 out of 24 categories, it fell from third to sixth place in overall reputation.
The reputation rankings are determined by a survey of graduates, university officials, high school counselors, heads of national and regional organizations and corporate CEOs and recruiters. The survey was completed in the spring.
“The reputation of a school is sometimes the make or break for a student,” Rabidoux said.
Although the University placed third in the category of percentage of operating budget spent on scholarships and bursaries, its budgeted funds per full-time student ranked 12th out of 15 universities.
Hitchcock said financing is one area where the University could improve, and attributed some financial problems to prior cutbacks by the province.
“I think investment, of course, has been an issue in Ontario universities in general,” she said. “There has been such a cutback in universities in the past.” Student Sarah Ficko, ConEd ’06, said she believed the University could do more to help finance student education.
“If they want more people to come here, they should give out more scholarships,” she said. “A lot of people can’t afford to study at Queen’s.”
According to Maclean’s, the University also has some of the largest classes in the country, placing 11th out of 15 for undergraduate class size.
Hitchcock again related class sizes to government funding.
“[Cutbacks have] impacted us with regards to student-faculty ratios, the intimacy of the learning environment,” she said.
Rabidoux emphasized the importance of making sure the University prioritizes its undergraduate program.
“The University is looking at expanding graduate school programs—as AMS president and an undergraduate student, I want to support this expansion, but not at the expense of undergraduate classes.”
Maclean’s also mentioned “the Homecoming riots” at Queen’s in one of its articles about the rankings. The article attributes some of the blame for the violence on Aberdeen Street to a “sense of deep disenfranchisement” caused by a decline in post-secondary education across the country.
Rabidoux disagreed.
“I have no doubt that there is a growing sense of alienation between students and administration,” he said. “But that did not cause what happened on Aberdeen. Queen’s students still know that they go to a great school.”
Galit Rodan, ArtSci ’06, agreed.
“I don’t think that what happened on Aberdeen was a reflection of how people feel about the University,” she said. “I think it was a reflection of the kind of atmosphere where there was anticipation of a huge party, a lot of people from out of town who didn’t have anything invested in the University and the police presence.” While Hitchcock emphasized the importance of the yearly review, she said that the University does not base its improvements on rankings alone.
“The fact is, rankings are what people look at,” she said. “Parents read them, students read them. It is part of the environment we have to be aware of.
“It doesn’t mean you change to make a ranking go up, but it certainly makes you able to focus in on some areas where clearly impressions are wrong or perceptions are ones that do not allow us to do things we want to continue to do.”
In a recent survey of international institutions by the British newspaper The Sunday Times, Queen’s didn’t make the list of the top 200 universities worldwide. However, eight Canadian schools, including Maclean’s winners U of T and McGill, were recognized.
Rabidoux said the University should not settle for holding steady in the Maclean’s rankings.
“These rankings aren’t a cause for celebration, nor are they a reason to be dispirited,” he said. “There is work to be done, let’s just say that.”
All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s)-in-Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to journal_editors@ams.queensu.ca.