UBC has maintained its position as the fourth overall medical/doctoral university in Maclean's annual ranking of Canadian universities. UBC has consistently ranked fourth since 1992.
The University of Toronto placed first, followed by Queen's and McGill universities in the category which compares universities with a broad range of PhD programs, research and medical schools.
In an essay accompanying the rankings, UBC President Martha Piper was quoted as citing learning environment and internationalization as the two most important issues facing the university. Piper hopes to see international co-operative education in place in all UBC faculties and schools by 2003.
"Co-op is not job training," Piper says. "It's experience in the world of work, and if that work can be international, all the better. This is a global environment we're entering, and the leaders of tomorrow will be citizens of the world, culturally fluid in every way."
The survey shows UBC has the highest number of full-time faculty with PhD degrees in the country at 98.2 per cent.
In student services, the survey shows UBC second only to the University of Toronto. The percentage of UBC's total operating expenditures devoted to student services is 4.82 per cent.
UBC ranks third for the number of students per 1,000 who won national awards (7.8 per cent), the number of graduate students from abroad (19.1 per cent ) and library holdings (7.58 million).
The average entering grade at UBC is 84.8 per cent.
In the comprehensive university category, Simon Fraser University came first and the University of Victoria fourth overall. The University of Northern British Columbia came ninth in its category of primarily undergraduate universities.
The Maclean's survey compares universities with similar structures and mandates using such factors as research funding and diversity of offerings.
It ranks them on statistics such as the composition and academic achievements of the student body, library resources, class size, percentage of tenured professors who teach first-year courses, calibre of faculty and success in securing research grants.