Find the right Canadian University with ELS

ELS can help you find the right Canadian university while you are still in your home country through our
search tool and in-country ELS authorized Counseling Agents.

There are many factors to consider in selecting the right university for you. Our goal is to help you find universities that best match your academic background, educational goals and personal achievements. We will help you secure conditional admission before you leave your home country.

You can apply for admission into a Canadian college/university, with each institution using varying levels of selectivity and admission standards. Canadian institutions are uniquely diverse. Universities can be public or private, and have varying student populations, type of degrees, cost and location.

Start by finding information about Degree Options, and Type of Institutions that meet your needs to study abroad in Canada.

Rankings

There is no official list of the top 10, 20, 50 or even 100 universities in Canada, nor does the Canadian government rank universities. Annually, there are a few guides published that contain subjective college “rankings”. These unofficial rankings may categorize colleges/universities by order of quality Primarily Undergraduate, Comprehensive (graduate and undergraduate programs) and Medical Doctoral.

If you are using ranking indices to identify a suitable target university, make sure to check the criteria being used to establish the ranking list and compare it to your own personal study goals. Published rankings, although unofficial, can be a good starting point in the college search. The college experience consists of intangible experiences that far exceed numbers alone. A ranking index is only one of several tools that help can help you find the school that meets your academic and social needs. A popular guide in Canada is the MacLean's Guide to Canadian Universities.

The Maclean's Guide to Canadian Universities is published annually in March. It is also known as
Maclean's University Guide. It includes information from the Maclean's University Rankings, an issue of the magazine proper that is published annually in November, primarily for students in their last year of high school and entering their first year in Canadian universities. Both the Guide and the rankings issue feature articles discussing Canadian universities and ranking them by order of quality. The rankings focus on taking a measure of the "undergraduate experience," comparing universities in three peer groupings: Primarily Undergraduate, Comprehensive, and Medical Doctoral.

Schools in the Primarily Undergraduate category are largely focused on undergraduate education, with relatively few graduate programs. Comprehensives have a significant amount of research activity and a wide range of graduate and undergraduate programs, including professional degrees. Medical Doctoral institutions have a broad range of Ph.D. programs and research, as well as medical schools.