University of Toronto

On March 15, 1827, King's College, the precursor to U of T, was granted its royal charter by King George IV. In the years since its founding, the university has been home to a series of colorful presidents, professors and students, notable intellectual figures like Northrop Frye and Marshall McLuhan, and dramatic turning points such as the admission of women in the 1880s, the University College fire of 1890, involvement in the two world wars, the student protests of the 1960s and the new wave of building and renewal in the present day.

The University of Toronto attracts students of the highest caliber from around the world. Small-group seminars and tutorials, combined with large lectures and online support, give students the opportunity to develop a spectrum of skills and knowledge. Students are attracted to U of T by the opportunity to work closely with renowned professors and to engage in research right from the beginning of their academic careers.

The University of Toronto also offers a vibrant extra-curricular student experience, with more than 800 clubs and student-run organizations. And just outside the lecture halls lies a world-class city renowned for its extraordinary variety of activities and its multicultural diversity.

Research and innovation

The University of Toronto has a long history of innovation and research. It’s where Banting and Best first used insulin to treat diabetes, where Marshall McLuhan proclaimed that the medium is the message, where Frederick Teasdale and his colleagues developed Pablum and where Ernest McCulloch and James Till discovered stem cells. And the spirit of discovery lives on in a new generation of researchers making breakthroughs in such fields as computer speech recognition, solar energy, quantum cryptography, transportation and medicine.  Today, our research community spans three campuses and nine partner hospitals, with annual research income totaling $1.2 billion. U of T researchers publish more articles than peers at any university except Harvard. U of T consistently ranks alongside the top five U.S. universities in the world in articles cited and is one of the top three single North American institutions in number of start-up companies created.

University of Toronto alumni

U of T’s 500,000 alumni occupy leadership roles in more than 150 countries and in every sphere of human activity. Their ranks have included Lester Pearson, Norman Bethune, Margaret Atwood, Roberta Bondar, Julie Payette, David Cronenberg, Malcolm Gladwell and Craig Kielburger – prime ministers and poets, comedians and cinematographers, Nobel Prize laureates, humanitarians, astronauts and entrepreneurs.

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings of 2014-2015 ranks the University of Toronto at 20th place globally and 1st in Canada, while the QS World University Rankings of 2014 place the university at 20th in the world and 1st in Canada. In the Academic Ranking of World Universities of 2014, the University of Toronto is placed at 24th in the world and 1st in Canada. It ranked 25th worldwide in the 2012 report compiled by Human Resources & Labor Review on graduate performance, 9th worldwide in the 2010 Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities, 14th in the High Impact Universities ranking, 14th in a New York Times employment survey in 2013, and 2nd globally in the University Ranking by Academic Performance of 2012. In 2011, the university received a grade of A- for environmental sustainability from the Sustainable Endowments Institute. The university has placed first among Canada's research universities in the annual ranking by Research Info source since 2001.In 2011, the University of Toronto was named by Newsweek as one of the top three schools outside of the United States. In 2014, it was also ranked 14th in the world by the U.S. News & World Report’s Best Global Universities Ranking.