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University of Toronto

Canada Canada

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THE World Ranking: 21

Overview

Overview

This university is a research institution with strong graduate outcomes, and around 88,000 people are currently enrolled. 21 per cent of those are international students, coming to the capital of Ontario and the highly ranked faculties of the University of Toronto from 160 different countries and regions.

International students choose U of T for the city energy and the amazing learning environment, and they’re rarely disappointed.

Undergraduates and postgraduates at this university get to enjoy Toronto all the time. Restaurants and businesses are nearby to try, and since almost half of the three million people who live there were born outside of Canada, the city is welcoming to every student background.

Then, on the academic side of things, there are three amazing campuses (Mississauga, St. George and Scarborough) to live, laugh and learn on, studying a range of subjects from archaeology to urban studies. A few different scholarships are also open to international students, including the Lester B. Pearson International Scholarship.

Plus, many award-winning tutors, lecturers and researchers work at the University of Toronto. Students are prepared for the working world by their high standards and are offered all the career support they could need along the way.

There’s nothing off the table at U of T. The diverse community (including over 1000 teams, organisations, and student clubs) is wonderful. Teaching standards are high. Support is available quickly and easily. City life is never far away.

Discover more about studying at U of T: 

Teaching quality

Entry requirements

Scholarships & funding

University structure

Facilities

Student support

Graduate outcomes

 

Teaching Quality
The University of Toronto is one of the best in Canada for quality teaching standards and methods. The 14,000 faculty members and 6,000 staff members all come together to support a community-focused, collaborative approach to learning, and there are around 25 students to each staff member.

There is a transparent culture around diversity in the workplace at U of T, helped by the easy-to-access Employment Equity Dashboard. This means staff members and students can all feel safe and listened to, further improving the teaching quality for students of every background, both international and domestic.

The university is well-known for its research achievements and employs many talented researchers, like Faculty of Medicine associate professor Daniel De Carvalho. De Carvalho is a senior scientist at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, known for his epigenetics research.

Ongoing studies focusing on everything from cell movement to cardiac event prediction are happening right now at U of T. This institution has always been proud to be on the cutting edge of science. Researchers are also involved in mitigating climate change through innovation, and the university is on a journey to a net zero carbon footprint by 2040.

ShanghaiRanking Consultancy put U of T in the global top 10 for education, finance, medical technology, pharmacy and pharmaceutical science, psychology, public health, sociology, and statistics. It was also one of just a few schools (including UC Berkeley, Harvard, and Oxford) ranked in the top 25 across 21 different subjects.

Times Higher Education (THE) gave the University of Toronto a World Reputation Ranking of 21 in 2021, placed between the great institutions of Johns Hopkins and Cornell. Its 2022 World University Ranking is 18, and its ranking for clinical, pre-clinical and health subjects is 5. These impressive rankings are earned by the combination of quality teaching and great student support.

 

Entry Requirements
The University of Toronto is a welcoming, diverse school with a population of students from across the globe. Still, there are specific entry requirements that every international applicant will need to know about if they’d like to attend.

The minimum level of education needed for a potential undergraduate to be admitted is a senior level/Grade 12 English course. Further university requirements apply if a person is home-schooled or English is not their first language (see below). Applicants will also need to match up to any grade requirements and specifications connected to their courses.

Any university qualifications/awards beyond a high school level will also be thought about during a full academic record review, and previous education at approved institutions will translate into credits which can be transferred toward a degree. (Credit value will be decided after admission.)

Postgraduate applicants will usually need a full university degree to get in, but certain programmes like Medicine and Law will instead ask for ‘some university education’ [University of Toronto].

Educational structures, requirements and standards change from country to country. Exact university entry requirements for countries from Afghanistan to Zambia can be found on U of T’s detailed Application Requirements page.

English Score Required
If an applicant’s first language isn’t English, the university must decide if their understanding of English is good enough to allow them to complete a degree assessed and delivered in that language successfully. Exemptions to this rule include at least four years of study in a recognised English-speaking Canadian school or the same in an English-speaking school in an English-speaking country.

The minimum IELTS score needed to study at the University of Toronto is an overall band of 6.5, with no band below 6.0. Only electronic scores submitted by the IELTS test centre will be accepted, and IELTS Indicator test scores will not be.

When submitting a score at an IELTS centre, the University of Toronto’s ‘Account Name’ and ‘Account Address’ will be required, which are ‘University of Toronto - Undergraduate and Graduate Programs’ and ‘172 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario, M5R 0A3’.

Other English assessment tests can be used as proof in place of the IELTS, and a complete list of accepted options is available on the university’s website. Regardless, only official test scores sent from the testing centre/agency/organisation to Enrolment Services will be accepted.

Admission
If an applicant doesn’t live in Canada, isn’t studying/hasn’t previously studied in Canada and isn’t applying to any other Ontario universities, they will need to complete a University of Toronto International Application to begin their university admission.

If an applicant meets the first two student admission criteria but is applying to other universities in Ontario, they should instead complete an OUAC (Ontario Universities’ Application Centre) 105. A non-refundable fee of CAD 180  will apply to international applicants, plus an additional fee of CAD 90 to the University of Toronto in the case of the OUAC 105. The admission process will likely be:

An application will be made.
The applicant will share evidence of their academic record. (Transcripts and test scores should be shared electronically.)
The university will verify that the applicant meets general admission requirements.
The university will verify that the applicant meets programme-specific requirements.
The university will determine the competitive strength of the applicant and decide.
The university will/will not make an offer of admission. This offer might be conditional or unconditional. In some cases, applicants might be waitlisted.
When required, the applicant will, at this stage, ask for a year’s deferral or special consideration. The university will review on a case-by-case basis to decide.

The cost of tuition will depend on the programme, the course load, the campus and the year a student arrives at the University of Toronto. Fees for each upcoming year are finalised in spring, and previous costs in a specific area of study can be viewed to give applicants a better idea. There’s even a Tuition Fee Lookup Tool to simplify the process.

As an example, if an international student entered an undergraduate arts programme at the University of Toronto’s Mississauga campus (UTM) in 2022, they’d have fees of CAD 59,320 for 2022-23 and fees of CAD 60,510 for 2023-24. Note: This doesn’t include additional costs like field trips and textbooks, which must also be thought of.

Scholarships & Funding
An international student won’t be eligible for direct financial aid from the University of Toronto but might be eligible for support with university fees in their home country. Certain scholarships and grants are awarded to international students at U of T, though.

 

During admission, potential undergraduates (international and domestic) are considered for university scholarships and awards as a part of the automatic awards programme. They don’t need to make a separate application to be considered for the awards, the biggest of which are the University of Toronto Scholars Program and the President’s Scholars of Excellence Program.

The U of T Scholars Program helps with funding and fees. About 1,000 applicants are awarded CAD 7,500 based on merit if they register full-time in the year the award is granted.

Under the same registration conditions, the President’s Scholars of Excellence Program finds 150 of the best people applying for their first year of undergraduate studies. These people are each awarded entrance scholarships of CAD 10,000 in their first year and offered access to part-time on-campus employment in their second year.

There’s also the Lester B. Pearson International Scholarship. The 37 (approximately) first-year undergraduate students who become Pearson scholars through impressive academic achievement each year get their tuition, books and other fees covered for four years. They also benefit from full residence support.

 

Other options to explore include scholarships from the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering (various awards and award amounts up to CAD 7,500) and over 5,900 different in-course scholarships.

University Structure
There are 18 academic units at U of T, over 700 undergraduate study programmes and 200 graduate study programmes. As briefly mentioned in the overview, the university has three different campuses, all of which are unique in their own ways.

St. George Campus in downtown Toronto is made up of seven colleges. These colleges are Innis College, New College, St. Michael’s College, Trinity College, University College, Victoria College and Woodsworth College.

Gothic architecture and the energy of the city combine at St. George, and the colleges help to create a stronger sense of community. At this campus, students are close to the action. It’s where many of U of T’s best-in-class research facilities are located, and it’s also ideal for extracurricular activities.

Mississauga Campus, or University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM), is the best place for deer spotting between lectures. This smaller site in nature is spread across the Credit River and a home for many kinds of wildlife (and many students).

Around 33km west of St. George Campus in the city of Mississauga, UTM is home to Canada’s oldest forensic science programme, Jessica Burgner-Kahr’s Continuum Robotics Lab and much more. It’s also a facility ahead of its time in terms of sustainability.

The final campus is Scarborough, or University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC). UTSC is in east Toronto on 300 acres of parkland. Trails across the campus allow students to explore the beautiful Highland Creek Valley in full.

UTSC is also a hub for work-study programmes at the university and the place where the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre is located. This facility hosted several sporting events during the 2015 Pan American Games and continues to serve students well.

Facilities
From study sessions and coffee breaks in historic buildings over 100 years old to swimming, diving, and running the 200-metre indoor track at the Toronto Pan Am (a popular student recreation centre and sports facility), there are lots of wonderful things to do and experience at this university.

Studying in a lecture theatre equipped with the latest technology is standard. Experimenting in a world-class research laboratory is normal. Plus, U of T is home to the third largest library system in North America, with 44 different libraries containing over 12 million print books. At the student life centre in downtown Toronto, St. George Campus, facilities include:

The Athletic Centre
The George Ignatieff Theatre
The Goldring Centre for High-Performance Sport
Hart House
Hart House Theatre
The Helen Gardiner Phelan Playhouse
The Innis Town Hall cinema and lecture space
The Isabel Bader Theatre
U of T Art Museum
The Varsity Centre’s 5,000-seat outdoor stadium and turf field

At UTSC, students will enjoy:

ARTSIDEOUT arts festival
A baseball diamond
The Doris McCarthy Gallery
Eleven maintained and supervised tennis courts
Gallery 1265
The Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre (mentioned above, a regularly utilised student activity centre) with a climbing wall standing 12.5m tall, a dive tank, a multi-level fitness facility, two Olympic-sized pools, a training pool and an indoor running track
Two multi-sport grass fields
U of T Scarborough’s Leigha Lee Browne Theatre

At UTM, students can check out:

Blackwood Gallery, a contemporary art gallery that’s free and open to the public
Erindale Studio Theatre
The MiST Theatre
The Recreation, Athletics and Wellness Centre (RAWC) with exercise equipment, a dance studio, two gymnasiums, an indoor track, a pool, three squash courts and a weightlifting room


Accommodation
International students searching for university accommodation can choose to live either off-campus or on campus.

When studying at UTM, first years can live on campus in dormitories or townhouses, and students in years two and onward often live in shared apartments. Those staying off campus near UTM will be looking for a student house in the city of Mississauga.

When studying at UTSC, campus living takes the form of townhouses and apartment suites. Units are shared between four to six students and are just minutes from classes and other UTSC facilities. Off-campus housing is available in and around Scarborough, on the east side of exciting Toronto.

The final campus, St. George, is in the heart of the city. People might choose to live in one of the campus’s seven colleges (usually residences with shared kitchens and bathrooms, with some apartments and hotel-style units) or the Chestnut Residence. Off-campus, there are many available accommodation options in Toronto's busy, student-filled centre.

Student Support
A student guide willing to help is never far away for people who attend U of T. Whether a learner is international or domestic, postgraduate, or undergraduate, student support services are readily available to meet their needs and help their education.

UTM, St. George and UTSC all offer a comprehensive student support programme, including:

Accessibility services
Financial advice
Career and academic advice
Access to offices for anti-racism and diversity
Access to the sexual and gender diversity office
Sexual assault resources and help
Access to health and wellness centres/facilities
International student services

UTM also has an Early Learning Centre for licensed childcare on campus, an Indigenous Centre and the Robert Gillespie Academic Skills Centre. St. George also has a Family Care Office and First Nations House (a second hub for Indigenous student support). At UTSC, students can access the SCSU Health and Dental Plan.

The first place to go when a student needs help with financial planning, financial emergencies, personal emergencies, unexpected circumstances, academic skill-building, or educational goal setting? Their Registrar’s Office. There are several of these offices across the three U of T locations, each attached to different programmes/faculties/colleges in the case of St. George.

 

Graduate Outcomes
The University of Toronto proudly keeps up standards that will prepare students well for professional life, allowing them to enjoy as many career options as possible when they graduate. Plus, during their studies, students can access a wide range of career services and programmes.

 

Talks with dedicated staff members about planning, job hunting and finding the right path are available when students need a career guide. ‘Alumni Career Chats’ can also be attended, providing the chance to catch up with recent graduates turned working professionals. Mock employer interviews are offered.

Career-focused events, job fairs and workshops are hosted throughout the academic year. Across three campuses, in-depth employment services help with everything from finding dream jobs to updating and improving application documents (like CVs and personal statements).

There are even work study and job shadowing opportunities that will get students out in the field, developing practical knowledge before their time in education ends.

Job prospects are great for graduates, which is unsurprising given the help offered at each stage. U of T allows students to explore their options, develop strong strategies and access excellent resources.

A 2019 alumni survey revealed that 74.3 per cent of graduates were now employed full-time in one job. Among the employed people who responded, 75.4 per cent reported that their job was closely related to their studies, with 24.6 per cent reporting that their job was somewhat related.

The network of global alumni is also hugely useful, and the support doesn’t stop on graduation day. Community, networking, and careers events are hosted regularly for people who graduated from this diverse university in the growing city of Toronto.

 

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Key facts and figures at University of Toronto

Rankings

Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2024
Source: THE

21

OVERALL SCORE

88.6%

TEACHING

77.5%

INTERNATIONAL OUTLOOK

90.7%

INDUSTRY INCOME

96.1%

RESEARCH

94.1%

CITATIONS

92.8%
QS World University Rankings 2024
Source: QS

21

Academic Ranking of World Universities 2023
Source: ARWU

24

Student life in numbers

COSTS PER YEAR
LIVING COSTS

CAD$15,000

CAMPUS ACCOMMODATION

CAD$11,016

AVERAGE TUITION FEE PER YEAR

UNDERGRADUATE

CAD$60,510

POSTGRADUATE

CAD$29,880

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