The best cities in Canada for post-secondary schools were revealed and a city in Ontario leads the list.
This year marks the second ranking since 2021 by HelloSafe, the insurance company known for comparing insurance and financial products.
The round-up is based on 18 sectors of criteria including academic excellence, student life, overall quality of life while attending the school and the facility’s attractiveness.
For 2023, Kingston, Ontario takes the lead over Sherbrooke as Canada’s best student city.
According to the report, Kingston has a diverse and festive culture, providing a “dynamic and varied student life” and easy access to nature, making it an optimal environment for studying.
“Kingston’s rise to the top of the list of Canada’s best student cities in 2023 will probably come as a surprise to many. I’m one of them! However, when looking a little bit deeper, Kingston is more than deserving of this first spot. If the city does not particularly shine in one or another category, it presents an overall balance that allows it to rank well everywhere, whether in terms of academic excellence, student life, living environment or attractiveness,” Alexandre Desoutter, editor in chief for HelloSafe Canada, said in a news release.
The remaining top five best cities in the country for students are as follows:
2. Montreal (Quebec)
3 .Vancouver (British Columbia)
4. Sherbrooke (Quebec)
5. Calgary (Alberta)
“We can also underline the good places of Montreal, Sherbrooke and Quebec City, which show that the Belle Province is more than ever a privileged destination for Canadian and international students,” Desoutter continued.
Montreal ranked top in the “excellence” category, recognizing the quality of the academic and educational offerings while Montreal, Toronto, and Edmonton ranked the highest for student life.
HelloSafe applied a set of four categories of criteria, divided into 16 sub-criteria, established upon expert sources. Each criteria’s factors were categorized, following their relative importance on what defines a good city for students. Each category was rated on 50 points and the final grade was out of 200.
