McGill University

Overview

McGill University is a public research university located in the city of Montreal in Quebec, Canada. McGill University has consistently ranked not only as one of Canada's top universities but also as one of the best universities in the world.

The university offers more than 300 undergraduate programs and over 400 postgraduate programs, administered through 11 main faculties and schools. The largest faculties by enrollment include the Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Science, Faculty of Medicine, and Faculty of Engineering. The university is also particularly known for its medicine program, ranking as one of the best medical-doctoral universities in Canada. The same is true for the university's MBA program, which has been ranked as one of the best in Canada and worldwide.

Aside from undergraduate and postgraduate programs, McGill University also offers online courses and certificate programs in a number of fields, including accounting, communications and marketing, and management and leadership. The university is also one of only three English-language universities in Quebec.

Initially called McGill College, McGill University was founded in 1821, thanks to a bequest from James McGill, a successful Scottish merchant who had wanted his estate to be turned into a private constituent college upon his death. The university's first academic unit was the Montreal Medical Institution, established in 1823 and also the first medical school in Canada. By the early 1900s, McGill University had expanded and established its Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Law (also the first of its kind in Canada), and Faculty of Architecture.

In 1907, the university added a second campus, named the Macdonald campus, in the Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue suburb of Quebec. McGill University's campus expanded again in 2019, with the construction of a new campus in the city of Gatineau in Quebec.

Throughout the years, McGill University has also grown its roster of research institutes and facilities to accommodate its high research activity. The university is home to over 30 research centers and institutes, each focusing on fields of study such as water resources management, air and space law, and bioinformatics. The university also operates research centers in New Brunswick, the St. Lawrence River Valley, and Barbados.

As testament to the quality of research activities carried out at McGill University, numerous alumni of the university have made significant contributions to the health sciences, including medicine, neuroscience and psychology. Notable scientists associated with the university include Nobel Prize laureates Ernest Rutherford and Jack W. Szostak.