If international reputation is an important factor in assessing the value of a university, world rankings provide some sobering food for thought for Canadian institutions.

American and British universities dominate the upper echelons of arguably the two most influential international rankings, produced by the Graduate School of Education at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the Times Higher Education Supplement of London. In both cases, only one Canadian campus cracks the top 25, and in neither case do more than six of our schools reach the top 100. Although this is not a bad result given Canada's small population and publicly funded, low-tuition environment, it does provide ammunition for those who argue that we need to put more resources into the kinds of areas (notably research) that produce "world class" universities.

In the 2008 Shanghai Jiao Tong rankings, the University of Toronto squeezes into the top 25, with the University of British Columbia, McGill and McMaster making the top 100.

The most recent THES ranking (from 2007) has an intriguingly different take on who qualifies as our best. McGill is Canada's top school at a strong 12th place finish. Our other Top 100 contenders are UBC (tied for 33rd), Toronto (45th), Queen's (88th), Université de Montréal (tied for 93rd) and the University of Alberta (tied for 97th)

Methodologies for both rankings are broadly similar, although the Shanghai table places more emphasis on high-visibility research, including an institution's Nobel and other prizes and the amount of published research papers; the THES ranking is slightly wider in scope and includes such factors as graduate employability and student-faculty ratios.

Neither table gives much clue as to the kind of undergraduate experience you can expect at a campus. Our own survey of student satisfaction, contained in this publication, is more likely to provide that when it comes to domestic schools. However, for globally minded students with an eye on overseas employment or who want to identify the graduate schools with the most reputational heft, the two world rankings are a good guide.

For parents who demand nothing but the best for their offspring, note that Harvard University is judged to be the world's finest seat of learning in both league tables, as it has been for several years. Hope you've been saving up.