#1 Simon Fraser University

At just 60 years old, this B.C. institution is contemporary, inventive and forward-thinking. With its flagship campus built atop Burnaby Mountain, and two more on ground level in Vancouver and Surrey, SFU is one of Canada’s fastest-growing research universities, gaining international attention for its newsworthy inventions and innovations. Just this fall, it launched Fir, the country’s most powerful supercomputer, an $80-million behemoth that can handle vast amounts of research data and is capable of large-scale simulations and complex AI modelling. It’s accessible to researchers and members of industry across Canada.

Simon Fraser students come from all age groups, and new residences are being built to accommodate a more diverse crowd than just 18-year-old frosh. A new carbon-neutral, eight-storey residence in development will house almost 450 students in studio apartments, four-bedroom suites and two- or four-bedroom townhouses. For families, it includes a stand-alone child-care centre where 160 kids can play while their parents attend classes.

Almost 40,000 students are drawn by SFU’s excellent campus life, which includes two medical clinics staffed with on-site doctors and nurses, an impressive athletic complex and the Multifaith Centre, which provides a spiritual community to a variety of religious denominations. In September, as part of its commitment to Truth and Reconciliation, the university opened the First Peoples’ Gathering House—a ceremonial space in a traditional longhouse to function as a home away from home for Indigenous students and their families. Also this fall, the school cut the ribbon on the new Marianne and Edward Gibbon Art Museum to house Simon Fraser’s impressive art collection and provide opportunities for students to learn from artists in a gorgeous and contemporary space.

Simon Fraser offers 368 undergraduate programs and 149 graduate programs, including a new master of engineering at the school of sustainable energy engineering. In 2026, an MD program is slated to launch at the new SFU school of medicine—the first new medical school in Western Canada in more than half a century. Students can expect a modern curriculum with problem-based learning, digital resources and extensive community partnerships.

#2 University of Victoria

Most of UVic’s 22,000 students come from outside the greater urban area. Many are from other parts of Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland, while a sizable chunk come from out of province—and out of country—to study in a close-knit community with plenty of green space, regular baby deer sightings and a beach just a 20-minute walk from residence.

The school takes advantage of its natural surroundings. For example, students in the earth and ocean sciences program participate in field work on the island and in the ocean surrounding it. The Centre for Forest Biology trains graduate students and postdoc fellows in how trees interact with, and adapt to, the environment. Meanwhile, the first graduates of the school’s new climate science program crossed the stage in June.

More than 1,500 Indigenous students are enrolled at UVic. The school’s stunning First Peoples’ House, designed as a safe place for Indigenous students to learn and build community, is the school’s most sustainable building, featuring a green roof, a stormwater-management pond and a slanted waterfall scupper for rainwater collection.

#3 University of Waterloo

It’s no secret that the University of Waterloo specializes in all things STEM. But with more than 100 other undergraduate programs, it also shines in fields like environmental studies, architecture, theatre and performance, and digital media. While the campus may not win awards for prettiness (brutalist architecture dominates), it has a surprisingly large amount of green space, including a five-hectare urban forest. Students can canoe on Laurel Creek, which flows through the campus.

Co-op education is baked into Waterloo’s DNA—it pioneered the concept in Canada when the school launched in the 1950s—and today, Waterloo students are four times more likely to do an internship, co-op, field experience or clinical placement in their first year than frosh at other Ontario universities. The school continues to innovate: in a new partnership with St. George’s University, or SGU, in Grenada, students study for two years in the medical sciences program at Waterloo, then do two years of clinical training in Grenada, followed by two years of training in the U.S., U.K. or Canada, before obtaining an MD from SGU.