Despite what students seem to think, Queen’s is no longer a top university. Queen’s now places 12th in Canada, according to the Times Higher Education 2024 rankings.
Growing up outside of Kingston, I wanted to go to Queen’s before I even knew what a university was or what I would study there.
When I was in grade seven or eight, my school attended sports activity days at surrounding universities, including Queen’s and the University of Ottawa.
Our leader for the day on one tour, a student athlete at uOttawa, asked my class what schools we wanted to attend for
post secondary. Most of my classmates replied Queen’s, since of our community always told us it was the best university. That leader said Queen’s students think they’re superior to everyone else, but the school wasn’t really the best.
At the time, what our leader said annoyed me. I thought she must be jealous of Queen’s students. But now, uOttawa is ranked number eight in Canada—four spots above Queen’s.
It’s perfectly normal to think your university is the best. That’s what forms school rivalries and a solid alumni pool. However, rather than Queen’s students thinking their school is the best, many seem to think they’re the best just for getting accepted into the school.
I want to make clear that not every Queen’s student thinks this way—I’ve met a lot of kind people who worked hard to be here. However, enough of the student body thinks this way to make it seem to the outside world that all Queen’s students have an elitist complex, which I believe is demonstrative of broader entitlement.
An example of this entitlement is demonstrated through survey results released in 2020, which showed Queen’s was rated second in Ontario for people having sexual harassment experiences. Queen’s was behind Western, but only by 0.2 per cent. These sexual harassment rates suggest students feel entitlement towards each other.
Many students who don’t come from rich families can feel excluded within the University. It seems like everybody at Queen’s comes from money, which further feeds into the elitism on a socioeconomic class level. This dissuades many students from becoming a part of the Queen’s community.
Going back to the Times Higher Education Rankings, The Journal reported Principal Patrick Deane called the ranking “depressing.” It’s even more depressing when you realize Queen’s students feel a sense of superiority without the statistics to show for it.
Elitism at Queen’s is unwelcoming and until something is done within the institution to change it, it’s making the university I was once proud to attend something I feel uncomfortable standing behind.
Rory is a third-year physics student and The Journal’s Senior Sports Editor.
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Openminded
Don’t be constrain your own perception of what constitutes a valuable educational experience. Rankings like the THE have limitations.
Traditional rankings commonly rely on narrow metrics like student fee funding, research grants, and endowment size. University of Toronto has done little to “earn” its huge student population, alumni donations, Canada Research Chairs, etc. etc. It just happens to be an old, established university, in the biggest city in Ontario. Any university could be successful in that geography.
Queen’s has managed to build an excellent student experience for undergraduate students, has excellent staff and faculty, and excels in values-based rankings like the THE Impact Ranking. If uOttawa or U of T were truly running laps around us, they wouldn’t be #15 and #20 for Canadian universities in the THE Impact Rankings.
Kingston Daily
To those saying, “ignore the rankings”, Queen’s is only too happy to promote these same rankings when they reflect Queen’s favourably. Live by the sword…
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