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Four Canadian universities have made it onto a prestigious list of the top schools in the world.

The University of Toronto, The University of British Columbia, McGill University and McMaster University have all placed in the top 100 of the Academic Ranking of World Universities 2014 list.

U of T placed 24th, while UBC placed 37th, McGill 67th, and McMaster 90th.

In this year's ranking, Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Stanford nabbed the top three spots.

U of T moved up four spots from last year's ranking, while McMaster moved up two and UBC crept up three. McGill fell nine spots from last year.

The factors that go into each year's ranking include the number of staff and alumni that have won Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, as well as the number of papers published in the prestigious Nature and Science journal. The school's per capita academic performance is also considered, as is its number of "highly-cited" researchers.

In 2013, 23 Canadian universities were represented on the global top 500 ARWU list of top academic institutions, but this year, the number has decreased to 21 schools.

In the ranking, the top-rated institution is given a score of 100, and all the other ones are rated as a percentage of that score, according to the ARWU's website.

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