McMaster University ranked 149th in a list of the world's top post secondary institutions, according to the QS World University Rankings.

The top Canadian university was McGill, which was 24th, while the University of British Columbia also made the top 50, in 50th spot.

Topping the list was the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, followed by Harvard, with the University of Cambridge and Stanford tied at third spot.

Rounding out the top 10 are Caltech, the University of Oxford, University College London, Imperial College London, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and the University of Chicago.

The listing began in 2004 and ranks 400 universities while assessing thousands around the globe.

Universities on the list were busy Tweeting out their rankings. "We're 156th ... and 25th in the U.K.," said a posting from University of Reading. Said one Tweet, apparently official, from the University of Southampton, "We've risen 13 places to rank 82nd in the 2015 (rankings)."

The most important factor in the rating system is academic reputation, which contributes to 40 per cent of the score.

For this grade, QS said almost 76,800 academics worldwide were surveyed on where they believe the best work is taking place inside their area of expertise.

Two categories which each accounted for 20 per cent of the grade were student-to-faculty ratio and citations per faculty.

Small class sizes and individual supervision were valued highest in student-to-faculty ratio while "citations" refers to how often pieces of works are cited in research papers.

Employer reputation accounted for 10 per cent of scores. For this number, employers were surveyed on which universities that employers think produce the top graduates.

The other factors considered were international faculty ratio and international student ratio.

Those categories were an attempt to assess if universities were successful in attracting top students and academics from around the world.

The top ten

1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

2. Harvard University

3. University of Cambridge

4. Stanford University

5. California Institute of Technology

6. University of Oxford

7. University College London

8. Imperial College London

9. Swiss Federal Institute of Technology

10. University of Chicago

Canadian universities' rankings

24. McGill University

34. University of Toronto

50. University of British Columbia

96. University of Alberta

115. Université de Montréal

149. McMaster University

152. University of Waterloo

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192. University of Western Ontario

204. University of Calgary

206. Queen's University

225. Simon Fraser University

277. Dalhousie University

284. University of Ottawa

319. University of Victoria

324. Laval University

Rankings of Canadian universities outside the top 400 list, based on assessments:

411. Concordia University

431. Université de Québec

441. York University

451. University of Saskatchewan

471. University of Guelph

501. Carleton University

551. University of Manitoba

601. Memorial University of Newfoundland

Score tied with

601. Université de Sherbrooke

651. University of Windsor

701. Ryerson University