The University of Northern B.C. is the second-highest ranked small university in Canada.

In the 22nd annual Maclean's magazine rankings, released Thursday, UNBC is Number 2 among undergraduate schools, trailing only Mount Allison University in Sackville, N.B.

That's an improvement of one position for UNBC over last year's No. 3 ranking. UNBC opened in 1994 and has steadily climbed since its ninth-place debut in the rankings in 1998. The campus on Cranbrook Hill is celebrating the fact it has highest total research budget and the second-best student-faculty ratio.

Undergraduate schools are smaller and have fewer graduate programs and fewer graduate students. The rankings are based on 13 performance indicators (14 indicators for medical-doctoral schools). Four B.C. universities posted top-two rankings in the poll of 49 Canadian universities.

In the medical-doctoral category, UBC leapfrogged the University of Toronto into second spot. UNBC's Northern Medical Program is made up of students who complete their first semester of medical school at UBC. McGill in Montreal is No. 1, the eighth consecutive year it has topped the poll.

Simon Fraser University in Burnaby and the University of Victoria ranked first and second respectively in the comprehensive category.

See Friday's Citizen for more