McGill University was founded in 1821 after James McGill, a wealthy fur trader and merchant, donated a 46-acre estate to establish a college bearing his name. McGill College began holding classes in 1829 in the merchant’s former country house. McGill University has since developed into a public research university with 2 campuses, 11 faculties and 10 schools with over 300 programs of study. The university has five strategic priorities: student life and learning, research and innovation, community engagement, work culture, and transforming the virtual and physical campus.

McGill has an enrollment of 40,493 students as reported in the fall of 2016. This includes 27,475 undergraduate students, 9,473 graduate students and 659 postdoctoral scholars, among others. The university reports that 52% of students are from Quebec, 21% of students are from the rest of Canada and 27% are international students. Maclean’s reports standout programs as being the innovation and entrepreneurship program, the liberal arts program, and artic field studies.

McGill reports that it has 1,677 tenured and tenure-stream faculty as well as 158 Canada Research Chairs. In 2014-2015 its research projects received $473.1m in external funding with 54.4% coming from the federal government. McGill has a sizeable patent estate with 651 patent applications currently in progress and 139 national and international patent applications being filed in F2016.

McGill University is Canada’s largest producer of Rhodes Scholars with 142 scholars.

McGill University is one of Canada’s Major 100 charities with donations of $96.6m. McGill’s administrative costs are 20% of revenues and fundraising costs are 16% of donations. For every dollar donated, 64 cents goes towards its programs, falling outside of Ci’s reasonable range. Factoring in debt, McGill has total funding reserves of $676.7m with total donor-endowed reserves of $1.4bn. This can cover programs for just under one year (85%), showing a need for donations.

This charity report is an update that is being reviewed by McGill University. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated on July 27th, 2017 by Josh Lam.