When it comes to the best tech schools in North America, the competition is fierce. The University of Waterloo is right there in the thick of it with academic powerhouses like MIT and Harvard. But when it comes to the best and biggest tech schools in North America, UWaterloo comes out on top.
QS University Rankings releases an annual report that scores 1,400 of the world’s universities on academic reputation, employer reputation and more. Then, schools are ranked in individual categories based on subject, such as computer science and engineering. The rankings can be further filtered by country and continent.
In North America, a top 25 ranking in any subject indicates a global leader. For computer science, schools listed in the top 25 are part of an elite group educating the future of tech. In this group, you have well-known leaders like MIT, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, UCLA, the University of Toronto (UofT), and UWaterloo. But the data set from QS is missing an important piece of the puzzle – size.
Size matters for companies looking to recruit top talent. Some programs rank incredibly well in the report, but they have very few graduates every year, making it difficult for companies to attract these students after they graduate. But if your hiring strategy targets a successful computer science program with thousands of students, you have a much better chance at recruitment.
It takes a long time to comb through each university’s website for enrollment statistics to determine which elite computer science program is the largest. We figured out how many undergraduate students are enrolled in computer science at each of the top 25 schools on the QS Subject Rankings. Here, you have each piece of the puzzle, all in one place.
Top tech schools with the most tech students
UWaterloo is at the top of the list for quality and quantity.
It is the 15th best tech school in North America and the biggest across the entire continent. 4,708 undergraduate students are enrolled in computer science and computer engineering. The second biggest school, the University of British Columbia, trails behind with 2,774 students.
To put it in another perspective, the top four schools on the QS ranking (MIT, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon and Harvard) combine to have 4,076 computer science students. That’s 632 less than Waterloo.
On the world scale, North America is the place to watch for up-and-coming tech talent. Out of the top fifty schools for computer science worldwide, 25 are in North America. 50% of the world’s best computer science talent is concentrated in one continent. Clearly, if you want to recruit an impressive quality and quantity of tech talent, North America is the place to look.
*Universities marked with an asterisk do not provide full enrollment numbers for their programs, but they do provide either new enrollments each year or total number of graduates from a given program. In these cases, we simply multiplied the number by four to give an approximate number for four-year programs. This will not provide a perfect reflection of enrollment, but it does not affect this article’s conclusions.
The backbone of the Toronto Waterloo Corridor
A few paces behind – and only 100km/65mi away from – UWaterloo is the University of Toronto. These world-renowned universities are a short drive down highway 401 from one another, and together, they are the backbone of the Toronto-Waterloo Corridor.
Combined, UWaterloo and UofT have 6,766 computer science students enrolled in undergraduate programs. There’s only one other location in North America that comes close to this many students from top 25 schools within a 100km/65mi radius: New York. But even if you combine NYU, Columbia and Cornell, you have 5,322 students – 1,444 less than UWaterloo and UofT.
These two universities are a beacon of tech talent in North America and contribute to the success and reputation of the Toronto-Waterloo Corridor as Canada’s top tech hub.
In fact, CBRE’s latest Scoring Tech Talent Report confirms what we already knew: Waterloo and Toronto are two of the best tech talent markets in North America.
In the 2025 report, Waterloo rocketed to an incredible top-10 finish out of the best tech hubs in the continent, ranking #7 overall. Our community continues to hold the #1 small tech talent market crown, and remains the best value when it comes to cost and quality.
In another impressive move, Toronto accelerated to 3rd place, beating New York City and Austin, Texas. Toronto now has the fourth-highest concentration of tech talent in North America.
Waterloo vs. Silicon Valley: Tech schools
Waterloo and Silicon Valley are often close competitors when it comes to computer science students. Silicon Valley is home to two universities in the top 25, UC Berkeley and Stanford. Their undergraduate computer science programs are strong, but not nearly as large as Waterloo’s – even if you add them together. In a comparison between Waterloo and Silicon Valley’s schools, UWaterloo singularly claims the victory.
Silicon Valley companies often recruit from talent pools at UC Berkeley and Stanford, due to proximity. As expected, companies located in Waterloo recruit from UWaterloo – except the talent pool is so much bigger.
Plus, if you factor in UofT’s students, you now have access to 3,426 more tech graduates than companies in Silicon Valley. When it comes to hiring, you want to be in the right place with the right people. Waterloo offers both.
Beyond big
While the QS Rankings can be an ideal starting point for comparative analysis, they don’t capture everything that makes a school successful in preparing its graduates for careers in tech. You need the qualitative information just as much as the quantitative.
In addition to its large computer science cohort and a prestigious rank in the QS Rankings, UWaterloo is unmatched in terms of experiential learning and entrepreneurship.
At UWaterloo, most students graduate with 2+ years of on-the-job training. UWaterloo’s co-operative education program is the largest in the world, blending work experience with academic studies over the span of students’ undergraduate degrees.
In addition to work experience, UWaterloo prioritizes entrepreneurship. 18% of all founders in Canada come from UWaterloo, which makes sense because the school is the #1 university in Canada for startup founders and #21 globally. This speaks volumes to the innovative culture that UWaterloo fosters for its students, faculty and researchers.
Best, biggest and brightest
Waterloo is among the best, biggest and brightest when it comes to tech schools in North America. If you’re looking for work-ready talent with entrepreneurial spirit (and lots of it), Waterloo is the place to be.