students. the faculty of humanities was the smallest faculty by enrolment, with 2,729 full-time and part-time undergraduate and graduate students. the faculty of health sciences holds the highest graduate enrolment, with 1,144 graduate students. a number of university students are enrolled in interdisciplinary programs, administered by two or more faculties, including 549 graduate students. at the undergraduate level, the arts and science program is taught jointly by the six faculties at mcmaster. created in 1981, the program aims to provide a broad-based, liberal education, providing substantial work in both the arts and sciences. in september 2016, 278 undergraduate students were enrolled in the arts and science program. the university also jointly administers several undergraduate collaborative programs with mohawk college, in which 2,697 students are enrolled. the university also awards degrees to graduate students of mcmaster divinity college. the divinity college was originally the university's faculty of theology, before it was reorganized into a separately chartered, affiliated college of the university in 1957. students may apply for financial aid such as the ontario student assistance program and canada student loans and grants through the federal and provincial governments. the financial aid provided may come in the form of loans, grants, bursaries, scholarships, fellowships, debt reduction, interest relief, and work programs. in the 2016–2017 academic year, mcmaster students received approximately c$100,972,910 in ontario student assistance program loans and c$40,061,756 in grants, approximately $140,981,009 in total. in the same year students received c$10,135,233.65 in bursaries. the university international student exchange agreements with over 70 universities outside canada, enabling its students to earn credits while studying abroad. mcmaster model the mcmaster model is the university's policy for a student-centred, problem-based, interdisciplinary approach to learning. during the 1960s the mcmaster university medical school pioneered problem-based learning (pbl) tutorials that have since been adopted by other fields in the faculty of health science, as well as other faculties and programs in the university. the pbl tutorial model has since been adopted into the curriculums of other medical schools in canada, and more than 80 per cent of medical schools in the united states. in 1991, mcmaster's school of medicine adopted progress testing, developing the personal progress index (ppi), a system based on progress testing invented concurrently by the university of missouri-kansas city's medical school and the maastricht university. the ppi is used as an objective method for assessing acquisition and retention of knowledge for students in the medical program. the ppi is administered at regular intervals to all students in the program, regardless of their level of training, and plots students' scores as they move through the program. students typically score 20 per cent on their first examination, and increase by five to seven per cent with each successive examination. students can monitor the changes in their scores and receive formative feedback based on a standardized score relative to the class mean. due to the overwhelming success and research supporting the use of the ppi as an evaluation tool, it is now used in canada, us, europe, and australia. reputation university rankingsglobal rankingsarwu world90qs world152qs employability81times world85times employability81u.s news & world report global138canadian rankingsarwu national4qs national6times national4u.s news & world report national5maclean's medical/doctoral4 mcmaster university has placed in post-secondary school rankings. in the 2022 academic ranking of world universities rankings, the university ranked 90th in the world and fourth in canada. the 2023 qs world university rankings ranked the university 152nd in the world and sixth in canada. the 2023 times higher education world university rankings placed mcmaster 85th in the world, and fourth in canada. in u.s. news & world report 2022–23 global university rankings, the university placed 138th, and fifth in canada. in 2011, newsweek had also ranked mcmaster as the 15th top university outside of the united states, and the fourth best university in canada. in maclean's 2023 rankings, mcmaster placed fourth in their medical-doctoral university category, and fifth in their reputation survey for canadian universities. mcmaster was ranked in spite of having opted out from participation in maclean's graduate survey since 2006. mcmaster also placed in a number of rankings that evaluated the employment prospects of graduates. in qs's 2022 graduate employability ranking, the university ranked 81st in the world, and fourth in canada. in the times higher education's 2022 global employability ranking, mcmaster placed 81st in the world, and fifth in canada. in an employability survey published by the new york times in october 2011, when ceos and chairmen were asked to select the top universities which they recruited from, mcmaster placed 61st in the world, and fourth in canada. research michael degroote centre for learning and discovery is a multipurpose building that houses several research facilities of the faculty of health sciences. a titan arum blooming inside the mcmaster biology greenhouse, one of many facilities used for research at the university in 2018, research infosource named mcmaster as the most research intensive university in the country with an average sponsored research income (external sources of funding) of c$434,700 per faculty member in 2017, the highest average in the country, and nearly double the average for universities in the "medical-doctoral" category. in the same year, graduate students averaged a sponsored research income of $82,800, the highest out of any full-service university. with a sponsored research income of $379.959 million in 2017, mcmaster has the seventh largest sponsored research income amongst canadian universities. in the 2015–2016 academic year, the federal government was the largest source of mcmaster's sponsored research income (excluding affiliated hospitals), providing 61.4 per cent of mcmaster's research budget, primarily through grants. corporate research income account for 7.3 per cent of the overall research budget. mcmaster has been ranked on several bibliometric university rankings, which uses citation analysis to evaluate the impact a university has on academic publications. in 2019, the performance ranking of scientific papers for world universities ranked mcmaster 119th in the world, and sixth in canada. the university ranking by academic performance 2018–19 rankings placed the university 126th in the world, and sixth in canada. mcmaster has received accolades for its research strengths, particularly in the field of health sciences. the faculty of health science oversees $130 million a year in research, much of it conducted by scientists and physicians who teach in the medical school. the university also operates a brain bank, whose collection includes a portion of albert einstein's brain, preserved and held for medical research. researchers there have identified differences in his brain that may relate to his genius for spatial and mathematical thinking. in addition to traditional forms of research, members of faculty of health sciences have also been credited with developments within the medical practice. a mcmaster research group led by david sackett and later gordon guyatt had been credited for establishing the methodologies used in evidence-based medicine. research institutes operated by the faculty of health science include the firestone institute for respiratory health, and the population health research institute. the faculty also operates a biosafety level 3 laboratory. other research institutes operated by the university include the origins institute, the mcmaster manufacturing research institute, and the brockhouse institute for materials research (bimr). bimr was created in 1960 by howard petch, the institute was named after mcmaster alumnus bertram brockhouse. the bimr is an interdisciplinary research organization with the mandate to develop, support, and co-ordinate all materials research related activities at mcmaster. its membership of 123 faculty members is drawn from 13 departments in the faculties of science, engineering, and health sciences, as well as several canadian and international universities. facilities of the bimr include the canadian centre for electron microscopy, centre for crystal growth, mcmaster analytical xray facility, electronic and magnetic characterization facility, and the photonics research laboratories. the canadian centre for electron microscopy is home to the world's most powerful electron microscope; the titan 80–300 cubed microscope has a magnification of 14 million and is used for material, medical, and nanotechnology research. the biology greenhouse holds 217 plants in a 780-square-metre (8,400 sq ft) facility, and is used as a teaching and research facility by the department of biology. in addition to maintaining its permanent collection, the biology greenhouse also grows plants for both short-term research studies. the mcmaster nuclear reactor is the largest research reactor in the commonwealth of nations. in addition, the university also operates the mcmaster nuclear reactor, used for nuclear science and engineering research since 1959. the university regularly acquires an operating license for the reactor from the canadian nuclear safety commission, with the latest 10-year license issued on 1 july 2014. the swimming pool reactor is used for research, educational, and commercial applications such as neutron radiography, and medical radioisotope production; including 60 per cent of the world's supply of iodine-125, an isotope used in nuclear medicine to treat prostate cancer. the production of molybdenum-99 has occasionally been moved to the university's reactor, when production at the national research universal reactor was temporarily halted. the strength of nuclear science at mcmaster was augmented in 1968 under the presidency of dr. h.g. thode by the construction of a 10mv model fn tandem particle accelerator. the 3mv model kn single-ended accelerator was added the same year. the academic direction of the laboratory fell to the physics department in the early days, as it was primarily a nuclear structure laboratory. during the next 28 years, the nuclear research effort was extensive, with hundreds of graduate students trained and many publications generated. admissions the requirements for admission differ between students from ontario, other provinces in canada, and international students due to the lack of uniformity in marking schemes. the acceptance rate at mcmaster for full-time, first-year applications in 2018 was 52.6 per cent. in september 2014, the secondary school average for full-time first-year students at mcmaster university was 87.7 per cent. the university received 28,079 applicants in 2016. however, students entering mcmaster's more selective undergraduate programs, including the health sciences, integrated sciences, and arts and science programs, had a secondary school average of 96.3 per cent. in 2016, yahoo! finance named the university's health sciences program the toughest canadian undergraduate program to gain admission to, with an acceptance rate of 4.5 per cent out of an average of 3,500 applicants each year. the michael degroote school of medicine has notably developed admission tests adopted by other schools. in 2001, they developed the multiple-mini interview to address long-standing concerns over standard panel interviews; viewed as poor reflectors for medical school performance. this format uses short, independent assessments in a timed circuit to obtain aggregate scores in interpersonal skills, professionalism, ethical/moral judgment, and critical thinking to assess candidates. the multiple-mini interview has consistently shown to have a higher predictive validity for future performance than traditional interviews. the multiple-mini interview process has since been adopted by the majority of canadian medical schools, as well as a number of medical schools in the united states. in 2010, the medical school developed the computer-based assessment for sampling personal characteristics, to better assess the applicant's personal characteristics. several other medical schools have adopted the casper test, including new york medical college, robert wood johnson medical school, and the university of ottawa faculty of medicine. student life demographics of student body (2017–18) undergraduategraduate male 45.7%48.4% female 54.3%51.6% canadian student 90.8%76.6% international student 9.2%23.4% in the 2016–2017 academic year, the university had an enrolment of 31,625 students: 26,780 undergraduate students, 4,485 graduate students. the student body is largely made up of canadians, making up 90.27 per cent of the student population. international students represented, respectively, 9.73 per cent of the student population. full-time students make up about 93.8 per cent of the student body. among full-time students, the university has a first-time student retention rate of 90.9 per cent. student groups the student centre plaza, with the mcmaster university student centre and mills memorial library in the background, april 2017 the main student unions on administrative and policy issues are the mcmaster students union for full-time undergraduates, the mcmaster association of part-time students for part-time undergraduates, and the mcmaster graduate students association for postgraduates. in addition, each faculty has its own student representative body. there are more than 300 student organizations and clubs, covering a wide range of interests such as academics, culture, religion, social issues, and recreation. many of them are centred at mcmaster's student activity centre. the silhouette, the student-run newspaper, is the