Carleton vs uOttawa: Which School is Right for You?

data related to student demographics was taken from Times Higher Education.

Ottawa-Gatineau is a college region through and through. From Algonquin to CÉGEP Heritage, the NCR has no shortage of post-secondary institutions. Most notably, though, are Ottawa’s twin universities: Carleton University & the University of Ottawa. Both of these universities are quite esteemed and regularly rank well within the top half of Canadian university rankings.

While you wouldn’t be doing yourself a disservice by going to either university, it is true that both of these institutions excel at different things. In this article, I’ll be discussing many of these factors, and explaining which university is better at what. Here’s a matchup of Carleton vs uOttawa! And hey – I’ll try not to be biased as a GeeGee myself.

Carleton vs uOttawa: Location

The first category we will be judging these schools on today is location. For some people, it’s important to be in close proximity with other things, and a good location can make or break one’s university experience.

Carleton: located in Old Ottawa South, Carleton puts you in a historic party of the city. At Carleton, you’re relatively close to the Glebe. You’re also not too far from the home of the Panda Game, TD Place, which gives the Ravens a slight de facto home-field advantage. Additionally, the O-Train line 2 runs directly through Carleton with a station right on campus. Though nowhere in the general region of Central Ottawa is exactly “quiet”, Carleton’s neighbourhood is relatively quaint and away from the busiest parts of Downtown Ottawa

uOttawa: at uOttawa, you’re right in the heart of Downtown Ottawa. Located in Sandy Hill, uOttawa is just a short walk from all of the iconic spots in the city: Parliament Hill, Confederation Park, City Hall, the National Arts Centre, and more. On top of this, the north part of the uOttawa campus (around Tabaret Hall) is practically right next to the Rideau Mall and the Byward Market – the latter of which being where just about every student goes to drink on weekends. With an O-Train Line 1 station right in the middle of campus at uOttawa, it’s also easy to get in and out.

Verdict: this one mostly comes down to personal preference, but if you’re interested in Ottawa for the culturally rich city that it is, I would say the uOttawa takes the point here.

Carleton vs uOttawa: Athletics

Carleton: Perhaps most known athletically for its prestigious basketball programs, Carleton excels in the OUA in most sports. Though it has sometimes struggled fielding strong hockey teams, Carleton always comes out of the gate with amazing basketball and soccer teams.

uOttawa: Though no uOttawa program is quite as prestigious as the Carleton basketball teams, there is perhaps a case that uOttawa has more sustained excellence across many various sports. uOttawa soccer is always a great team, and right now the school is doing great things in basketball and hockey, both men’s and women’s.

Verdict: Carleton has a greater sports culture; despite having only about half as many students as uOttawa, they have a greater athletics endowment. Of the sports listed on usports.ca, uOttawa had a better record than Carleton in 5 of 6 leagues that both schools fielded a team for. Ottawa has made the Queen’s Cup Finals twice; Carleton never has. Ottawa has won the Yates Cup four times; Carleton never has. And in the Panda Game, uOttawa leads 38-17, having won the last 6 matchups. The Wilson cup is where Carleton has the lead; 12-4.

Carleton vs uOttawa: Prestige

This one’s simple, and it’s probably indicative of greater trends: how do broad university rankings view these two schools. Instead of looking at each school independently, here’s a table of each university’s ranking from a variety of different sources:

note: N denotes national ranking, i denotes international ranking

Verdict: Despite the seemingly seismic gap in these world rankings, it’s actually pretty close. There are a lot of universities in the world, and this gap isn’t as big as it seems. For proof of this, we can look to the only reputable national ranking I could find, Macleans. This source puts the two pretty close in the rankings, and this has only narrowed over recent years. It all depends on the field you want to get into. Besides, Canadian employers don’t look as much at your Alma Mater as American employers do. Still, every single source is in unison that uOttawa is the more prestigious school. As I said, though, this shouldn’t be make-or-break for anybody.

Carleton vs uOttawa: Various Fields of Study

When looking at which of these schools is right for you, a lot of the focus will come down to what your major will be and which school excels more in that field.

Carleton: Carleton is most known for its Political Science, Engineering, and Journalism programs. Notably, uOttawa doesn’t really have the latter (they have a joint digital journalism program – very confusing), so if you want to major in journalism, your choice should be pretty obvious. On the topic of Political Science, Carleton also has a pretty neat policy studies program that may be even better than anything uOttawa has to offer in the field. For Engineering, Carleton’s Aerospace Engineering program is quite notable.

uOttawa: like Carleton, with the advantage of being in the nation’s capital, uOttawa has fantastic Public Administration and Political Science programs. At uOttawa, though, many Political Science students opt to get a JD at the university’s prestigious law school, something that Carleton doesn’t really have. The Times Higher Education University Rankings placed uOttawa firmly as a top 100 law school in the world in 2025, and the 5th best in Canada. On top of this, uOttawa has good STEM programs like Health Sciences, and a decent business school at Telfer.

Verdict: perhaps more than any other category, this one is fully dependent on what you want to major in. If the answer is Journalism, go to Carleton. If you want to go to law school someday, uOttawa is definitely the best choice. If you want to do Engineering or Political Science, it all depends on the specific field, but you can’t really go wrong with either.

Carleton vs uOttawa: Atmosphere

This category is sort of similar to location, and we will touch up on some of the same things as we did in that category, but this one is more focused on the general feeling of both universities.

Carleton: as I said in the location section, there’s really no “quiet” so close to the centre of Canada’s capital. Still, Carleton is a lot more quiet than uOttawa is. With around 20,000 less students and less of an abundance of first-year “mega classes,” you may feel like your professors are generally more accessible at Carleton.

uOttawa: right in Ottawa’s downtown core, uOttawa is a massive campus and can honestly feel quite isolating for new students. As someone who came to the school from a small Ontario town – I’ve been there. Still, this has its advantages. There are so many clubs, so much to do on campus, and a lot of the school’s huge lecture halls and buildings are very impressive.

Verdict: both schools are pretty huge, but uOttawa dwarfs Carleton in this regard. It’s once again a matter of personal preference here, and both schools have a lot to offer in terms of a unique atmosphere. The two colleges have a near-identical student-to-faculty ratio (roughly 28:1), but it may still feel in some ways that uOttawa’s figure is greater in this regard.

Carleton vs uOttawa: Miscellaneous Advantages

Finally, we come to the end of the article, where I discuss anything I haven’t yet been able to cram into another category. Here are some advantages of each school that haven’t yet been said.

Carleton: the ratio between men and women is exactly 50/50 at Carleton, whereas uOttawa is more slanted in favour of women at 44/56. Carleton has a ton of notable alumni in Canadian civics, from Lester B. Pearson to Jim Watson to Marit Stiles. Carleton also has a slight advantage when it comes to tuition fees, especially for international and graduate students.

uOttawa: the biggest miscellaneous advantage for uOttawa is the multicultural nature of the school. The rate of international students is higher at uOttawa than at Carleton, and of course, uOttawa has bilingualism on its side. If you want to take a program in French in Ontario, uOttawa is really the only right choice for you.

Conclusion

When we discuss the age-old question of Carleton vs uOttawa, there are many different factors that you could chalk up as being a “win” for either school, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t at least a little bit partial to uOttawa as a GeeGee myself, but the truth is, both schools excel at a lot, and it’s really mostly just a matter of personal preference and what you are looking for in a school.

If you care about university rankings, prestige, or perhaps going to Law School in French, then uOttawa is the right choice for you. But if you want to be the next great policy advisor or political journalist from a more down-to-earth school, you may want to consider Carleton. Either way, Canada has so many great universities, and you can’t really go wrong with either option.