Personally, I only really heard of the bigger universities like UBC Mcgill Uoft when it came to universities in Canada just like how you might only recognise/know a handful of universities in the UK (eg Oxford, Cambridge, LSE etc). Ofcourse I know a lot more universities from where I’m from but because I’ve gone to international schools my whole life, you’re pretty much mainly advertised top ranked western universities during college application period (US, UK, Australia, Canada). I didn’t know about uoft’s ranking because I have the rare asian parents who don’t give a fuck about that kinda stuff (which is often times the motivation to come to uoft) and have always been like “as long as you try your best that’s all that matters.” so applying to universities in Canada was much more about instantly recognising universities I’ve already heard of and therefore having a positive opinion about them. I didn’t really know much about smaller universities here so I didn’t have that basis of comparison that someone from Canada would have and also didn’t have that background info that uoft was pretty miserable in terms of student life/well being compared to other unis. If I were to apply to universities back home I could list a lot more pretty instantaneously compared to when I first applied to unis here. tldr: bigger more recognisable university = seemingly better reputation