Eleven Canadian universities are refusing to participate in Maclean's University Ranking Issue, saying the magazine uses flawed methodology.

On Monday, the universities sent a letter to the magazine saying they would not participate in the questionnaire used to compile information for the rankings.

In the letter, sent to Maclean's managing editor of special projects Tony Keller, the group reiterated an ongoing concern "about the methodology used in the... survey and the validity of some of the measures used."

The letter also stated that the universities' "serious concerns have gone largely unaddressed, and there is still no evidence that Maclean's intends to respond to them."

University of Alberta president Indira Samarasekera heads one of the schools that has opting out of the survey. She said the ranking is like "taking apples and furniture and comparing them."

Despite the boycott, Keller said the eleven universities will still be included in the issue.

"Journalists don't stop covering stories and subjects because the stories and subjects criticize them," he said.

"This information is all available. It's all publicly available from third-party sources, from university consortia, through access to information, from annual reports. It's all there, so we'll be continuing ... to use all that information."

But Samarasekera says Maclean's cannot accurately rank the eleven universities since they need classified information.

"For example, they want average entry grades for all 6,000 students (attending the university this fall)," she said. "There's no way Maclean's can calculate that. ... They won't even come close."

"Clearly they need the universities to obtain the information or they wouldn't be asking us."

In another letter from March, four of the eleven universities voiced their dissatisfaction with the magazine's data collection methods. The letter was accompanied by a boycott from the four universities of the magazine's University Student Issue and its graduate survey.

The eleven universities that signed the current letter are:

• Dalhousie University
• McMaster University
• Simon Fraser University
• University of Alberta
• University of British Columbia
• University of Calgary
• University of Lethbridge
• University of Manitoba
• Universite de Montreal
• University of Ottawa
• University of Toronto.

With files from The Canadian Press