New 2006 USNEWS Rankings! Washington University is #1 over Harverd for first time!!!

[firebody]

I guess the new USNEWS rankings for top research medical schools have WashU on top of the list over Harverd and Hopkins this year. The dean of WashU was interviewed two weeks ago by the world report and asked to give opinions on why the school has stayed consistently in the top five and how he felt with being considered number one for the first time in WashU history. I think the magazine will come out next week or so. But here's a snippet in one of the articles in the magazine. (by the way, I don't know any of the rankings for the rest of the schools as this information was sent as a memo to the administration department. obviously it's nice to have insider privileges..hehehe)

quoted:

"I think this was attributed mainly due to the steadfastness and hard work of our administration into making Washington University a top research powerhouse in the country. The implementation of the BioMed21 program along with the new center for Advance Medicine has catapulted our institution as a world class facility leading us into the forefront of the 21st century. The new Farrell Learning and Teaching Center soon to open will only strengthen our position and solidify us as a growing environment set to foster only the best education for our young students and thriving faculty......I can't be more happy for the people involved that has made our school so highly respected among our peers and we hope that we continue to offer the best patient care and research to the health care field....."

so what does everyone here think?

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[Doctor&Geek]

The hell....

 

[every1blowz]

--

 

[Larsitron]

Good God, all those people who turned down a WashU acceptance to attend Harvard will kill themselves now.

lol

 

[sdnstud]

If JH and Harvard stay number 1/2 every year, no one would wanna buy the magazine. This is a publicity stunt

 

[dcham]

awesome! Now if only I could get in........

 

[Kazema]

Good God, all those people who turned down a WashU acceptance to attend Harvard will kill themselves now.

Haha I laughed so hard that I think they heard me down the hall.

 

[exmike]

Let me interpret/paraphrase the WashU dean for you all

"I am proud to see how our number whoring ways and begging every applicant with above a 34 MCAT to apply to our school has boosted our ranking year afte year. Sure, we have robot like research drones for students, but hey! our MCAT and GPA is 309203 Standard deviations higher than the next school and USNews loves that! Does it matter that we made thousands of underqualified applicants apply to our scchool with our flattering letter about their MCAT score? NO! because that lowers our acceptance rate and USNews loves that! I thank USNews wholeheartedly for giving us the vision and direction for medical education in the new century. Cheers to number whoring!"

 

[virilep]

I guess the new USNEWS rankings for top research medical schools have WashU on top of the list over Harverd and Hopkins this year. The dean of WashU was interviewed two weeks ago by the world report and asked to give opinions on why the school has stayed consistently in the top five and how he felt with being considered number one for the first time in WashU history. I think the magazine will come out next week or so. But here's a snippet in one of the articles in the magazine. (by the way, I don't know any of the rankings for the rest of the schools as this information was sent as a memo to the administration department. obviously it's nice to have insider privileges..hehehe)

quoted:

"I think this was attributed mainly due to the steadfastness and hard work of our administration into making Washington University a top research powerhouse in the country. The implementation of the BioMed21 program along with the new center for Advance Medicine has catapulted our institution as a world class facility leading us into the forefront of the 21st century. The new Farrell Learning and Teaching Center soon to open will only strengthen our position and solidify us as a growing environment set to foster only the best education for our young students and thriving faculty......I can't be more happy for the people involved that has made our school so highly respected among our peers and we hope that we continue to offer the best patient care and research to the health care field....."

so what does everyone here think?

OH MY GOD! who cares....

sorry. i mean, if ur gonna go to a school like that, no one really cares who's ranked "first" sorry.... just not into it. sorry... i think this might be one of my only real negative posts. i guess it's just cuz ... alrighty, nevermind, i'll shut up now.

 

[firebody]

If JH and Harvard stay number 1/2 every year, no one would wanna buy the magazine. This is a publicity stunt

yes of course....because we all know it's only med students that buy a magazine that has rarely more than 10 pages devoted to medicine. law, business, and engineering prospectives only browse through it at the aisle.

 

[wends]

its takes more than research power to pump out good doctors.....i liked washU when i went, it was a nice school and everyone was friendly.....but i'd still chose harvard or hopkins......name and reputation man!

 

[Homer Doughnuts]

Oh no, now Wash U students have ANOTHER reason to be arrogant jacka**es, as if they needed it.

 

[yaldekab]

Let me interpret/paraphrase the WashU dean for you all

"I am proud to see how our number whoring ways and begging every applicant with above a 34 MCAT to apply to our school has boosted our ranking year afte year. Sure, we have robot like research drones for students, but hey! our MCAT and GPA is 309203 Standard deviations higher than the next school and USNews loves that! Does it matter that we made thousands of underqualified applicants apply to our scchool with our flattering letter about their MCAT score? NO! because that lowers our acceptance rate and USNews loves that! I thank USNews wholeheartedly for giving us the vision and direction for medical education in the new century. Cheers to number whoring!"

yes, all students with high mcat scores are research drones

 

[Scrubz67]

Unfortunately (or fortunately?) name-power does persist over actual rankings and abberations.

While being #1 is great for Wash-U, I feel the people that we will serve as physicians will almost always prefer a doctor from Harvard or Hopkins. It seems that the only people who really pay attention to those rankings are pre-meds and med students (for the most part) so while our collegues will know the value of schools like Wash-U, UCSF, Umich etc. the general public still adores Harvard, Hopkins, Yale, Duke etc.

Just my two cents...

(and I do slightly agree with the whole number-whoring to the top...sorry)

 

[exmike]

yes, all students with high mcat scores are research drones

have a sense of humor. i rest my case.

 

[Tra La La]

Unfortunately (or fortunately?) name-power does persist over actual rankings and abberations.

While being #1 is great for Wash-U, I feel the people that we will serve as physicians will almost always prefer a doctor from Harvard or Hopkins. It seems that the only people who really pay attention to those rankings are pre-meds and med students (for the most part) so while our collegues will know the value of schools like Wash-U, UCSF, Umich etc. the general public still adores Harvard, Hopkins, Yale, Duke etc.

Just my two cents...

(and I do slightly agree with the whole number-whoring to the top...sorry)

How much would "number whorring" help WU get to the top?

I thought that the research rankings were assessed by the amount of NIH funding?

 

[Sparky Man]

It's really difficult for me to go along with most accusing Wash U. of number whoring. So what if they have high mcat scores? Maybe they have found the mcat to be one good criteria for success in medical school and research. Just because they select for high mcat scores, does not mean they produce complete A-holes. Give me a break, they are doing exceptional work in terms of cutting edge medical research. A high research ranking is deserved.

 

[criminallyinane]

St. Louis is not a mecca for biomedical research, world-class medical care, etc, the way that Boston is, and it never will be Who cares about USNWR? Schools like Mayo get totally underrated and schools like WashU are totally overrated. Who cares?

 

[Tra La La]

It's really difficult for me to go along with most accusing Wash U. of number whoring. So what if they have high mcat scores? Maybe they have found the mcat to be one good criteria for success in medical school and research. Just because they select for high mcat scores, does not mean they produce complete A-holes. Give me a break, they are doing exceptional work in terms of cutting edge medical research. A high research ranking is deserved.

You bring up some good points.

 

[jhugti]

"I think this was attributed mainly due to the steadfastness and hard work of our administration into making Washington University a top research powerhouse in the country. The implementation of the BioMed21 program along with the new center for Advance Medicine has catapulted our institution as a world class facility leading us into the forefront of the 21st century. The new Farrell Learning and Teaching Center soon to open will only strengthen our position and solidify us as a growing environment set to foster only the best education for our young students and thriving faculty......I can't be more happy for the people involved that has made our school so highly respected among our peers and we hope that we continue to offer the best patient care and research to the health care field....."

so what does everyone here think?

either this is BS or the "dean of WashU" has some significant issues with phrasing and subject-verb agreement, especially since this is apparently a press release quote. just read the first sentence slowly and ask yourself if a dean of a top notch university system could have written that.

 

[blump]

either this is BS or the "dean of WashU" has some significant issues with phrasing and subject-verb agreement, especially since this is apparently a press release quote. just read the first sentence slowly and ask yourself if a dean of a top notch university system could have written that.

oh shut up. Who cares

 

[Scrubz67]

How much would number whorring help WU get to the top?

I thought that the research rankings were assessed by the amount of NIH funding?

Oh of course NIH funding is a big factor, but, and this from the Methodology page from USNews:

"Student selectivity (.20 in research model, .15 in primary-care model): This includes three components, which describe the class entering in fall 2003: mean composite Medical College Admission Test score (65 percent), mean undergraduate grade-point average (30 percent), and proportion of applicants accepted (5 percent)."

A weighting of 0.20 is a weight nonetheless...
To me, it's similar why we want to do well in orgo-lab, it's a small part of the overall class grade, but for some, it's an easy way to improve your overall grade...and a little effort can boost you. Same with seeksing only high MCATs and GPA's it's a quick way to at least guarentee that 20% of your "grade" will be high. For the record, I think WashU is a great school, but no institution's admissions practices are flawless.

 

[krelian]

This is BS, but I wouldn't be surprised if it happened in the next few years. To be highly ranked, a school's administration needs to worry about rankings. WashU clearly cares about ranks. It will eventually get to the top. If the school doesn't care so much about rankings, there's a good chance it'll slip.

Example: http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=7816

Of course, every school says that USNWR ranking is not accurate and shouldn't carry much weight... but many of these schools are probably lying

 

[jhugti]

oh shut up. Who cares

those of us who evaluate what we read before we blindly accept it care. you should give it a try some time- really great method.

 

[Tra La La]

Oh of course NIH funding is a big factor, but, and this from the Methodology page from USNews:

"Student selectivity (.20 in research model, .15 in primary-care model): This includes three components, which describe the class entering in fall 2003: mean composite Medical College Admission Test score (65 percent), mean undergraduate grade-point average (30 percent), and proportion of applicants accepted (5 percent)."

A weighting of 0.20 is a weight nonetheless...
To me, it's similar why we want to do well in orgo-lab, it's a small part of the overall class grade, but for some, it's an easy way to improve your overall grade...and a little effort can boost you. Same with seeksing only high MCATs and GPA's it's a quick way to at least guarentee that 20% of your "grade" will be high. For the record, I think WashU is a great school, but no institution's admissions practices are flawless.

Thanks for the insight...but in all honesty, it seems to be a bunch of fuzzy math.

 

[krelian]

"Student selectivity (.20 in research model, .15 in primary-care model): This includes three components, which describe the class entering in fall 2003: mean composite Medical College Admission Test score (65 percent), mean undergraduate grade-point average (30 percent), and proportion of applicants accepted (5 percent)."

Wow, the MCAT counts for more than twice as much as GPA in accounting for the selectivity index

 

[rme04]

the issue will be out on April 1st (or maybe a few days before that since they usually post-date the publication date)

 

[Scrubz67]

Wow, the MCAT counts for more than twice as much as GPA in accounting for the selectivity index

yea kinda crazy, if a school wants a quick boost, why not look for high MCAT scores?

And research ranking is weighted 0.3 or 30% so the weights aren't that wildly different despite the fact that it is a research ranking. The item with the greatest weight is peer evaluation (40%). So the largest determining factor of what makes USNews' top research institution is how it is perceived by it's peers...makes you think...

 

[mhondy]

no one is going to comment on the "harverd" issue? i mean, please.

I guess the new USNEWS rankings for top research medical schools have WashU on top of the list over Harverd and Hopkins this year. The dean of WashU was interviewed two weeks ago by the world report and asked to give opinions on why the school has stayed consistently in the top five and how he felt with being considered number one for the first time in WashU history. I think the magazine will come out next week or so. But here's a snippet in one of the articles in the magazine. (by the way, I don't know any of the rankings for the rest of the schools as this information was sent as a memo to the administration department. obviously it's nice to have insider privileges..hehehe)

quoted:

"I think this was attributed mainly due to the steadfastness and hard work of our administration into making Washington University a top research powerhouse in the country. The implementation of the BioMed21 program along with the new center for Advance Medicine has catapulted our institution as a world class facility leading us into the forefront of the 21st century. The new Farrell Learning and Teaching Center soon to open will only strengthen our position and solidify us as a growing environment set to foster only the best education for our young students and thriving faculty......I can't be more happy for the people involved that has made our school so highly respected among our peers and we hope that we continue to offer the best patient care and research to the health care field....."

so what does everyone here think?

 

[firebody]

no one is going to comment on the "harverd" issue? i mean, please.

hehehe.....just for clarification issue, especially to all the anal pre-meds out there, i'm at work right now. the memo sent was a paper copy. this was not a copy and paste job, but a 'type out what i'm reading but i have to hurry cuz they can't catch me on the computer' thing. i just picked out the important points and posted my findings. when i get home tonight, i'll post the whole letter. but until then, later...

btw, i agree with wends in that she stated she would pick harverd and hopkins over washU any day....it's all about the prestige baby!!!

 

[MWillie]

Wash U owns YOU ALL!

 

[Tra La La]

Wash U owns YOU ALL!

 

[teh-t]

congrats wash U!!

 

[KiwiFruit]

Definitely congrats Wash U...but now I feel I'm not getting in for sure!

 

[wends]

ive been left to hang dry at washU since november. just either cut the noose or tighten it! end it now!!

 

[KiwiFruit]

ive been left to hang dry at washU since november. just either cut the noose or tighten it! end it now!!

I absolutely agree with you!! That's so funny. I just want an answer...but since they're done meeting with adcomm meetings...does that mean since we didn't get express mail acceptance that it's a rejection coming soon? What's up with the waitlist? Is there a lot of movement on the list?

 

[wends]

i have not heard of anyone rejected post-interview from WashU on this board. but i know that now, they will either accept waitlist or reject after april 15th, i think thats when they will send out all the letters.

all i can say is *ouch*.....teasing is fun for the teaser, but never the teased.

 

[getunconcsious]

Wash U owns YOU ALL!

WashU is currently my first choice, and I'm waiting to hear back on my interview. However, if I do not get in, at least it will mean that I won't be in your class next year, MWillie, and I'll be able to take comfort in the fact that you will be "Gettin Willie With it" far, far way from me. Every post I've ever seen by you is needlessly malevolent and mean.

Thanks in advance for making the probably imminent rejection less painful.

 

[Haybrant]

how to access the rest of the '06 us news rankings?

 

[Larsitron]

how to access the rest of the '06 us news rankings?

When they're published/released at the very end of March or the very beginning of April.

 

[MWillie]

at least it will mean that I won't be in your class next year, MWillie, and I'll be able to take comfort in the fact that you will be "Gettin Willie With it" far, far way from me. Every post I've ever seen by you is needlessly malevolent and mean.

Thanks in advance for making the probably imminent rejection less painful.

Haha, you're right. But I hope you'll believe me when I say I'm much nicer in person, since I take out all my negative energy on SDN.

 

[GuyLaroche]

But I hope you'll believe me when I say I'm much nicer in person, since I take out all my negative energy on SDN.

That's what I keep trying to tell everyone on SDN. In person, I am charming, stunning and quite the dresser. Call me Jude Law.

 

[Tra La La]

That's what I keep trying to tell everyone on SDN. In person, I am charming, stunning and quite the dresser. Call me Jude Law.

Man, Jude Law creeps me out.

 

[GuyLaroche]

Man, Jude Law creeps me out.

why? I think he is very good looking in a is-he-bald-or-what kinda way.

 

[wends]

bald?? i thougth he had a great head of hair!

 

[Tra La La]

why? I think he is very good looking in a is-he-bald-or-what kinda way.

I don't know...something about him doesn't sit right with me.

 

[YzIa]

I don't know...something about him doesn't sit right with me.

I get the same feeling, almost like he is too slick.
It could just be jealousy though.

 

[8-)]

WashU is currently my first choice, and I'm waiting to hear back on my interview. However, if I do not get in, at least it will mean that I won't be in your class next year, MWillie, and I'll be able to take comfort in the fact that you will be "Gettin Willie With it" far, far way from me. Every post I've ever seen by you is needlessly malevolent and mean.

Thanks in advance for making the probably imminent rejection less painful.

You know what...now that I think about it, I think MWillie was the first person I had to cyber beatch slap across the face for making a condescending statement about dentists. But I don't think he represents the typical Wash U student. My sib's a med student there and from what I hear, they're not all as arrogant or patronizing as he sounds.

 

[FloridaMadame]

WashU is currently my first choice, and I'm waiting to hear back on my interview. However, if I do not get in, at least it will mean that I won't be in your class next year, MWillie, and I'll be able to take comfort in the fact that you will be "Gettin Willie With it" far, far way from me. Every post I've ever seen by you is needlessly malevolent and mean.

Thanks in advance for making the probably imminent rejection less painful.

Don't be disheartened. i think MWillie was just reacting to everyone else on this thread (and many other threads) who have been dumping on Wash U all year long. His reaction is reminiscent of the "I am king of the world" scene in the movie Titanic. All of us who have been invited to join the Wash U class of 2009 are feeling pretty good right now and we are all sick and tired of everyone condemning Wash U and telling us that we are robots and drones who lack personality. although we may not have the reputation of Harvard or Hopkins, the education and clinical experience we will get will still be pretty damn good, and we are proud to have been accepted, whether we attend or not.
And to you getunconscious, I really do wish you the best of luck for an acceptance at Wash U. You won't have to be MWillie's best friend (even though I personally think he is quite astute and funny at times)--you can be mine!

 

[leechy]

why? I think he is very good looking in a is-he-bald-or-what kinda way.

Jude Law's subtly receding hairline (particularly on the sides of his forehead) has to be one of the saddest phenomena in showbiz today. Here was a man who was (and to a large extent, still is) more beautiful than most of the leading ladies who star with him. On the bright side, at least he isn't balding in the shiny-circular-bullseye-at-the-back-of-the-head kind of way.