US News Med School Rankings Validity?

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Are the criteria used by US News to rank med schools generally considered pretty valid? I guess my question is really getting at whether the rankings strongly correlate with success of those programs getting students into their desired residencies. Is there another ranking list that better represents residency match success? And how do the "primary care" and "research" rankings different in terms of residency matching?
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-No.
-No.
-No.
-They don't.
 
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Med school rankings exist primarily to provide popcorn reading for OCD undergrads and helicopter parents who desire nothing more than to go to the monthly book club and say "my son Billy goes to a Top23 med school".
 
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Spinach Dip said:
-No.
-No.
-No.
-They don't.
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Got it, thanks!
Spinach Dip said:
Med school rankings exist primarily to provide popcorn reading for OCD undergrads and helicopter parents who desire nothing more than to go to the monthly book club and say "my son Billy goes to a Top23 med school".
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It's so amusing when people say something like they go to a "top 35 school," ..we all know your school is ranked between 30 and 35 :laugh:
 
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It's a ranking with "how much money a school has" being a major criterion. You decide.

With that being said, my school is quite highly ranked. ;)
 
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Cinclus said:
It's a ranking with "how much money a school has" being a major criterion. You decide.

With that being said, my school is quite highly ranked. ;)
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Haha

OP, here's the US News methodology.
$$ does play a huge role in the rankings, but the top ranked schools do have a lot of resources for their students.
 
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Hospital rankings have some valid metrics, schools less so.
However comparing the resources and opportunities available at the top 10-20 schools compared to say the bottom 1/2 is night and day. So the methodology is generally flawed, but all schools are not equal.
 
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Top ranked research schools are those that generate more research dollars. While that is an imperfect metric for quality, it does reflect that the place is attracting big name guys and has more $ for infrastructure. The caveat though is that if a school gets a big grant to build a cyclotron across town that gives the school a big rankings bump but it's not like a med student will ever see that facility. So use it for what it is, an imperfect metric. Is the place ranked 1 a better opportunity for research and working with big name players than the place ranked 100? Sure. Does the ranking mean much when comparing the school ranked 35 or 50? Not so much. Primary care rankings are meaningless. All schools can get you into primary care, and this is mostly a consolation prize for places that don't do well on the research rankings.
 
To answer to the question "will school rank play a role in the residency match": absolutely
 
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There are always anomalies. A top 30 school in the Midwest could be ranked higher but it is in the Midwest. Mayo also seems to be ranked lower than the program deserves. There are great programs that are very popular but not highly ranked. Use the data to look at interview stats, step scores, interview to acceptance rates, then judge programs on your own.
 
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Cyberdyne 101 said:
Really? I was under the impression that the top ranked schools have more resources for research and other projects.
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In general, most certainly, and that was my personal experience as well. But there are of course exceptions..
 
Law2Doc said:
Top ranked research schools are those that generate more research dollars. While that is an imperfect metric for quality, it does reflect that the place is attracting big name guys and has more $ for infrastructure. The caveat though is that if a school gets a big grant to build a cyclotron across town that gives the school a big rankings bump but it's not like a med student will ever see that facility. So use it for what it is, an imperfect metric. Is the place ranked 1 a better opportunity for research and working with big name players than the place ranked 100? Sure. Does the ranking mean much when comparing the school ranked 35 or 50? Not so much. Primary care rankings are meaningless. All schools can get you into primary care, and this is mostly a consolation prize for places that don't do well on the research rankings.
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Curiously, NYU appears to be doing very well with funding but the truth is it got a one-time bump due to NIH funding to repair storm damage to its research facilities. That's no new big names and no new facilities that aren't replacing facilities that are gone. Take it all with a grain of salt - but not salt water; that's what caused the trouble in the first place.
 
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This may be a dumb question, but is there another ranking system outside of USNWR for medical schools?
 
Spinach Dip said:
-No.
-No.
-No.
-They don't.
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Am I the only one who read that and sang, "no, no, no they don't" to the tune of Row row row your boat? :) (sorry, turkey endured AND induced hysteria here)
 
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What's the best way to determine a program's success at getting students into desired residencies compared to other schools then? Many say that looking at match lists from the schools is meaningless because it is so hard to read.
 
Lancer said:
What's the best way to determine a program's success at getting students into desired residencies compared to other schools then? Many say that looking at match lists from the schools is meaningless because it is so hard to read.
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I think this is a pretty tough thing to know. Because if you're comparing two "highly ranked" or "highly regarded" schools, then it's likely that either will get you approximately equally in the door and the rest is up to you. And if you're comparing two very different schools (top private vs average state school) then there are many different factors. Student talent levels and, particularly, motivations play a huge role. Many top applicants choose their state school for practical reasons and may rank a residency program that most wouldn't consider "elite" because it's close to home and fits their career goals. All match lists are affected by the geographical preferences of that school's applicants. So the person who matched into family practice in Nowhere, Kentucky could have matched derm at Penn but didn't have that motivation.
 
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Rank by percent of class accepted into plastics residencies in California, NY, or Florida XD
 
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At the end of the day, the one of the best metrics would be to see how satisfied students were with their medical education experience and, ultimately, residency match outcome. NRMP Match data (page 41) shows that 51.6% of US seniors received their #1 choice program. The "best" medical schools will likely be those that have the highest standard deviation from the mean. Remember, #1 choice of program doesn't mean the most competitive or geographically alluring destination, but it reflects a combination of factors that each student finds to be most important. It would be incredibly useful to see the breakdown for individual schools, along with surveys on other satisfaction parameters including whether or not they even interviewed at what would have been their possible #1, 2, 3, etc. choice. However, this information is rarely made public. For what it's worth, my school, internally, reports a 76% match to students' #1 choice.

Edit: Clarification
 
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BraggingMyPeak said:
At the end of the day, the one of the best metrics would be to see how satisfied students were with their medical education experience and, ultimately, residency match outcome. NRMP Match data (page 41) shows that 51.6% of US seniors received their #1 choice. The "best" medical schools will likely be those that have the highest standard deviation from the mean. Remember, #1 choice doesn't mean the most competitive or geographically alluring destination, but it reflects a combination of factors that each student finds to be most important. It would be incredibly useful to see the breakdown for individual schools, along with surveys on other satisfaction parameters including whether or not they even interviewed at what would have been their possible #1, 2, 3, etc. choice. However, this information is rarely made public. For what it's worth, my school, internally, reports a 76% match to students' #1 choice.
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#1 choice of program or #1 choice of specialty?

Edit: Please say program.
 
BraggingMyPeak said:
Yeah it's program.
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#1 ranked program doesn't actually mean that it's your #1 program. The obvious reason is that your actual #1 might have never interviewed you. This happened to me (and tons of others), and while my school will report me as having matched at my #1 based on rank preference that's not wholly accurate. Less obvious and more gamesmanship stuff is that a lot of people will rank #1 the program they think they have the highest chance of getting into, so that they can call them and tell the PD that their program is the top choice.
 
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You could look at class profile MCAT and GPAs, certainly still not a perfect metric but better than grant funding IMO. When you do this you do tend to see an overall order pretty similar to school reputations/prestige
 
RogueUnicorn said:
#1 ranked program doesn't actually mean that it's your #1 program. The obvious reason is that your actual #1 might have never interviewed you. This happened to me (and tons of others), and while my school will report me as having matched at my #1 based on rank preference that's not wholly accurate. Less obvious and more gamesmanship stuff is that a lot of people will rank #1 the program they think they have the highest chance of getting into, so that they can call them and tell the PD that their program is the top choice.
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As I mentioned in my original post, it's important to identify other factors including whether or not students even interviewed at what would have been their possible #1, 2, 3 choice. Given this and the gamesmanship that goes into the Match as you mentioned, I would like to see more detailed surveys that can tease out those questions. So while the #1 program choice may be an oversimplification, I still argue it's a better metric for what makes a "top" medical school than US News, at least from a medical students' perspective.
 
This is an "oldie but a goodie" blog post on the USNWR ranking methodology and it is pretty instructive.

https://anastomosed.wordpress.com/2013/03/14/what-would-it-take-to-knock-harvard-med-off-1-in-usnwr/

Basically it's Harvard at number 1 and then a bunch of other pleb schools competing for number 2.


(Obviously joking but it goes to show how important resources are to ranking and how that may not correlate with what the typical medical student will have access to. Typically, MD/PhDs should care a little bit more about rankings since those research resources might translate to something actually meaningful but even then it's not more important than the program being fully funded or a good fit for you).
 
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Lancer said:
What's the best way to determine a program's success at getting students into desired residencies compared to other schools then? Many say that looking at match lists from the schools is meaningless because it is so hard to read.
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Match lists are meaningless for multiple reasons beyond being hard to read. They only really tell you what people wanted, not what they could get.

As for "getting into desired residencies" I think you are asking an unanswerable question.

First, you don't know what specialty you'll want. Are there places that do more research and have better mentors in a particular specialty? Perhaps, but then you are screwed if you think you'll want specialty X, pick a school great for X, and decide you want Y. There's no school that's the best in everything and most schools are good at some things, bad at others. So it's generally a crap shoot.

Second, most of this is about your own abilities. Your school isn't going to take the steps for you and it won't interview for you. Frankly it won't do as much to get you into a residency as you'll do yourself. Most US allo schools are decent launch pads for most specialties so I really wouldn't focus on this as much as finding a place where you will thrive and do well. Of course if you are focused on research or planning on s specialty that expects research, there are places that have better opportunities than others, so there may be legit reasons to pick higher on the rank lists.
 
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RogueUnicorn said:
Less obvious and more gamesmanship stuff is that a lot of people will rank #1 the program they think they have the highest chance of getting into, so that they can call them and tell the PD that their program is the top choice.
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Are these calls an unwritten expectation at certain programs?
 
BraggingMyPeak said:
As I mentioned in my original post, it's important to identify other factors including whether or not students even interviewed at what would have been their possible #1, 2, 3 choice. Given this and the gamesmanship that goes into the Match as you mentioned, I would like to see more detailed surveys that can tease out those questions. So while the #1 program choice may be an oversimplification, I still argue it's a better metric for what makes a "top" medical school than US News, at least from a medical students' perspective.
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Relax buddy it's mostly for the benefit of the premedical guys. I'm talking through you, not to.
Cyberdyne 101 said:
Are these calls an unwritten expectation at certain programs?
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Yes, unfortunately. Certain programs in certain fields make a big deal of it and won't rank you otherwise.
Med Ed said:
Well that's stupid.
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IlDestriero said:
Exactly. It's not gamesmanship, it's stupidity.
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I agree it's stupid, but I mostly blame the minority of programs who try to game the system
 
RogueUnicorn said:
Yes, unfortunately. Certain programs in certain fields make a big deal of it and won't rank you otherwise.


I agree it's stupid, but I mostly blame the minority of programs who try to game the system
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So theoretically, one would have to assume that their chances of matching at a given program are excellent to make this call. Eh, I feel like there's too much uncertainty going on here.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback!
 
Cyberdyne 101 said:
So theoretically, one would have to assume that their chances of matching at a given program are excellent to make this call. Eh, I feel like there's too much uncertainty going on here.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback!
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There are lots of reading of things in between the lines for these kinds of situations. That being said, the majority of programs in most fields play it straight
 
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Med Ed said:
How are these programs you speak of trying to game the system?
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how is it not when it's expected of an applicant to tell the PD the program is their #1 for them to be ranked to match?
 
Rankings are only really valuable in a very broad sense of tiers, though the exact borders of those may be debatable. One need only see how the ranking shift year to year despite there being no discernible changes in those schools to see that finer distinctions are problematic.

Looking at match lists is about as close to worthless as you can get. The reality is that you yourself determine your match far more than your school does. That's not to say a top school wouldn't provide you with great opportunities, but you would still have to avail yourself of them for it to matter. As a very broad rule, you can match to your top choice program coming from almost anywhere provided you work hard enough and make things happen for yourself. It's very unlikely your school would be the only limiting factor.

Regarding the gamesmanship with matching, I would advise pre meds to be very very wary of any advice you get about gaming your rank list. I shudder at times when I hear faculty advise people on it when they clearly don't understand how the algorithm works. Do your own due diligence when the time comes. As far as the whole letting your number one know thing, it probably doesn't change much as many programs will rank you before you even get back to the airport. There are far more important things to focus on.
 
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operaman said:
Rankings are only really valuable in a very broad sense of tiers, though the exact borders of those may be debatable. One need only see how the ranking shift year to year despite there being no discernible changes in those schools to see that finer distinctions are problematic.

Looking at match lists is about as close to worthless as you can get. The reality is that you yourself determine your match far more than your school does. That's not to say a top school wouldn't provide you with great opportunities, but you would still have to avail yourself of them for it to matter. As a very broad rule, you can match to your top choice program coming from almost anywhere provided you work hard enough and make things happen for yourself. It's very unlikely your school would be the only limiting factor.

Regarding the gamesmanship with matching, I would advise pre meds to be very very wary of any advice you get about gaming your rank list. I shudder at times when I hear faculty advise people on it when they clearly don't understand how the algorithm works. Do your own due diligence when the time comes. As far as the whole letting your number one know thing, it probably doesn't change much as many programs will rank you before you even get back to the airport. There are far more important things to focus on.
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It's always amazing to me how many idiotic attempts I see to "game" the match every year - both in person and on SDN. These people are about to be doctors (or, in the case of those advising them, academic physicians) for Christ's sake. The algorithm isn't that difficult to understand.

Blows my mind every year.
 
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The match is more about you as an individual than the school you attend. Step 1 and AOA (honors society) is about your effort as a student. Your letters of reference are about you as a person. What does matter are who the people who write your letters. But every school has heavy hitters. A school might not have a department that you're interested in but you can definitely still match well without one. Granted, it is definitely a more difficult journey.

People go from every school to highly regarded residencies all the time. But it seems that what's more important than going to what you think is the best program is going to the right geographical area and being with the right people.
 
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operaman said:
Rankings are only really valuable in a very broad sense of tiers, though the exact borders of those may be debatable. One need only see how the ranking shift year to year despite there being no discernible changes in those schools to see that finer distinctions are problematic.

Looking at match lists is about as close to worthless as you can get. The reality is that you yourself determine your match far more than your school does. That's not to say a top school wouldn't provide you with great opportunities, but you would still have to avail yourself of them for it to matter. As a very broad rule, you can match to your top choice program coming from almost anywhere provided you work hard enough and make things happen for yourself. It's very unlikely your school would be the only limiting factor.

Regarding the gamesmanship with matching, I would advise pre meds to be very very wary of any advice you get about gaming your rank list. I shudder at times when I hear faculty advise people on it when they clearly don't understand how the algorithm works. Do your own due diligence when the time comes. As far as the whole letting your number one know thing, it probably doesn't change much as many programs will rank you before you even get back to the airport. There are far more important things to focus on.
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I sort of agree what you say but I think the problem with tiers inevitably is between adjacent ones. For instance you might want to try and call something a "top 10" school. But is the place ranked 11 worse than the one ranked 10? Not really. Or then you could say I'll do a top twenty tier. And while many may agree that group of schools may be "better" than the schools you are ranking 70-100, how confident are you that your school ranked 19 is better than the one ranked 25? And then is 25 really "better" than 30? And once you see that the tiers only work as compared to very distant tiers, rather than head to head with those near the cut offs you simply don't have much of a tool to help you decide. So basically yes you can say Harvard and Hopkins are better than Bobs Unranked School for the Mentally Challenged. But I think you can never create a good tier system that will help you distinguish schools 10-20 ranks apart, without unfairly and arbitrarily elevating some and snubbing others.
 
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Go for where your classmates, faculty, and others around you will make you happy and keep you sane. For the vast majority of people, it is their own performance on things like step that will end up limiting what they can do, and where they can do it. If you don't like the people you are around and won't be able to have strong bonds to keep you going, it's going to be even harder to do well. You can be unhappy at a top 10 school, or a bottom 1/2 school, it depends on the individual.
 
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NickNaylor said:
It's always amazing to me how many idiotic attempts I see to "game" the match every year - both in person and on SDN. These people are about to be doctors (or, in the case of those advising them, academic physicians) for Christ's sake. The algorithm isn't that difficult to understand.

Blows my mind every year.
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Most programs don't put stock in what people claim is their number one and most students know enough to rank places in order they'd like to rank. People who try to game the system on either side get burned more often than not. Don't do this. Most programs won't expect you to.
 
1000% agree. One thing I've learned in trying to pierce the murk of what is a good residency, is that if a program is your #1 choice, then it's a good program, even it's Joe's Hospital and Clam Bar.

Psai said:
People go from every schools to highly regarded residencies all the time. But it seems that what's more important than going to what you think is the best program is going to the right geographical area and being with the right people.
Click to expand...
 
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Law2Doc said:
I sort of agree what you say but I think the problem with tiers inevitably is between adjacent ones. For instance you might want to try and call something a "top 10" school. But is the place ranked 11 worse than the one ranked 10? Not really. Or then you could say I'll do a top twenty tier. And while many may agree that group of schools may be "better" than the schools you are ranking 70-100, how confident are you that your school ranked 19 is better than the one ranked 25? And then is 25 really "better" than 30? And once you see that the tiers only work as compared to very distant tiers, rather than head to head with those near the cut offs you simply don't have much of a tool to help you decide. So basically yes you can say Harvard and Hopkins are better than Bobs Unranked School for the Mentally Challenged. But I think you can never create a good tier system that will help you distinguish schools 10-20 ranks apart, without unfairly and arbitrarily elevating some and snubbing others.
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Exactly. That's what I was trying to say albeit not as clearly.

The year to year changes really put the nail in the coffin for close comparisons. It's not like a school jumps 5 places and all their students and faculty are thinking, "wow this place sure got noticeably better in the last year!"
 
operaman said:
Exactly. That's what I was trying to say albeit not as clearly.

The year to year changes really put the nail in the coffin for close comparisons. It's not like a school jumps 5 places and all their students and faculty are thinking, "wow this place sure got noticeably better in the last year!"
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I'm not even talking about the year to year movement. I'm saying there's no quality difference between the school a ranking system might rank within 5, 10, even 15 spots from each other, and so any tier system will be exalting some and screwing others at the margins who really are distinguishable. If you are comparing school 1 to school 100, sure, there will be differences in resources, more big name attendings, more research, but nobody really needs a rankings list for that. Yet the premed might pick X because it's "top tier" even though by most metrics the one ranked 5 below it would potentially be a "better" school. That's why I shudder at the idea of tiers for this -- it will create false perceptions and not serve people well. The short answer is if you expect to do research, the places with more research dollars are probably places with more opportunities. Otherwise try to find a place at which you will thrive and do well, and be aware that these rankings are really just a very loose metric; you can go far starting at any US allo school.
 
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How well do the medical school ranks correlate with academic residency and fellowship ranks? Or do the residency and fellowship ranks correlate more with hospital rankings? I came across a few threads and anecdotally saw that the higher the rank of the medical school, the more sought after the residency/fellowship. For example in IM places like UCSF/Hopkins/MGH/Penn rank much higher than top places which are ranked in the teens (Cornell/Vanderbilt/Pitt). Are these training sites ranked so high because of their associations with their respective medical schools?

Browsing a few threads on SDN I found that despite being qualitatively very similar in terms of resources and prestige, Columbia is a lot more desirable for IM than Mount Sinai because they have a better track record of sending their graduates into “top” (whatever that means?) fellowships in GI, cards, etc. Do fellowship directors look at Columbia residency more favorably because they get their better reputation from their medical school rank?

I think it goes without saying that while the student is the ultimate variable for where they end up; going to a top school that puts more graduates into desirable programs is advantageous (ie: Columbia vs Sinai for IM, neurosurgery, etc).

Tl;dr: Why do most top residencies correlate so well with the top ten medical schools?
 
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