Best way to find out what schools are best at what?

[bigchoader]

Is there an easy way to find out what schools are best at what? What schools have the best opportunities for those to be aspiring to be which kinds of doctors? Stuff like that.

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[Stolenspatulas]

1. Look at the affiliated hospital system (ex. Harvard has Mass Gen which I think is ranked by us news as #3 in ortho... thus if you dominate your surgery rotation at mass gen, then do a sub I, you'll be favorable to get a match there or another match at an awesome hospital --- reputation carries)
2. Look at the match lists for the past years (not only 1 year back, look at more than 5 years of data I would say...), this would give an idea of how students tend to specialize at the certain school and how awesome they tend to match into residencies (ex. Vandy I believe always has students that match strongly at competitive ortho residencies)
3. Look at the department at the school... see if the research etc gels with what you may be interested in (just go to the school's (or hospital) website and search ex. 'neurosurgery department' and read up)

 

[bigchoader]

1. Look at the affiliated hospital system (ex. Harvard has Mass Gen which I think is ranked by us news as #3 in ortho... thus if you dominate your surgery rotation at mass gen, then do a sub I, you'll be favorable to get a match there or another match at an awesome hospital --- reputation carries)
2. Look at the match lists for the past years (not only 1 year back, look at more than 5 years of data I would say...), this would give an idea of how students tend to specialize at the certain school and how awesome they tend to match into residencies (ex. Vandy I believe always has students that match strongly at competitive ortho residencies)
3. Look at the department at the school... see if the research etc gels with what you may be interested in (just go to the school's (or hospital) website and search ex. 'neurosurgery department' and read up)

How is that you find numbers 1 and 2? Did I miss something?

 

[Law2Doc]

How is that you find numbers 1 and 2? Did I miss something?

He's saying look at US news' hospital ranking and school match lists. But even that won't give you a perfect picture because so much of matching involves student preference -- if they happened to admit a couple dozen students interested in neurology, that doesn't mean the school was particularly good at it, it perhaps just means they didn't sway them into something else.

The only good way to find out what schools are "best" at what is word of mouth from mentors in the fields of interest. You will hopefully sit down with a mentor/advisor sometime in the later years of med school and get the scoop from someone which programs are good versus malignant. You cannot go by US news or other lists for this -- a school can look good on paper, have a big name, and yet be a very bad place to end up for a variety of reasons (politics, personalities, poorly regarded in the specialty, etc). So you need someone knowledgeable to help steer you away from the problem programs, later on. I doubt this is something you can do effectively as a premed, so if you feel you must, Stolenspatulas' suggestion is the best you can try. Just don't expect to be right.

 

[Wizard of Oz]

Bad idea to go to a school based on a specialty of interest unless you are certain that you want to do primary care. VERY bad idea.

 

[MWillie]

Easy, by NIH funding. http://www.google.com/search?source...+extramural+medical+school&btnG=Google+Search

If anyone doesn't agree with me, I don't care because you'd be wrong.

 

[GeniusofLove]

Easy, by NIH funding. http://www.google.com/search?source...+extramural+medical+school&btnG=Google+Search

If anyone doesn't agree with me, I don't care because you'd be wrong.

Cool link. Hopkins is King.