Bottom 20

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DropkickMurphy said:
So you say......of course you also base your ranking of schools off of something that has little to do directly with education so, I question what your reasoning...... :laugh:
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Research dollars attract the best and brightest physicians and scientists to a particular school. They provide education in the latest treatments and advancements not available at low-funded schools.

What other basis would you like to rank schools in. Apparently people think whatever school they get into is "prestigious" and "upper-tier."
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morriske said:
I was saying that you were wrong about Meharry(#82) and Morehouse(#83). I made absolutely no mention of RFU. I am pointing out that your " guarantee" of Morehouse and Meharry being near the bottom is incorrect.
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Look at their average MCAT and GPA.
 
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I stand by my rating system and those listed being the bottom 20.
 
Navicular said:
Look at their average MCAT and GPA.
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After this, I am done arguing with you. I thought you said that NIH funding is all that matters! Well, according to the link that I posted, Morehouse and Meharry are ranked 82 and 83 in terms of NIH funding.

GPA/MCAT is a different criterion. research $$$ is not directly correlated with the GPA/MCAT scores of the incoming med school class.
 
soeagerun2or said:
Are we talking only US Allopathic schools or all schools? US ALLO>US DO>Caribbean (obviously).

Otherwise the bottom would be:

Mercer, Northeastern Ohio, Marshall, South Carolina, Eastern Carolina, Eastern Virginia, Southern Illinois, Texas Tech, Rosalind Franklin, North Dakota, Wright State, Hawaii, West Virginia, Southern Alabama, Albany, Loma Linda, Toledo, Nevada, LSU-Shrevport, and Texas A&M.


[I used a similar methodology as US News for Research Rankings of readily available information from the school's websites and MSAR: acceptance ratio (in/out of state)/MCAT/GPA, student body size, faculty size, NIH funding, endowment, tuition (in/out of state).]

Also, I'm sorry if you're amazed your school is on this list. Additionally, primary care rankings have nothing to do with research rankings (which are more reliable when the majority of people reference "top" schools). Perhaps you can use your negative energy to make an effort to pull your school off of it.
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Right now there is a neurosurgery resident who hails from ECU at the BNI, one of the best training grounds for anything neuro in the country, possibly in the world. I suppose the PD was high at the time when he extended that offer to someone who goes to a bottom 20. :rolleyes:

And no, I am not an NC resident, will not be going to ECU, didn't even apply to ECU.
 
Some schools have 200-300 times the NIH resources as others? Wow.
 
bodhisattva said:
Right now there is a neurosurgery resident who hails from ECU at the BNI, one of the best training grounds for anything neuro in the country, possibly in the world. I suppose the PD was high at the time when he extended that offer to someone who goes to a bottom 20. :rolleyes:
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I'm not here to debate program directors decisions nor am I saying people at lower tier schools can't go to top programs. Clearly every school has examples of someone matching into an excellent program in a sought after specialty

The purpose of this thread is to provide the bottom 20 schools.
 
Here are the bottom twenty:

Harvard
Yale
Wash U
Cornell
U Chicago
Northwestern
Mayo
Penn
Baylor
U Mich
UCLA
Columbia
Hopkins
Case
U Pitts
Duke
Vanderbilt
Emory
Wake Forest
Georgetown

With that said... new topic please.
 
soeagerun2or said:
I'm not here to debate program directors decisions nor am I saying people at lower tier schools can't go to top programs. Clearly every school has examples of someone matching into an excellent program in a sought after specialty

The purpose of this thread is to provide the bottom 20 schools.
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By saying there is a distinct "bottom 20" is pretty much equivalent to saying that there is a huge disparity between the so-called bottom 20 and top 20. PDs consider many other factors over school name. School name is usually at the bottom of the list of considerations. Why? Because if you're going to a medical school in the US, you're going to medical school period.

Have you applied yet? I suggest you take a look at the Texas threads. Before the match, people were debating which Texas school is better than which. Now, after the match that debate seems like a big display of hubris considering people are now willing to give up limbs just to get into any school. Once you've been through the wringer, "bottom 20 vs. top 20" becomes pretty insignificant.
 
bodhisattva said:
By saying there is a distinct "bottom 20" is pretty much equivalent to saying that there is a huge disparity between the so-called bottom 20 and top 20. PDs consider many other factors over school name. School name is usually at the bottom of the list of considerations. Why? Because if you're going to a medical school in the US, you're going to medical school period.

Have you applied yet? I suggest you take a look at the Texas threads. Before the match, people were debating which Texas school is better than which. Now, after the match that debate seems like a big display of hubris considering people are now willing to give up limbs just to get into any school. Once you've been through the wringer, "bottom 20 vs. top 20" becomes pretty insignificant.
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There is no comparison of UCSF to Mercer. There is a bottom 20. What school you go to matters. Not for the name but for the education, clinical skills and research you will get while you are there. There is simply no comparison of the top 20 to the bottom 20. :laugh:
 
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stereochemistry said:
Here are the bottom twenty:

Harvard
Yale
Wash U
Cornell
U Chicago
Northwestern
Mayo
Penn
Baylor
U Mich
UCLA
Columbia
Hopkins
Case
U Pitts
Duke
Vanderbilt
Emory
Wake Forest
Georgetown

With that said... new topic please.
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I don't think that list is correct. That is the top 20.
 
bodhisattva said:
By saying there is a distinct "bottom 20" is pretty much equivalent to saying that there is a huge disparity between the so-called bottom 20 and top 20. PDs consider many other factors over school name. School name is usually at the bottom of the list of considerations. Why? Because if you're going to a medical school in the US, you're going to medical school period.

Have you applied yet? I suggest you take a look at the Texas threads. Before the match, people were debating which Texas school is better than which. Now, after the match that debate seems like a big display of hubris considering people are now willing to give up limbs just to get into any school. Once you've been through the wringer, "bottom 20 vs. top 20" becomes pretty insignificant.
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While I agree that there are no "bad" med schools, I also have to say that there is a fairly significant difference between the top and bottom 20 schools, especially if you are looking to go into academic medicine. A graduate of Harvard or Hopkins has a distinct advantage over someone who went to a bottom 20 school with all other factors (board scores, research, etc) being equal. But yes, overall, a US MD is a US MD and those of us that have gotten accepted already should feel lucky and honored.
 
Navicular said:
There is no comparison of UCSF to Mercer. There is a bottom 20. What school you go to matters. Not for the name but for the education, clinical skills and research you will get while you are there. There is simply no comparison of the top 20 to the bottom 20. :laugh:
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True that.
 
bodhisattva said:
Have you applied yet? I suggest you take a look at the Texas threads. Before the match, people were debating which Texas school is better than which. Now, after the match that debate seems like a big display of hubris considering people are now willing to give up limbs just to get into any school. Once you've been through the wringer, "bottom 20 vs. top 20" becomes pretty insignificant.
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Exactly, once you have an MD it really doesn't matter where it's from. Regardless, people want to know for their own means and the bottom 20 does exist. I don't understand the desire to suppress this information because people who attend the bottom schools aren't grown up enough to accept the fact that other schools out there are more desirable.
 
stereochemistry said:
Here are the bottom twenty:

Harvard
Yale
Wash U
Cornell
U Chicago
Northwestern
Mayo
Penn
Baylor
U Mich
UCLA
Columbia
Hopkins
Case
U Pitts
Duke
Vanderbilt
Emory
Wake Forest
Georgetown

With that said... new topic please.
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Good thing UCSF isn't on that list.
 
soeagerun2or said:
Exactly, once you have an MD it really doesn't matter where it's from. Regardless, people want to know for their own means and the bottom 20 does exist. I don't understand the desire to suppress this information because people who attend the bottom schools aren't grown up enough to accept the fact that other schools out there are more desirable.
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I have to agree with soeagerun2or here.
 
Navicular said:
There is no comparison of UCSF to Mercer. There is a bottom 20. What school you go to matters. Not for the name but for the education, clinical skills and research you will get while you are there. There is simply no comparison of the top 20 to the bottom 20. :laugh:
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If someone who graduates from Mercer is an incompetent dunce, he won't make it past the licensing stage. I know someone from Harvard who took 3 tries to pass the boards. The USMLE is the great equalizer. Your school can give you all the opportunities available to succeed, but it's up to you to put those opportunities to use. If the Mercer student was looking for something that Mercer couldn't provide him, away rotations, summer fellowships, a year at the NIH, etc. are available.

Current and past med students have said over and over again, the first two years are basically you sitting down with your books and teaching yourself. A better question would be, "Which school is the best fit for me?"
 
Just out of curiosity..why would Toledo be in the top 20? Their facilities really blew me away at interview. And all the students seem to have nothing but good things to say about them. When I asked at interview what the worst thing was about the school, people said.. "the snow."

Is it that they're a new(er) school? Or that they don't focus on research as much?
 
Shpamme said:
Just out of curiosity..why would Toledo be in the top 20? Their facilities really blew me away at interview. And all the students seem to have nothing but good things to say about them. When I asked at interview what the worst thing was about the school, people said.. "the snow."

Is it that they're a new(er) school? Or that they don't focus on research as much?
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Why? 'Cause folks are nuts and these ratings are a tad foolish.

If Joe Pre-med got into Toledo or ECU Or Wayne State, would they really rend their garments and cry, "Oh no! I will be a terrible doctor because I didn't get into a Top 20 school per US Un-News! I won't make at least $100K a year and be forced to drive a Lexus rather than a Mercedes! My friends and famliy will scorn me because I didn't get into Harvard! I am unworthy of the joy that is JHU! Whoah is me! " :scared:
 
sunnyjohn, that is the best pic ever.
 
sunnyjohn said:
Why? 'Cause folks are nuts and these ratings are a tad foolish.

If Joe Pre-med got into Toledo or ECU Or Wayne State, would they really rend their garments and cry, "Oh no! I will be a terrible doctor because I didn't get into a Top 20 school per US Un-News! I won't make at least $100K a year and be forced to drive a Lexus rather than a Mercedes! My friends and famliy will scorn me because I didn't get into Harvard! I am unworthy of the joy that is JHU! Whoah is me! " :scared:
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My career is OVER :( I should quit now. No point in being a doctor if I'm going to a Bottom 20 school :eek:

Wait, maybe my husband can buy the Mercedes. No, I think I prefer an Aston Martin :rolleyes:
 
morriske said:
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/award/rank/medttl05.htm

There you have it for the 2005 fiscal year...
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first of all, i don't think that med schools can be ranked on research only.

second of all, the link you provided is misleading in terms of the amount of money a school actually receives. Didn't you ever wonder how it was possible that Harvard Medical School ranked 26th on the link that you provided, yet it has the largest amount of research money on US World News and Report? It's because the link you provided doesn't take into account the money received by each Medical School's affiliate hospitals.

http://grants.nih.gov/grants/award/trends/hospital05.htm

Here is the link for NIH funding for teaching hospitals. Let's look the first FIVE hospitals. 1. Mass Gen 2. Brigham and Women 3. Beth Israel 4. Dana Farber 5. Children's Hospital Boston. oh WAIT! they're ALL HARVARD's teaching hospitals! and if you're a med student at a particular medical school, you can definately do research at an affiliate hospital.

and of course, this WHOLE discussion about your erroneous interpretation of NIH funding is in the end only ONE aspect of medical education. *end rant*
 
Panda Bear said:
Hey, I resent that. There is objective method to rank any medical school. It's all subjective. I would have, for example, picked LSU Shreveport over Harvard any day of the week. (Even assuming I wanted to go to a Canadian medical school like Harvard)
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What do you mean by this?
 
Navicular said:
That is a blatant lie.
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I assure you that given a choice between an organ-system based lecture curriculum like we had at LSU-Shreveport and PBL hell at Harvard I'd pick LSU Shreveport every time.

I'd last about five minutes at Harvard before I burned the mother down.
 
The question of topness and bottomness is ridiculous. Unless your talking about sex.

I can only hope I get into some schools I like. My ranking of them would likely be completely different than Navicular's. I certainly won't lament the day away trifling over the fact that my school only has 12 dollars and 53 cents of NIH funding or that I won't get an an opportunity to get Dr. Oz's autograph.

Sure there's something to be said for slickness in an education, especially if you want a slick career. I imagine very few people will running down their list of top 20 school acceptances juggling intricate factor's such as what's their NIH pimp factor and so forth.
 
Navicular said:
NIH funding is all that matters. Anyone that tells you anything different is lying.
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This is cute. Trying to sound official...

Harvard is not in the top 20 NIH-funded schools- still think these ratings are all that matters?


Weak.
 
melissainsd said:
This thread is just a great way to piss people off. No one wants to hear the school they will be attending is the "lowest of the low". For everyone that calls a school their "back up" there are plenty of people that would love to go there (and tons that applied and didn't get in).
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:thumbup:
 
Toledo is definitely not a bottom twenty school.
 
degoo_ said:
What do you mean by this?
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That even though two of them are Canadian and one is in the Caribbean, Harvard, Yale, and Johns Hopkins consistently are ranked in the top 10 by US News and World Report.
 
Panda Bear said:
That even though two of them are Canadian and one is in the Caribbean, Harvard, Yale, and Johns Hopkins consistently are ranked in the top 10 by US News and World Report.
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Ha ha. Don't taunt the pre-meds...
 
Panda Bear said:
That even though two of them are Canadian and one is in the Caribbean, Harvard, Yale, and Johns Hopkins consistently are ranked in the top 10 by US News and World Report.
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:laugh:

I now am reminded why i never come to pre-allo.
 
Panda Bear said:
That even though two of them are Canadian and one is in the Caribbean, Harvard, Yale, and Johns Hopkins consistently are ranked in the top 10 by US News and World Report.
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ok...i give...i don't get it:oops:
 
if you're basing it on gpa/mcat, Im pretty sure NYMC fall right around the national avg according to MSAR, at least the mcat, the gpa might be a little bit lower, someone with the current edition could verify that. But if im right then it should be right in the middle right? Also, there is no real right way to rank a school. Putting so much value on NIH research really has no benefit unless you plan to be doing research, which not to many students actually pursue after they graduate. Why not base it on USMLE, then you'd see some of the 'lower' tier schools, such as NYMC and Rosalind franklin be a lot higher than you'd expect. But then the other schools with lower scores will say that they dont teach to the boards and suggest another way to rank schools. I hope you see the point to my post.
 
StringerBell said:
They rank the Top 63, and then there's a play-in game between #64 and #65. So after that, they have the top 64 schools. The 64 schools are divided into 4 groups of 16, and then are seeded 1-16. They have a tournament in which #1 faces #16, #2 faces #15 and so on, with competitions such as diagnostic radiology, rapid EKG interpetation, and intubation.

After 2 rounds, they're left with the top 16, known as the "Scrub-in 16" which are pared down to the "ENT Eight" and then the "Fellow Four," who then battle for the title of Top Medical School in the Land!

March Med School Madness, baby.
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Wow. So, some of the first round matchups are:
#1 Harvard vs. #16 Jefferson
#8 Dartmouth vs. #9 NYU
#7 Emory vs. #10 USC
#6 Mayo vs. #11 Maryland
......
 
soeagerun2or said:
Oh but it is!
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If Toledo is ranked bottom twenty, then according to your logic, they would also be ranked bottom twenty in the NIH. However, they are not the bottom twenty since they are about 96, right before GWU. So booya! Especially, since toledo is a state school, and has averages that are decent. MCAT 30+, GPA 3.6+.
 
hopefulM.D. said:
If Toledo is ranked bottom twenty, then according to your logic, they would also be ranked bottom twenty in the NIH. However, they are not the bottom twenty since they are about 96, right before GWU. So booya! Especially, since toledo is a state school, and has averages that are decent. MCAT 30+, GPA 3.6+.
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If you had read my initial post listing the bottom 20 you would notice my methodology incorporated more than just NIH funding levels. According to my algorithm (modeled after US News & picking >90% comparable top 63; I account variability to the fact I don't have residency director's rankings of schools) Toledo is in the bottom 20. Sorry
 
I wonder if pre-law forums are this bad. :eek:
 
I'm trying to understand how Toledo is in your bottom 20. Toledo is 30 spots from the bottom as far as research. It's MCAT average is between a 30 and 31 which is far, far, far from the bottom 20. It's GPA is a little over a 3.6 which is, again, far from the bottom. I don't really know what class size either way has to do with ranking a school. I don't know what typical faculty sizes of a school are, so I have no idea where Toledo ranks there. I've seen faculty numbers for Toledo in the 600 range, which I assume wouldn't be in the bottom 20, but I could be wrong. What numbers are you using? Are you sure they're accurate?

Also of note, NIH funding should go up considerably next year. With the merger of the former Medical University of Ohio and University of Toledo there has been rearrangement of departments and NIH funding numbers will increase simply because of that. For example, Toledo's NIH funding will include the pharmacology department formerly housed within the College of Pharmacy.

Also, a very good indicator of the quality of a school is average step I scores and pass rates. Those aren't included.
 
#1? The one that accepts me.

The bottom 20? The ones that don't.
 
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