Do Ranking??

[Whatshaken2002]

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What's shakin people. Is there a DO ranking? I know the best school is the one that best fits you, but if MD's have a ranking, so should DO schools.. no? Let's fire this thread up. What's shaken TJ and STEVE.. haha
-Chris

 

[Bevo]

as one DO told me, the best school is the one that you go to.

 

[AviatorDoc]

US News & World Report ranks the top 25 medical schools, out of ALL med schools (MD/DO). You'll rarely find a DO school there, but once in awhile, OSUCOM, KCOM, or others will sneak in there.

Beyond the top 25, there is no med school ranking. All the others are placed in tiers, and the tier system is fairly subjective.

 

[Doctor Peloncito]

I'll echo what aviatordoc said, adding this. The schools he mentioned plus west virginia are consistently in the top 25 in producing primary care docs.

WannabeDO

 

[Dr JPH]

The USNews rankings closely parallel the money recieved from NIH and other grants.

There are many great medical schools, MD and DO, that never make the list.

There are others who make the list every year despite unhappy students, curriculum controversey, and legal issues.

All makes for a giant pot of "don't mean ****."

There are no DO school rankings because there are only 19 schools, each with it's own personal attitude.

How could you rank NYCOM and WVSOM? One sends >50% of its students to top specialty residencies while the other send >70% to work in rural medicine. Two different schools with different attitudes both committed to producing great doctors. (That sounded like a commerical, didn't it?)

Anyway..with onyl 19 schools it's probably better that there is no ranking. It's like trying to choose between Yuengling Lager or Molson Ice. Sure, Yuengling is great all the time, but once in awhile you want the ice. Different day, different star shines.

 

[maysqrd]

You will see them ranked in with the top primary care med school in US NEWS as mentioned above in another post. They are ranking DO schools on the admissions GPA and MCAT scores.

Outside of admissions statistics and board scores, I don't think you will ever see them compared head to head against each other because they are all so vastly different. Some use hospital based rotations, some use preceptorships. Some schools have research, others don't emphasis it. Most are private schools and there are a few public ones. How would you put that all together to get an accurate ranking?

For me, it is what is the comlex pass rate and how successful is the school at getting students into their first choice residency. If I don't have a good shot at getting my first choice, then I picked the wrong school.

 

[kumar28]

So how do the DO schools rank on obtaining first choice residency placements for their students?

I also agree that a ranking system would be quite hard to come up with considering the differences in the schools however it is still fun to compare......right?

 

[SawBones]

School rankings are totally bogus, whether for MD or DO. Rankings are fodder for the lazy (or stupid) premedical mind.

Have you ever taken a serious look at the USN&WR ranking system? Seriously, have you read their methodology for their ranking system? It is based on surveys sent to medical school deans and residency program directors. Then, just to invalidate things completely, they add in undergraduate GPA and MCAT scores. Umm, guys... premedical GPAs and MCAT scores are obtained prior to any education received within the walls of the medical school; these cannot be used as assessments of school quality.

As fellow scientists, I'm sure you agree that methodology is everything and I hope you can see these rankings for what they are. The methodology alone will determine which schools are listed first, and which schools aren't listed at all. The methodology chosen by USN&WR is a "safe" system whereby they can publish a list ensuring that the ivory towers remain at the top of the list. Can you imagine the outcry that would ensue if their ranking system actually included things like student quality of life, resources for students with families, extracurricular educational opportunities, housing availablity, availablity of problem-based learning, etc.? You might suddenly see the University of New Mexico School of Medicine (or some other lesser-known institution) listed as number one, and Harvard as #50. This wouldn't go over well in the academic community.

(FYI, a few years ago something like this happened... Student quality of life was included in a school ranking system of law schools, and Harvard Law was at the very bottom of the list. They were livid.)

So, folks, rankings mean nothing. Don't be so lazy that you can't assess schools on your own and determine, in your opinion, what the best school is FOR YOU. Believe me, after you've spent a year and a half taking 40 credit hours of courses and are hating life, no USN&WR ranking system is going to make you feel better about your school if your quality of life is in the toilet.