Graduate Program Rankings

[imsotired]

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Hi guys. For those of you who have applied and are applying to the MSTPs and MD/PhD programs, how did you go about selecting schools? I know location, cost, etc are important criteria, but now I am evaluating the schools based on their academic strengths. I am interested in infectious diseases and am therefore looking for programs that have strong immunology and microbiology departments (but then again, the field of infectious disease is so diverse, any school that is strong in immunology, microbiology, molecular biology, etc. will be great) Is there a place where I can find rankings of graduate programs for these departments? Should I go by research interests of faculty?

Also, did you guys apply to straight MD/PhD programs or a mixture of MD-only and MD/PhD programs? I am applying to 26 schools so far, with half and half of MD and MD/PhD programs. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!! 😀

 

[Habari]

i would be cautious with graduate school rankings, they are often heavily weighted simply for size rather than quality. and if you're looking for ID related rankings, they probably don't exist (and if they do, i'd very much doubt their utility). going after faculty that you would be interested in working with is probably a more useful method of examining schools.

i'm in the ID field (HIV/HepC biology at the Aaron Diamond Aids Research Center/Hepatitis C Center, Both @ Rockefeller - until i finally choose one thesis destination) and would be able to answer some questions about specific sub-fields. being interested in microbiology vs virology vs immunology (combo's or all of the above) will change the list of schools you should look into a bit.