Harvard/Hopkins USNews ranking - Fair?

[NineSixteen]

So this is something I was confused about for a long time and just figured it out (so I'm not the quickest person on SDN) Acording to the NIH, Hopkins is number one in funding $$ with 334 million. Harvard is number 20 with 138 million. On USNews rankings, Harvard gets a whopping 731 million from the NIH and Hopkins gets 348 million. This is honestly the only difference in theses two schools...all other factors like residency directors rankings and student selectivity have no difference (p>>.05 for you research buffs)

I read very closely the USNews explaination of this and found out that the NIH funding is for the med school and all it's affiliated hospitals. Is this a fair way to do it? If I'm a Harvard med student, will it make one lick of difference that Dr. Fabulous at Mass Gen gets millions for her research? I'll never get to do anything in her lab! At Hopkins - practically ALL (334 of 348 million) of the money goes directly to researchers at the medical school, where I will have much more of an opportunity to participate in that great research and will actually have the opportunity to take advantage of all of that money.

Just my thoughts...you should all know (if you don't already) that Harvard rejected me, so maybe all of this is really just pent-up hostility and I want Hopkins to be ranked number 1! I also think that USNews rankings should be taken with a mountain of salt, I'm not totally obsessed with any of this stuff AT ALL, I'm just bored and want to see what others think.

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[Sir William Osler]

hey d ,

do you remember me from this weekend? anyways, i think you're onto something here. Just yesterday I was chatting with a friend about this exact topic. I am also curious about what people think. You cant go wrong with hopkins. To be fair to Harvard, I think MGH research is relevant because many 3-4 years will be rotating through MGH and working with the faculty. Now, whether all of these affiliated hospitals add to the research opportunities of the students, that may be a different story. We're really splitting hairs here. There is no difference between JHU and HMS in terms of future career possibilities.

 

[mjs419]

I think it's a fair way to rank them for the criterion on which they are ranking the schools, which is medical research. They make no bones about that fact in the ratings. One might wonder how well caliber of research at an institution is a factor in thei ability to train capable physicians, but if thay can make money with rankings, they'll do it. This seems to be a major motive to me, as they've taken their useful statistics off the web page <jerks>.

I also remember reading some place that the edition that does the college ratings is referred to as their "swimsuit issue" by some people in the publishing industry because of the sales and hype it generates.

 

[Yogi Bear]

I think that only ranking that really matters is peer/residency directors.

Harvard, hopkins, duke, ucsf, wash U, stanford, michigan, upenn, u washington, columbia, yale, cornell, UT, UCLA.

Rank School Score Peer Res. Avg
1 Harvard 100 4.9 4.7 4.8
2 Hopkins 94 4.9 4.7 4.8
5 Duke 88 4.7 4.5 4.6
6 UCSF 87 4.7 4.5 4.6
3 Wash U. 91 4.7 4.4 4.55
11 Stanford 79 4.6 4.4 4.5
8 Michigan 82 4.5 4.4 4.45
4 U Penn 89 4.6 4.3 4.45
10 U. Washington 80 4.6 4.2 4.4
7 Columbia 86 4.4 4.2 4.3
9 Yale 81 4.4 4.1 4.25
11 Cornell 79 4.2 4.1 4.15
17 UT Southwest 72 4.3 4 4.15
13 UCLA 78 4.2 4 4.1

 

[zizo]

Harvard is the first and will remain to be the first. It is the best Medical school on earth. Everyone just wants Harvard to go to worse ranking when they get rejected.

Hopkins is not like harvard and will never be.. Hopkins is always less than Harvard.

 

[NineSixteen]

Hey zizo, could you pass the salt? That is, when you've finished rubbing it into my wounds.

 

[LizardKing]

???? How come Johns Hopkins hospital is regarded as the best hospital in the world, bar none? MGH doesn't even come in second. It's really hard to say Harvard is any better than Hopkins. Research-wise, maybe. But many more people from around the world flock to Hopkins if they have some grave disease. Clinically, Hopkins can't be beat, only matched.

•••quote:•••Originally posted by zizo:
•Harvard is the first and will remain to be the first. It is the best Medical school on earth. Everyone just wants Harvard to go to worse ranking when they get rejected.

Hopkins is not like harvard and will never be.. Hopkins is always less than Harvard.•••••

 

[CANES2006]

Many of these rankings are just based on tradition. If you look at the ranks year after year, the same boring schools are in the top ten. Stop worrying about the ranking. Who cares if Harvard is #1 and Hopkins is #2? Both schools are supposedly good and pretty much equal. Please don't make your decision about going to a particular medical school based on some stupid rank. You might be commiting the biggest mistake of your life. Just weigh the pros and cons of a school and decide. Go to the school that best fits your needs.

 

[Scooby Doo]

•••quote:•••Originally posted by zizo:
•Harvard is the first and will remain to be the first. It is the best Medical school on earth. Everyone just wants Harvard to go to worse ranking when they get rejected.

Hopkins is not like harvard and will never be.. Hopkins is always less than Harvard.•••••It's people like you that make me happy that harvard rejected me...I don't want to spend four years having to listen to your ****. Thank you for withdrawing from Columbia too. If I knew you were going to be in that class, it would be much harder for columbia to remain in my top choices...

It seems the board has a new Macgyver...

 

[NineSixteen]

•••quote:•••Originally posted by CANES2006:
•Please don't make your decision about going to a particular medical school based on some stupid rank. You might be commiting the biggest mistake of your life. Just weigh the pros and cons of a school and decide. Go to the school that best fits your needs.•••••My decision's long since been made, I was just making what I think is an interesting observation...I agree with you 100% that rankings are mostly a load of bunk

 

[CANES2006]

•••quote:•••Originally posted by Scooby Doo:
• •••quote:•••Originally posted by zizo:
•Harvard is the first and will remain to be the first. It is the best Medical school on earth. Everyone just wants Harvard to go to worse ranking when they get rejected.

Hopkins is not like harvard and will never be.. Hopkins is always less than Harvard.•••••It's people like you that make me happy that harvard rejected me...I don't want to spend four years having to listen to your ****. Thank you for withdrawing from Columbia too. If I knew you were going to be in that class, it would be much harder for columbia to remain in my top choices...

It seems the board has a new Macgyver...•••••I'm not saying that IVY league schools are filled with students that have the attitude of superiority that Scooby is referring to, but many IVY league students unfortunately do. This is why I didn't apply to any IVY league schools. The thought of spending 4 years with people like this makes me want to stick needles into my eyes. :wink:

 

[Cdc28p]

•••quote:•••Originally posted by Nine-sixteen:
•I read very closely the USNews explaination of this and found out that the NIH funding is for the med school and all it's affiliated hospitals. Is this a fair way to do it? If I'm a Harvard med student, will it make one lick of difference that Dr. Fabulous at Mass Gen gets millions for her research? I'll never get to do anything in her lab!•••••I think it's absolutely fair that US News includes the grants awarded to the affiliated hospitals as well. HMS students DO get to conduct research in the labs at the hospitals. Even Harvard undergraduates are allowed to do research at MGH, Beth Israel, or Dana Farber labs.

Harvard and Hopkins provide the same quality in medical education. They simply use different pedagogical approaches. It is kind of silly to say that one school is better than the other simply because you like one approach more than the other.

Now, for those who claim that JHU hospital is the best, what do you base it on? From US News again? From other people? How persuasive is that?

Of course not all schools are equal. We generally agree that Harvard Med is better than Boston U Med. However, rankings should be done in groups, i.e. it's more reasonable to put schools in tiers or groups. For example, Harvard, Hopkins, Duke, UCSF could be in group 1, and so on... I don't think there's any significant difference among the schools in the same group.

 

[Scooby Doo]

zizo,

Apologies for my attack...you seem to have good advice on some other threads...but just that comment about hopkins and harvard was out of line...

 

[Cdc28p]

•••quote:•••Originally posted by CANES2006:
•I'm not saying that IVY league schools are filled with students that have the attitude of superiority that Scooby is referring to, but many IVY league students unfortunately do. This is why I didn't apply to any IVY league schools. The thought of spending 4 years with people like this makes me want to stick needles into my eyes. :wink: •••••It is unfortunate that you decided not to apply to any Ivy League school simply because of your perception that many Ivy Leaguers are arrogant bastards. Arrogant bastards are everywhere, and I don't think there is a higher-than-average concentration of them at, say, Harvard. Frankly, if anything, going to Harvard makes you humble... very quickly. You thought you were the hot shot in high school with all those APs and a perfect SAT, and suddenly you are now in the same class with someone who got a gold medal in the International Math Olympiad or who has published two collections of poetry. And you classmates will think of something special about you and feel humble as well.

I feel that Harvard Med students are even more down-to-earth than Harvard undergrads. I've worked with HMS students in a community service program for the past 4 years and has never encountered anyone who has any superiority complex. They are just passionate, compassionate, intelligent, and energetic--the kind of people with whom most of us want to hang out.

 

[zizo]

hmmm, truth always hurts.

Sorry guys, some people are really mad at me . However, you understood me wrong. I wa not saying by any means that all other schools are bad. All schools in the US are great. However , Harvard has worked hard for more than 80 years to build a wonderful research facilities, hospitals and build an infrastructure of a healthcare system. There were people at harvard who spent all their lives building the school. THey deserve to be recognized and honored. Take Dana Farbaer, MGH, Brigham, Joslin Diabetes , all of those are state-of-the-art facilities in the same medical school. This is why the research that goes to Harvard is $3/4 billion.

don;t understand me in a wrong way

 

[Boomboom]

Hey Nine-sixteen and Sir William, hope you had good trips home from B-more. Hope everyone else out there is doing well too!

I just thought I would add my two cents on this topic. I've been thinking about the two schools mentioned a rediculous amount lately. In regard to the NIH funding, thanks for the explanation Nine-sixteen. I always saw the difference, but never took the time to figure it out. It's hard for me to say that the research money would make any difference. If you consider how large the sums of money at both schools are, I don't think you would notice it as a student. Point being is that both schools/hospitals have people with tons of money who you could work for in a lab or learn from in a class room.

I agree with Sir William that the two schools are indistinguishable in terms of one's future in medicine. I think it comes down to mainly non-intellectual features, such as curriculum type, grading schemes, environment, the people, etc.

I had a great time at the Hopkins revisit weekend. The people were absolutely amazing. I don't have any experience with Ivy league schools, so I can't speak to the comments about them directly. However, I think the types of people accepted into any of the top schools are going to be similar. There will be a few arrogant people and a few competitive people, but mostly just an unbelievable mixture of people with different experiences, talents, and goals. This weekend definitely got me excited about going to med school (or even more excited!), just because of meeting so many interesting people.

Sir William, round three TBA . . .

 

[11000]

i think harvard is an amazing school, the students there really are cool... hopkins students seem really awesome too (jhu '06!!) while it is true that ivy league people are not all arrogant, in my experience the top schools (not just the ivies) pump out a certain "type" of student... i'm not saying that this particular type of student is bad or good, they just have been in the ivy league environment for 4 years, and it is evident... however, i for one discounted columbia as a choice for med school when i looked at their facebook and saw that it was filled with cantabs and yalies... i'm looking for a difft experience, which i think i'll find at hopkins!

boom-boom, are you leaning towards joining nine-sixteen, sir william and me in the jhu class of 2006? hope so, good luck w/your decision... and where's that email list? <img border="0" alt="[Laughy]" title="" src="graemlins/laughy.gif" />

take care,
swaroop

 

[bomback]

Seriuosly, who cares if a school is ranked #1 or 2 or 20. You'll get the best education at the scholl you think you'll be the happiest.

 

[NSF]

Hey SWO, check it out: I'm actually posting!

SWO and I have been talking about this issue recently. Here are my thoughts on it: Harvard, it seems to me, has a perpetual lock on #1 in US News because 30% of the USNews ranking criteria is NIH funding, right? Since Harvard Med and its 17 affiliated hospitals have nearly 2x more funding than any other med center on the list, of course they will always come out on top. Yes, they have the highest res. dir rep and peer rep marks together w/JHU, but the funding alone would seem to seal the deal for them anyway in my mind.

In light of this, I agree that we shouldn't split hairs as someone said earlier. Both schools are phenomenal. Another thing I was considering was that for all the talk saying "Harvard is the best for research-oriented med students, hands-down" there is still the issue of how much exposure to research most med students will have.

Sure there are many lectures and colloquia which one can attend, but ultimately don't most non-MSTP students work in one lab (at most) while in school? Will a given student truly benefit that much more from the research environment at Harvard vs. JHU when we consider this?

Anyway, my point is merely reiterating what most others (except zizo!) have said: Both schools are awesome and people accepted to either or both should count their blessings.

As for SWO's fate, I think I know where he's headed next year, but I'm not saying anything here... :wink:

OK I'm out. Sorry to ramble but I'm using this board as an excuse to not prep for my Kaplan teaching audition tonight. Wish me luck, SWO and anyone else who cares.

 

[Bradleyp]

When you go into a doctors office, is the first question you ask "Where did doctor X go to medical school?" Come on, I would love to go to Harvard or Hopkins, but to listen to you all whine about which is better is ridiculous when you need to be happy with your accomplishments. Have you ever seen a doctor with Dr. X MD Harvard Medicine Graduate on his white coat? Who Cares? It's going to be a long four years for you people.

 

[deva]

•••quote:•••Originally posted by Bradleyp:
•When you go into a doctors office, is the first question you ask "Where did doctor X go to medical school?" •••••<img border="0" alt="[Laughy]" title="" src="graemlins/laughy.gif" /> In four years we can all argue over who has the best residency programs <img border="0" alt="[Laughy]" title="" src="graemlins/laughy.gif" />

 

[specialk]

I agree...this is all getting really ridiculous. I'm so sick of hearing Harvard/Hopkins, and I'm getting tired of the whole Yale thing too. You'd think that these schools would grow up and concentrate on better things than a second rate magazine's ranking of their funding.

 

[CANES2006]

I agree with specialk. I'm sick of hearing about all of these top ten schools and which ones should be considered better. It doesn't matter which medical school you are going to. The point is that you are being bestowed with the honor of becoming a doctor. Did you guys forget that along the way? I sure hope not.

 

[Sir William Osler]

i know this is silly, but i tend to simplify things when people aren't acting very pleasant.

my momma once told me, "if you dont have anything nice to say SWO, then dont say anything at all"

i'm all grown up now, but wow she was so smart.

 

[NineSixteen]

•••quote:•••Originally posted by Bradleyp:
•Come on, I would love to go to Harvard or Hopkins, but to listen to you all whine about which is better is ridiculous when you need to be happy with your accomplishments. Have you ever seen a doctor with Dr. X MD Harvard Medicine Graduate on his white coat? Who Cares? It's going to be a long four years for you people.•••••Honestly, I haven't read any whining, mostly just mature, thoughtful responses to a curious observation about a publication. Seems everyone is pretty happy with their accomplishments, except maybe the people who are getting all defensive and referring to the people who contributed interesting thoughts as "you people" (I HATE that phrase) I agree with Sir Osler, if you don't care about the topic, just don't post anything, what's the point of getting nasty and antagonistic?

 

[Scooby Doo]

•••quote:•••Originally posted by Bradleyp:
•When you go into a doctors office, is the first question you ask "Where did doctor X go to medical school?" Come on, I would love to go to Harvard or Hopkins, but to listen to you all whine about which is better is ridiculous when you need to be happy with your accomplishments. Have you ever seen a doctor with Dr. X MD Harvard Medicine Graduate on his white coat? Who Cares? It's going to be a long four years for you people.•••••

 

[Scooby Doo]

•••quote:•••Originally posted by Bradleyp:
•When you go into a doctors office, is the first question you ask "Where did doctor X go to medical school?" Come on, I would love to go to Harvard or Hopkins, but to listen to you all whine about which is better is ridiculous when you need to be happy with your accomplishments. Have you ever seen a doctor with Dr. X MD Harvard Medicine Graduate on his white coat? Who Cares? It's going to be a long four years for you people.•••••This is obviously a fairly ignorant post. You see, most of the people here debating these two schools (IN A VERY CIVILIZED WAY!) are going into academic medicine. If you go into Academic or want to specialize in a very tough field, then where you went to school DOES MATTER! Sorry bro, but you ar talking about primary care physicians. Primary care doesn't matter as much if at all. Academics matter A LOT! While I am not partaking in this thread b/c I didn't apply to Hopkins and didn't even interview at harvard, I think you are wrong b/c they are not saying anything bad. So chill out! Jeez...

 

[Nova]

I have no intention of applying to any school north of Virginia. Yale? Harvard?! Do you know how cold it is there in the winter? And how long the winter lasts?!

Sorry, I'm far too much a southern girl to think it's picturesque to slog my way through thigh-deep snow for five months out of the year for four years. Forget it. I've lived in PA, I've lived in NYC. I now live in Central VA and I'm not stepping one foot north of here. It's sorta funny, but it's also true.

Besides, Baylor? Emory? Duke? Heck, UVA? Gobs of good med schools in the south. Yankees... pshaw!

I wonder how many AdComs are going to think I'm kidding...

 

[matthew0126]

yes! it's all about the south... but in my case, south on the west coast...

•••quote:•••Originally posted by Nova:
•I have no intention of applying to any school north of Virginia. Yale? Harvard?! Do you know how cold it is there in the winter? And how long the winter lasts?!

Sorry, I'm far too much a southern girl to think it's picturesque to slog my way through thigh-deep snow for five months out of the year for four years. Forget it. I've lived in PA, I've lived in NYC. I now live in Central VA and I'm not stepping one foot north of here. It's sorta funny, but it's also true.

Besides, Baylor? Emory? Duke? Heck, UVA? Gobs of good med schools in the south. Yankees... pshaw!

I wonder how many AdComs are going to think I'm kidding...•••••