Historical US News Rankings

[efle]

I've seen this nice lil table of old US News rankings shared around SDN before, and thought I'd make a new one that is updated, has more schools, and is large enough for the human eye.

I did the past 10 years for the current first 25 schools (26 really, since 25th was a tie).

Here it is for quick reference sorted by the average rank in the last 5 years:

Also available sorted by average rank in the 5 years prior, and sorted by average over the full decade.

Also worth embedding, imo, is the table sorted by residency director ratings (exact values not shown, must pay for that). Schools contained within thick borders are equivalent (e.g. WashU = Stanford). The big takeway here is what you've surely seen a bunch of times on SDN already: US news rankings are often a poor way to judge reputation. For example, if you tried to use the US news ranks to compare Cornell and Yale, or Emory and NYU, etc you would be led astray!

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[Lawpy]

Nice work! I'm going to compare those historical US News Rankings with SDN SSD Activity Rankings to see how they correlate.

Would appreciate access to complete US News Rankings if possible. Unless it's copyrighted.

 

[Shreman]

Nice! Doing the slope for each school, like Anastamosed, is definitely helpful, as it captures the general trajectory in 1 number.

 

[efle]

Would appreciate access to complete US News Rankings if possible.

What do you mean? Like the full rank lists per year? You can find that via the WaybackMachine!

 

[Lawpy]

What do you mean? Like the full rank lists per year? You can find that via the WaybackMachine!

ah i keep forgetting about that useful tool. okay thanks!

 

[efle]

Nice! Doing the slope for each school, like Anastamosed, is definitely helpful, as it captures the general trajectory in 1 number.

I ran those actually (first time using SLOPE function in Excel!) and they just didn't seem useful at all, very unlikely to be significant whatsoever when schools can jump several positions up and back per year. The one or two that did have big trends (looking at you NYU) are very unlikely to continue that way.

 

[Psai]

I ran those actually (first time using SLOPE function in Excel!) and they just didn't seem useful at all, very unlikely to be significant whatsoever when schools can jump several positions up and back per year. The one or two that did have big trends (looking at you NYU) are very unlikely to continue that way.

???

 

[efle]

???

I think NYU has hit the highest it will go ???

 

[catmullclark]

I think NYU has hit the highest it will go ???

Not so fast! Bumping this up because next year's top 10 was just released.

TL;DR Columbia, Yale, and UMich are no longer in the Top 10, whereas NYU, Mayo, and UCLA are. Thoughts?

 

[scienceguy95]

Not so fast! Bumping this up because next year's top 10 was just released.

TL;DR Columbia, Yale, and UMich are no longer in the Top 10, whereas NYU, Mayo, and UCLA are. Thoughts?

This is a massive shakeup. Unbelievable.

 

[efle]

Not so fast! Bumping this up because next year's top 10 was just released.

TL;DR Columbia, Yale, and UMich are no longer in the Top 10, whereas NYU, Mayo, and UCLA are. Thoughts?

I think there must have been a big tweak in the ranking algorithm, similar to what catapulted Stanford from #11 to permanent #2 a while ago. Interested to see what the tweak is that would jump Mayo 10+ spots in a year and put NYU above Columbia.

 

[FlameGrilledChicken]

I think there must have been a big tweak in the ranking algorithm, similar to what catapulted Stanford from #11 to permanent #2 a while ago. Interested to see what the tweak is that would jump Mayo 10+ spots in a year and put NYU above Columbia.

Also, WashU jumped from 24 to top 10 in primary care!

 

[mcathelpomg]

I find it hilarious that WashU is now top-10 in primary care despite not even having a family medicine program xD. Not saying it's a bad thing but I just find it amusing.

 

[seedbrage]

Not so fast! Bumping this up because next year's top 10 was just released.

TL;DR Columbia, Yale, and UMich are no longer in the Top 10, whereas NYU, Mayo, and UCLA are. Thoughts?

Maybe UMich will let me in now

 

[efle]

Also, WashU jumped from 24 to top 10 in primary care!

I find it hilarious that WashU is now top-10 in primary care despite not even having a family medicine program xD. Not saying it's a bad thing but I just find it amusing.

It makes some sense - the big difference between Primary and Research ranks is that they swap out NIH funding for % going primary.

Thing is, "primary" includes IM.

So if WashU has a year with a ton of academic IM matches, US News thinks they're full of future primaries.

 

[MDPedigree]

It makes some sense - the big difference between Primary and Research ranks is that they swap out NIH funding for % going primary.

Thing is, "primary" includes IM.

So if WashU has a year with a ton of academic IM matches, US News thinks they're full of future primaries.

Which shows a flaw in the methodology, unfortunately.

 

[FlameGrilledChicken]

It makes some sense - the big difference between Primary and Research ranks is that they swap out NIH funding for % going primary.

Thing is, "primary" includes IM.

So if WashU has a year with a ton of academic IM matches, US News thinks they're full of future primaries.

Ahhh, that makes a lot of sense, I should've read up on the methodology a bit. I just love WashU so much regardless of what number they are, I hope they let me in

 

[Willy38]

I think there must have been a big tweak in the ranking algorithm, similar to what catapulted Stanford from #11 to permanent #2 a while ago. Interested to see what the tweak is that would jump Mayo 10+ spots in a year and put NYU above Columbia.

I'm betting they incorporated some sort of hospital metric into the mix in exchange for reduced weight to student quality metrics (gpa mcat).

 

[scienceguy95]

I'm betting they incorporated some sort of hospital metric into the mix in exchange for reduced weight to student quality metrics (gpa mcat).

This would make a lot of sense. Yale is an amazing school but arguably one of its weaknesses is its association with a good but not powerhouse level hospital system.

Though that wouldn’t help explain Michigan’s and Columbia’s demotion.

 

[altblue]

That chart

How'd NYU manage to climb so far anyway?

 

[MarineMDHopeful]

Plus with Mayo opening AZ they can report all the NIH funds from all 3 campuses now so it was inevitable that they would rise.

 

[scootad.]

NIH $$

 

[Willy38]

This would make a lot of sense. Yale is an amazing school but arguably one of its weaknesses is its association with a good but not powerhouse level hospital system.

Though that wouldn’t help explain Michigan’s and Columbia’s demotion.

yeah not sure exactly what they did. Would have to be a new metric though. Similar to how Stanford catapulted itself to a consistent #2 by lobbying USNWR to use NIH per faculty some years back.

 

[MDPedigree]

The people who went to NYU when it was ranked in the 30's are probably now bragging about how they attended a top-10 med school LOL!

 

[FlameGrilledChicken]

The people who went to NYU when it was ranked in the 30's are probably now bragging about how they attended a top-10 med school LOL!

Yeah its crazy how fast they rose. For comparison, U of Alabama, Colorado, U of Iowa and Einstein are where NYU was 10 odd years ago. Those are good schools for sure but imagine them being top 10 in ten years time. At the end of the day I suppose it shows that the rankings should never be the sole or even major reason between choosing a school (unless you're comparing rank 80 to rank 10 or smth like that)

 

[scootad.]

In fairness (although this comparison some may say is apples and oranges), NYU is and has been historically a top 10 law school. So it shouldn't be totally strange for NYU to have a top 10 med school. I think back in most of the 20th century until as recently as the late 80s (before there was US news) NYU was highly regarded and widely considered one of the top med schools, because of Bellevue/many biomedical inventors/innovators (relationship with people like Jonas Salk vaccine, Netter etc).

 

[MDPedigree]

In fairness (although this comparison some may say is apples and oranges), NYU is and has been historically a top 10 law school. So it shouldn't be totally strange for NYU to have a top 10 med school. I think back in most of the 20th century until as recently as the late 80s (before there was US news) NYU was highly regarded and widely considered one of the top med schools, because of Bellevue/many biomedical inventors/innovators (relationship with people like Jonas Salk vaccine, Netter etc).

True. Their undergrad however has never carried that much prestige and is actually pretty easy to get into (I was a slacker in hs and was accepted) which is somewhat surprising given their very good grad programs.

 

[nih15hopeful]

These things are still being published, huh? Unsolicited advice from a current, aged career-changing medical student in the midst of significant life events, both disheartening yet life-affirming, in case there are any plastic and confused young minds out there: doesn't matter where you go. If you want something badly enough, you'll get it (within and without medicine). You might have an easier time getting there from certain places, etc., but you can do whatever from wherever with determination and love and overall balance in your life. OTOH, if public perception of your status is key to your sense self-worth as person, do your thing but be cautious and kind to yourself. N=1, and this is from a person who used to care about these things but is now much happier for discarding such thoughts and redirecting such energy (and time, oh lord, the TIME spent reading and thinking about this stuff in my good years as a late twenty-something!) toward relationships with family and friends, our egos deserve a break and our lives deserve some living!

 

[altblue]

True. Their undergrad however has never carried that much prestige and is actually pretty easy to get into (I was a slacker in hs and was accepted) which is somewhat surprising given their very good grad programs.

But it'd be interesting if the whole university could rise like Stanford did back in the 80's. There's a certain cool to the school that can help it.

 

[scienceguy95]

These rankings always make a big commotion, but I'm surprised that people just don't reach the consensus that rankings matter *within tiers*. Obviously going to a top 10-20 school will likely afford more opportunities than an unranked school, but the most common comparisons I see on SDN are between schools that are within the same league. People will say *attend Hopkins over Duke because it's a better school!* This is absurd to me.

 

[DSM_302.0]

These things are still being published, huh? Unsolicited advice from a current, aged career-changing medical student in the midst of significant life events, both disheartening yet life-affirming, in case there are any plastic and confused young minds out there: doesn't matter where you go. If you want something badly enough, you'll get it (within and without medicine). You might have an easier time getting there from certain places, etc., but you can do whatever from wherever with determination and love and overall balance in your life. OTOH, if public perception of your status is key to your sense self-worth as person, do your thing but be cautious and kind to yourself. N=1, and this is from a person who used to care about these things but is now much happier for discarding such thoughts and redirecting such energy (and time, oh lord, the TIME spent reading and thinking about this stuff in my good years as a late twenty-something!) toward relationships with family and friends, our egos deserve a break and our lives deserve some living!

Luv this
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