Med School Tiers?

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cke11

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Is there a list somewhere or document that has the med schools divided into their respective "tiers"? I know that low, mid, and high tier isn't actually a thing, but I'm trying to compile a school list and some schools I'm just not sure where they would be considered. I've also heard that looking at the rankings aren't great either because, I believe and from what I've been told, anything outside of the top 20 are essentially similar in ranking, but then again its all subjective. This is all so confusing.....
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Click the link in my signature that says something about an applicant rating system and there's a general list in that thread. It's far more nuanced than how its presented but it'll give you a starting point.
 
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Spoke with an associate residency director at one of the top hospitals in the country who broke it down into 1-25, 25-50, then the rest, based on US News rankings as well as the reputation/name of the school. Said all it was good for was at most 1 additional point to a residency application.
 
Mclovin0351 said:
Spoke with an associate residency director at one of the top hospitals in the country who broke it down into 1-25, 25-50, then the rest, based on US News rankings as well as the reputation/name of the school. Said all it was good for was at most 1 additional point to a residency application.
Click to expand...

This is what I've been told as well. I've heard the number 1 thing is your Step 1 scores.
 
Tiers are an illusion developed by pre-meds and fed by USN&WR.
You'll get a fine education whether you go to Harvard or John Burns (U HI), W WA to U MI, Mayo-R to UTx-G, Albany to Yale.


cke11 said:
Is there a list somewhere or document that has the med schools divided into their respective "tiers"? I know that low, mid, and high tier isn't actually a thing, but I'm trying to compile a school list and some schools I'm just not sure where they would be considered. I've also heard that looking at the rankings aren't great either because, I believe and from what I've been told, anything outside of the top 20 are essentially similar in ranking, but then again its all subjective. This is all so confusing.....
Click to expand...
 
Tiers are a silly waste of time. Some medical students from the ivoriest towers are terrible at being residents and some from low ranked schools are awesome. It's very individualized and there doesn't seem to be much correlation from what I've seen.
 
Psai said:
Tiers are a silly waste of time. Some medical students from the ivoriest towers are terrible at being residents and some from low ranked schools are awesome. It's very individualized and there doesn't seem to be much correlation from what I've seen.
Click to expand...

wat about caribbeans?
 
Psai said:
Tiers are a silly waste of time. Some medical students from the ivoriest towers are terrible at being residents and some from low ranked schools are awesome. It's very individualized and there doesn't seem to be much correlation from what I've seen.
Click to expand...

This is so true. I went to a "top tier" DO school and student thrivability was largely dependent on the individual.
 
If you really care...

(averaged from the last five years of US News research rankings, as arbitrary as they are, rankings in parentheses and average at the end):

1. Harvard (1, 1, 1, 1, 1) - 1.0
2. Stanford (4, 2, 2, 2, 2) - 2.4
3. Johns Hopkins (2, 3, 3, 3, 3) - 2.8
4. Penn (2, 4, 4, 5, 3) - 3.6
5. UCSF (5, 4, 4, 3, 3) - 3.8
6. WashU (6, 6, 6, 6, 6) - 6.0
7. Yale (7, 7, 7, 7, 8) - 7.2
8. Columbia (8, 8, 8, 8, 7) - 7.8
9. Duke (9, 8, 8, 8, 8) - 8.2
10. Pritzker (10, 8, 8, 10, 11) - 9.4
10. Michigan (10, 8, 8, 10, 11) - 9.4
12. UWashington (10, 12, 12, 10, 8) - 10.4
13. UCLA (13, 13, 13, 13, 14) - 13.2
14. Vanderbilt (14, 14, 15, 14, 15) - 14.4
15. Pittsburgh (15, 16, 17, 16, 16) - 16.0
15. UCSD (16, 15, 14, 17, 18) - 16.0
17. Weill Cornell (16, 16, 15, 18, 18) - 116.6
18. NYU (24, 21, 19, 14, 11) - 17.8
19. Northwestern (19, 18, 18, 19, 17) - 18.2
20. Mt. Sinai (18, 18, 19, 20, 21) - 19.2

Caveats:
1. Regarding Harvard's stronghold on #1, the real reason why it is so high is because based off USNews metrics, it has an absurd amount of affiliate hospitals and institutions making it impossible for its amount of research funding to not secure it's #1 ranking. (See: https://anastomosed.wordpress.com/2013/03/14/what-would-it-take-to-knock-harvard-med-off-1-in-usnwr/)

2. Interestingly, Stanford was barely in the top ten for rankings prior to the 2010s and I'm not sure why it's skyrocketed to #2.

3. These are all arbitrary and you'll get a fantastic education anywhere in the Top 10 or Top 20 so it's really more important to look at what your personal preferences are.

4. It is interesting to see what NYU's ranking will be in the coming years. For several reasons, like stat whoring, prestige whoring, receiving Hurricane Sandy funds, having a new Dean that is bringing in better faculty/grants, it has jumped from like #34 to #11 in the past decade.
 
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Well, there's Harvard... and then there's not-Harvard.

Choosing schools based on ranking, while perhaps useful for deciding on a school list to apply to, is a bad idea when it comes to deciding which school to attend. You should really choose a place where you would be happy for the next four (or more) years. It doesn't matter if you go to a top-ranked school but are miserable your entire time there. You probably wouldn't socialize or do that well and end up somewhere you don't want to be. So it's important that you choose school whose culture fits with you.
 
aldol16 said:
Well, there's Harvard... and then there's not-Harvard.

Choosing schools based on ranking, while perhaps useful for deciding on a school list to apply to, is a bad idea when it comes to deciding which school to attend. You should really choose a place where you would be happy for the next four (or more) years. It doesn't matter if you go to a top-ranked school but are miserable your entire time there. You probably wouldn't socialize or do that well and end up somewhere you don't want to be. So it's important that you choose school whose culture fits with you.
Click to expand...

And don't forget money. Go to a school where you will be able to minimize your debt.
 
Cotterpin said:
And don't forget money. Go to a school where you will be able to minimize your debt.
Click to expand...

To a certain extent this matters but I strongly do not believe that one should sacrifice happiness to have less debt. Even if that debt is $50,000 more in the long run - you will pay it back. If you're miserable where you're at, you won't do well to get where you want in your career and that puts you at risk of being able to pay back the debt that you do owe, even if it's lower than what you would have taken on going to the school where you would be happiest.
 
aldol16 said:
To a certain extent this matters but I strongly do not believe that one should sacrifice happiness to have less debt. Even if that debt is $50,000 more in the long run - you will pay it back. If you're miserable where you're at, you won't do well to get where you want in your career and that puts you at risk of being able to pay back the debt that you do owe, even if it's lower than what you would have taken on going to the school where you would be happiest.
Click to expand...
I would love to walk out with only $50,000 in debt 🙂
 
DogDays123 said:
If you really care...

(averaged from the last five years of US News research rankings, as arbitrary as they are, rankings in parentheses and average at the end):

1. Harvard (1, 1, 1, 1, 1) - 1.0
2. Stanford (4, 2, 2, 2, 2) - 2.4
3. Johns Hopkins (2, 3, 3, 3, 3) - 2.8
4. Penn (2, 4, 4, 5, 3) - 3.6
5. UCSF (5, 4, 4, 3, 3) - 3.8
6. WashU (6, 6, 6, 6, 6) - 6.0
7. Yale (7, 7, 7, 7, 8) - 7.2
8. Columbia (8, 8, 8, 8, 7) - 7.8
9. Duke (9, 8, 8, 8, 8) - 8.2
10. Pritzker (10, 8, 8, 10, 11) - 9.4
10. Michigan (10, 8, 8, 10, 11) - 9.4
12. UWashington (10, 12, 12, 10, 8) - 10.4
13. UCLA (13, 13, 13, 13, 14) - 13.2
14. Vanderbilt (14, 14, 15, 14, 15) - 14.4
15. Pittsburgh (15, 16, 17, 16, 16) - 16.0
15. UCSD (16, 15, 14, 17, 18) - 16.0
17. Weill Cornell (16, 16, 15, 18, 18) - 116.6
18. NYU (24, 21, 19, 14, 11) - 17.8
19. Northwestern (19, 18, 18, 19, 17) - 18.2
20. Mt. Sinai (18, 18, 19, 20, 21) - 19.2

Caveats:
1. Regarding Harvard's stronghold on #1, the real reason why it is so high is because based off USNews metrics, it has an absurd amount of affiliate hospitals and institutions making it impossible for its amount of research funding to not secure it's #1 ranking. (See: https://anastomosed.wordpress.com/2013/03/14/what-would-it-take-to-knock-harvard-med-off-1-in-usnwr/)

2. Interestingly, Stanford was barely in the top ten for rankings prior to the 2010s and I'm not sure why it's skyrocketed to #2.

3. These are all arbitrary and you'll get a fantastic education anywhere in the Top 10 or Top 20 so it's really more important to look at what your personal preferences are.

4. It is interesting to see what NYU's ranking will be in the coming years. For several reasons, like stat whoring, prestige whoring, receiving Hurricane Sandy funds, having a new Dean that is bringing in better faculty/grants, it has jumped from like #34 to #11 in the past decade.
Click to expand...

For my personal ranking, I average together research and primary care rankings.

I see that as a combination of how well a school is exploring new areas of medical science while training their students in the art of clinical medicine.

UCSF is number one! Love you boo.
 
I don't think it matters past top 25.

Top 50 really doesn't matter. I don't think anyone is thinking oh this student went to U Miami/Indiana U/U Florida/U Cincinnati (all rank 40~ schools) let me give them a slight edge when considering them.

The top 25 all seem to be relatively big names though.
 
FlatIsJustice said:
The top 25 all seem to be relatively big names though.
Click to expand...

Big names in the field of medicine/science, that is. Outside of people who are involved in those fields, I don't think the big names in medicine really mean that much to normal people - unless you go to a big-name school like Harvard or Yale or Stanford that is a household name. Many normal people don't know that Johns Hopkins is a top school, much less UCSF.
 
aldol16 said:
Big names in the field of medicine/science, that is. Outside of people who are involved in those fields, I don't think the big names in medicine really mean that much to normal people - unless you go to a big-name school like Harvard or Yale or Stanford that is a household name. Many normal people don't know that Johns Hopkins is a top school, much less UCSF.
Click to expand...

But all that matters is what residency directors think. I don't care what my patients think of the school I went to.
 
So sort of related but how important is what school you go to, for either medical school or residency, if you eventually would like to get into academia?
 
DogDays123 said:
If you really care...

(averaged from the last five years of US News research rankings, as arbitrary as they are, rankings in parentheses and average at the end):

1. Harvard (1, 1, 1, 1, 1) - 1.0
2. Stanford (4, 2, 2, 2, 2) - 2.4
3. Johns Hopkins (2, 3, 3, 3, 3) - 2.8
4. Penn (2, 4, 4, 5, 3) - 3.6
5. UCSF (5, 4, 4, 3, 3) - 3.8
6. WashU (6, 6, 6, 6, 6) - 6.0
7. Yale (7, 7, 7, 7, 8) - 7.2
8. Columbia (8, 8, 8, 8, 7) - 7.8
9. Duke (9, 8, 8, 8, 8) - 8.2
10. Pritzker (10, 8, 8, 10, 11) - 9.4
10. Michigan (10, 8, 8, 10, 11) - 9.4
12. UWashington (10, 12, 12, 10, 8) - 10.4
13. UCLA (13, 13, 13, 13, 14) - 13.2
14. Vanderbilt (14, 14, 15, 14, 15) - 14.4
15. Pittsburgh (15, 16, 17, 16, 16) - 16.0
15. UCSD (16, 15, 14, 17, 18) - 16.0
17. Weill Cornell (16, 16, 15, 18, 18) - 116.6
18. NYU (24, 21, 19, 14, 11) - 17.8
19. Northwestern (19, 18, 18, 19, 17) - 18.2
20. Mt. Sinai (18, 18, 19, 20, 21) - 19.2

Caveats:
1. Regarding Harvard's stronghold on #1, the real reason why it is so high is because based off USNews metrics, it has an absurd amount of affiliate hospitals and institutions making it impossible for its amount of research funding to not secure it's #1 ranking. (See: https://anastomosed.wordpress.com/2013/03/14/what-would-it-take-to-knock-harvard-med-off-1-in-usnwr/)

2. Interestingly, Stanford was barely in the top ten for rankings prior to the 2010s and I'm not sure why it's skyrocketed to #2.

3. These are all arbitrary and you'll get a fantastic education anywhere in the Top 10 or Top 20 so it's really more important to look at what your personal preferences are.

4. It is interesting to see what NYU's ranking will be in the coming years. For several reasons, like stat whoring, prestige whoring, receiving Hurricane Sandy funds, having a new Dean that is bringing in better faculty/grants, it has jumped from like #34 to #11 in the past decade.
Click to expand...

Does anyone know why the 4 of the Cali schools are in the top 25? Why do they get so much research money?
 
To be MD said:
For my personal ranking, I average together research and primary care rankings.

I see that as a combination of how well a school is exploring new areas of medical science while training their students in the art of clinical medicine.

UCSF is number one! Love you boo.
Click to expand...

Well that's dumb. Primary care rankings are even more useless than the research ones.
 
aldol16 said:
To a certain extent this matters but I strongly do not believe that one should sacrifice happiness to have less debt. Even if that debt is $50,000 more in the long run - you will pay it back. If you're miserable where you're at, you won't do well to get where you want in your career and that puts you at risk of being able to pay back the debt that you do owe, even if it's lower than what you would have taken on going to the school where you would be happiest.
Click to expand...

I didn't say to sacrifice happiness to have less debt. I just meant that money is also another important consideration in addition to happiness. And don't discount how a ginormous debt burden might affect your happiness long-term, way beyond your four years in med school. They're both important factors, probably both more important than the school's ranking.
 
Thought I'd drop by and give a little piece of unsolicited advice that I wish I'd gotten back in 2012-13 when I was applying.

Go to the cheapest med school you can get into and remember MD > DO > Caribbean. You will never regret this.

Screw rankings. It's COMPLETELY baseless and serves only as a circle jerk for top tier institutions. The schools that are consistently at the top are there because they've "cracked the algorithm" and take advantage of it.

As an out of state MS4 at a middle of the pack state med school please take my advice, I can guarantee you that your success in med school is dependent on YOU and your ability to work hard and excel. DESTROY STEP 1! I mention the type of med school I go to because I'm applying to anesthesia and this is a very competitive year for us compared to others yet I've gotten interviews at EVERY big name hospital in the country. Not trying to toot my own horn but more so trying to prove that going to ANY MD school in America will allow you to achieve your goals so long as you work hard.

Ok end rant lol.
 
FlatIsJustice said:
But all that matters is what residency directors think. I don't care what my patients think of the school I went to.
Click to expand...

School you went to determines, in part, what a residency director thinks. Especially if that residency program is at the school you went to.
 
Cotterpin said:
I didn't say to sacrifice happiness to have less debt. I just meant that money is also another important consideration in addition to happiness. And don't discount how a ginormous debt burden might affect your happiness long-term, way beyond your four years in med school. They're both important factors, probably both more important than the school's ranking.
Click to expand...

Yes, debt is definitely a consideration, but I would rank it after happiness. I'm not implying that you are making debt a priority at all - I am adding that I would rank it after happiness. A lot of debt might affect happiness in the long run but it depends on the exact amount and what one can tolerate. If somebody borrows 190K, then an additional 20K for a school that really fits may be well worth it to them whereas for somebody who has to borrow 90K, an additional 20K for a school that fits well with them might not be worth it. Depends on the person but I think that happiness should always come first - both short- and long-term.
 
DogDays123 said:
If you really care...

(averaged from the last five years of US News research rankings, as arbitrary as they are, rankings in parentheses and average at the end):

1. Harvard (1, 1, 1, 1, 1) - 1.0
2. Stanford (4, 2, 2, 2, 2) - 2.4
3. Johns Hopkins (2, 3, 3, 3, 3) - 2.8
4. Penn (2, 4, 4, 5, 3) - 3.6
5. UCSF (5, 4, 4, 3, 3) - 3.8
6. WashU (6, 6, 6, 6, 6) - 6.0
7. Yale (7, 7, 7, 7, 8) - 7.2
8. Columbia (8, 8, 8, 8, 7) - 7.8
9. Duke (9, 8, 8, 8, 8) - 8.2
10. Pritzker (10, 8, 8, 10, 11) - 9.4
10. Michigan (10, 8, 8, 10, 11) - 9.4
12. UWashington (10, 12, 12, 10, 8) - 10.4
13. UCLA (13, 13, 13, 13, 14) - 13.2
14. Vanderbilt (14, 14, 15, 14, 15) - 14.4
15. Pittsburgh (15, 16, 17, 16, 16) - 16.0
15. UCSD (16, 15, 14, 17, 18) - 16.0
17. Weill Cornell (16, 16, 15, 18, 18) - 116.6
18. NYU (24, 21, 19, 14, 11) - 17.8
19. Northwestern (19, 18, 18, 19, 17) - 18.2
20. Mt. Sinai (18, 18, 19, 20, 21) - 19.2

Caveats:
1. Regarding Harvard's stronghold on #1, the real reason why it is so high is because based off USNews metrics, it has an absurd amount of affiliate hospitals and institutions making it impossible for its amount of research funding to not secure it's #1 ranking. (See: https://anastomosed.wordpress.com/2013/03/14/what-would-it-take-to-knock-harvard-med-off-1-in-usnwr/)

2. Interestingly, Stanford was barely in the top ten for rankings prior to the 2010s and I'm not sure why it's skyrocketed to #2.

3. These are all arbitrary and you'll get a fantastic education anywhere in the Top 10 or Top 20 so it's really more important to look at what your personal preferences are.

4. It is interesting to see what NYU's ranking will be in the coming years. For several reasons, like stat whoring, prestige whoring, receiving Hurricane Sandy funds, having a new Dean that is bringing in better faculty/grants, it has jumped from like #34 to #11 in the past decade.
Click to expand...
Woah, Cornell at 116.6? Can't believe it sucks so much
 
wolfpackMD said:
Thought I'd drop by and give a little piece of unsolicited advice that I wish I'd gotten back in 2012-13 when I was applying.

Go to the cheapest med school you can get into and remember MD > DO > Caribbean. You will never regret this.

Screw rankings. It's COMPLETELY baseless and serves only as a circle jerk for top tier institutions. The schools that are consistently at the top are there because they've "cracked the algorithm" and take advantage of it.

As an out of state MS4 at a middle of the pack state med school please take my advice, I can guarantee you that your success in med school is dependent on YOU and your ability to work hard and excel. DESTROY STEP 1! I mention the type of med school I go to because I'm applying to anesthesia and this is a very competitive year for us compared to others yet I've gotten interviews at EVERY big name hospital in the country. Not trying to toot my own horn but more so trying to prove that going to ANY MD school in America will allow you to achieve your goals so long as you work hard.

Ok end rant lol.
Click to expand...

I tend to agree but if you're aiming for wills eye or barrow neurosurgery, name matters. But you can get into any field from any school.
 
Goro said:
Tiers are an illusion developed by pre-meds and fed by USN&WR.
You'll get a fine education whether you go to Harvard or John Burns (U HI), W WA to U MI, Mayo-R to UTx-G, Albany to Yale.
Click to expand...
Flexner Report FTW!
 
aldol16 said:
Well, there's Harvard... and then there's not-Harvard.

Choosing schools based on ranking, while perhaps useful for deciding on a school list to apply to, is a bad idea when it comes to deciding which school to attend. You should really choose a place where you would be happy for the next four (or more) years. It doesn't matter if you go to a top-ranked school but are miserable your entire time there. You probably wouldn't socialize or do that well and end up somewhere you don't want to be. So it's important that you choose school whose culture fits with you.
Click to expand...
This is exactly how I feel after attending a "Top 10" undergrad. Definitely WAS NOT worth the money. I'm not saying it was bad but it wasn't particularly better than any other school (especially my state schools that I could've gone to for free)
 
Last edited:
It really depends on your goals. If you want to go to a top residency then going to a top medical school will make a big difference. If you go to a no name place it can hurt you, especially if you aren't AOA
 
It's a circle:

Top institution means that higher applicants apply and more money/attention goes to these schools

More fame/funding/attention means that these schools get ranked higher

Rinse and repeat

YOUR education on the other hand, won't change too much (mostly because more than 80% of your education depends on you)

It's kind of like how many high school students are better at programming than some graduates of computer science are. It's because they are passionate and have a desire to learn. It depended on them, not where they got their formal education from.
 
Doggo said:
This is exactly how I feel after attending a "Top 10" undergrad. Definitely WAS NOT worth the money. I'm not saying it was bad but it wasn't particularly better than any other school (especially my state schools that I could've gone to for free)
Click to expand...

Exactly. These "top ten" schools are good if you want to be recruited for consulting/finance/tech, but not so good if you're set on medical school, etc. I mean, certain schools do feed into certain medical programs so it's not like you have no advantage, but the main advantage comes to personalized attention to your growth and being adequately prepared for MCAT as well. There's a reason why many top medical programs take so many of their own undergrads.
 
Schools have different missions - some are great at producing medical scientists, some are great at producing clinicians, some have a focus on community medicine and some have regio-specific missions . I didn't apply to many of the supposed Top 25 programs simply because I wasn't really interested in their mission, the amount of NIH funding they receive, etc.
 
I see this thread has been resuscitated so I'll try to add a follow-up question since I've been curious about this.

Do higher GPA and MCAT scores on the MSAR correlate with a 'better' education? If tier is imaginary, then why the heck do the same people in this thread recommend high stat individuals to go to apply high stat when they could easily get into mid stat schools that offer the SAME quality of education and chance for competitive residencies. If MD is MD no matter what, than why are some schools more competitive than others? If it truly doesn't matter, then EVERYONE's goal should be to get in somewhere and go to the cheapest place or the place with your favorite weather or student body or location or whatever.

Someone explain this to me.
 
premstudent said:
Do higher GPA and MCAT scores on the MSAR correlate with a 'better' education?
Click to expand...

Lol, no.

premstudent said:
then why the heck do the same people in this thread recommend high stat individuals to go to apply high stat when they could easily get into mid stat schools that offer the SAME quality of education and chance for competitive residencies.
Click to expand...

Because the high stat schools open every door imaginable.
premstudent said:
than why are some schools more competitive than others?
Click to expand...

These schools often have some of the top clinicians, hospitals, and residencies in the world. They can lead to prestigious academic careers if a student wants to pursue that. Students from top schools can match pretty much any field with a very average application. Go look at the match lists, do you really think every student on those lists matching top programs/competitive specialties is a 260/AOA/10 pub applicant?
 
premstudent said:
why the heck do ... people in this thread recommend high stat individuals to go to apply high stat when they could easily get into mid stat schools
Click to expand...

Because sometimes they do get into high stat schools but definitely don't "easily get into mid stat schools." Trust me.
 
AnatomyGrey12 said:
Lol, no.



Because the high stat schools open every door imaginable.


These schools often have some of the top clinicians, hospitals, and residencies in the world. They can lead to prestigious academic careers if a student wants to pursue that. Students from top schools can match pretty much any field with a very average application. Go look at the match lists, do you really think every student on those lists matching top programs/competitive specialties is a 260/AOA/10 pub applicant?
Click to expand...
Your second and third statements contradict the first. You say it doesn't give you a better education, but if education is more than just clinical knowledge and preparation for Boards, than top schools effectively give you a 'better' education.
 
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