Medical School Rankings

[DoctorFate]

I'm just curious how all of you would define T5, T10, and T20. I know most people consider more than the respective number of schools to fall within each category, as there's some variance each year. Personally, I use a combination of PD Rankings (research) and USNR rankings (both current and historical) to define my list. These are my rankings:

T5: Harvard, UCSF, Johns Hopkins, NYU, Stanford, Penn, and Columbia.
T10: T5 + Duke, UWash, Yale, Mayo, WashU, Michigan, Pitt, UCLA.

Feel free to list any external rankings you can think of as well.

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[Med Ed]

T5: The five schools that best align with your priorities
T10: The next five

 

[srirachamayonnaise]

T5: HMS, Hopkins, UCSF, Penn, and Stanford
T10: Columbia, Yale, WashU, NYU, Duke and UCLA.
T20: Michigan, Cornell, Pitt, UW, Mayo, Northwestern, Chicago, UCSD, Mt Sinai and Vandy

 

[DoctorFate]

T5: The five schools that best align with your priorities
T10: The next five

Hahaha, good point

 

[wysdoc]

I'm just curious how all of you would define T5, T10, and T20. I know most people consider more than the respective number of schools to fall within each category, as there's some variance each year. Personally, I use a combination of PD Rankings (research) and USNR rankings (both current and historical) to define my list. These are my rankings:

T5: Harvard, UCSF, Johns Hopkins, NYU, Stanford, Penn, and Columbia.
T10: T5 + Duke, UWash, Yale, Mayo, WashU, Michigan, Pitt, UCLA.

Feel free to list any external rankings you can think of as well.

so you have 15 schools in your top 10.

 

[srirachamayonnaise]

T5: The five schools that best align with your priorities
T10: The next five

Kind of a silly answer. We are talking about what the general medical field thinks.

 

[DoctorFate]

so you have 15 schools in your top 10.

Yea, as several schools have historically been in the T10, and many people still think of them as T10, even if they're on the edges. Plus, some schools are T10 by USNR and then much further behind by PD rankings, and vice versa. For example Pitt is #13 by USNR and #5 by PD. Michigan is #15 in USNR, but #2 in PD rankings. As a medical student, I would generally care more about how my school fares for residency than just it's overall medical research ranking, so I would put both those schools in the T10.

If pressured, I would remove Michigan, Pitt, UCLA, and maybe Yale (which while often thought of as a T10, falls behind the 10th place pretty consistently on both USNR and PD rankings). But it's honestly hard to remove Pitt and Michigan when their residency ranking is so incredibly high.

 

[Goro]

so you have 15 schools in your top 10.

That's what I believe!

There are probably 30 schools in the "T20"

Some pre-meds feel obligated to use the term T50. At that point, you're talking about every MD in the US (except CNU).

 

[Goro]

Kind of a silly answer. We are talking about what the general medical field thinks.

Ask ten people in the field and you'll get 11 different answers. Med Ed is actually on the mark.

The only people who care about rankings or tiers are status obsessed pre-meds and med school Deans.

Once you hit attending, your salary will be the same whether you went to JAB/U HI or Harvard; U WA or U Miami; ACOM or Yale.

 

[srirachamayonnaise]

Yea, as several schools have historically been in the T10, and many people still think of them as T10, even if they're on the edges. Plus, some schools are T10 by USNR and then much further behind by PD rankings, and vice versa. For example Pitt is #13 by USNR and #5 by PD. Michigan is #15 in USNR, but #2 in PD rankings. As a medical student, I would generally care more about how my school fares for residency than just it's overall medical research ranking, so I would put both those schools in the T10.

If pressured, I would remove Michigan, Pitt, UCLA, and maybe Yale (which while often thought of as a T10, falls behind the 10th place pretty consistently on both USNR and PD rankings). But it's honestly hard to remove Pitt and Michigan when their residency ranking is so incredibly high.

Yale is a solid t10. USnews and PD rankings are basically useless. The only school that's really not a t10 or t5 or even t20 is NYU.

 

[srirachamayonnaise]

Ask ten people in the field and you'll get 11 different answers. Med Ed is actually on the mark.

The only people who care about rankings or tiers are status obsessed pre-meds and med school Deans.

Once you hit attending, your salary will be the same whether you went to JAB/U HI or Harvard; U WA or U Miami; ACOM or Yale.

Life is not all about money.

 

[DoctorFate]

Yale is a solid t10. USnews and PD rankings are basically useless. The only school that's really not a t10 or t5 or even t20 is NYU.

Definitely going to disagree with the NYU placement at this point. NYU is without a doubt a T10, and often ranked T5. I understand why USNR rankings might be considered useless, but I'm not sure how PD rankings can be. PD rankings are a direct survey of residency directors, so I would think they matter the most.

 

[DoctorFate]

I know it is T20 but idk the exact rank.

PD rankings are here: pd rankings 2021 med - Google Search
Look at the first result on reddit. (I can't post the reddit link directly, or SDN turns brings the full, very long, webpage here.)

Pitt is #13 on USNR and #5 by PD.

 

[deleted1025488]

Kind of a silly answer. We are talking about what the general medical field thinks.

I mean, is it though? Personally, I want to match and work at a city in the midwest (my state) with a decent medical school ranked 30-40. It has strong specialty programs across the board (plastics, ortho, etc.) that are top in the region and take >50% from said school. It would cost me 1/4th of any T20 (discounting the possibility of any sort of fin/merit aid) and I'd also be closer to friends and family. I'm pretty sure it would be objectively dumber for me. Not to mention I don't think I'm capable of being at the top of the class in a cohort of gunners as a type B person haha.

The more the cycle goes on and the more I get exposed to people at T10 interview days (half of the kids there make it clear they are rich af in their intro during student days, not to mention my NYU interview legitimately 100% ORMs) the more for my state school and the less prestige-obsessed I get. Ironically I can't do that because I have no II from my state school though. Lol.

 

[doomer_md]

The more the cycle goes on and the more I get exposed to people at T10 interview days (half of the kids there make it clear they are rich af in their intro during student days, not to mention my NYU interview legitimately 100% ORMs) the more I want to drop all 13 of my T20 interviews for my state school and the less prestige-obsessed I get. Ironically I can't do that because I have no II from my state school though. Lol.

Yea man I also really love to judge people based on immutable characteristics like their race and their parents income.

 

[deleted1025488]

Yea man I also really love to judge people based on immutable characteristics like their race and their parents income.

Sorry mate but if someone includes "my father is a cardiothoracic surgeon" or "I spent some of quarantine and my last summer in my house in Florence" in their introduction on interview day I don't really know what else to think. And yes both of those happened, and various permutations of those. How you can be intelligent enough to get an II in the first place, and also say these things at the interview, is the real question.

Also as a URM myself, I care heavily about representation and having other URM peers in my cohort. Seeing zero at an interview day is mildly upsetting especially for a school that grounds itself in "giving free tuition to disadvantaged" or whatever. I know that they obviously have URMs on other days (I hope) but the point still stands.

Not sure what you were thinking but whatever, I appreciate your insight.

 

[srirachamayonnaise]

I mean, is it though? Personally, I want to match and work at a city in the midwest (my state) with a decent medical school ranked 30-40. It has strong specialty programs across the board (plastics, ortho, etc.) that are top in the region and take >50% from said school. It would cost me 1/4th of any T20 (discounting the possibility of any sort of fin/merit aid) and I'd also be closer to friends and family. I'm pretty sure it would be objectively dumber for me. Not to mention I don't think I'm capable of being at the top of the class in a cohort of gunners as a type B person haha.

The more the cycle goes on and the more I get exposed to people at T10 interview days (half of the kids there make it clear they are rich af in their intro during student days, not to mention my NYU interview legitimately 100% ORMs) the more I want to drop all 13 of my T20 interviews for my state school and the less prestige-obsessed I get. Ironically I can't do that because I have no II from my state school though. Lol.

but that doesn't change which schools are t20 just because you don't like any of them. OP was asking for the general consensus rather than what your personal preferences are. Again, just because you don't like the schools it doesn't mean they are not top ranked.

 

[deleted1025488]

but that doesn't change which schools are t20 just because you don't like any of them. OP was asking for the general consensus rather than what your personal preferences are. Again, just because you don't like the schools it doesn't mean they are not top ranked.

I was just providing some context for Med Ed's post. I could care less about the ranking apart from great good and bad but if you really want to satisfy that itch, USNews exists for you people.

edited by moderator for language

 

[srirachamayonnaise]

I was just providing some context for Med Ed's post. I could care less about the ranking wank fest apart from great good and bad but if you really want to satisfy that itch, USNews exists for you people.

Kind of a flex when you said you had 13 IIs from t20...

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

There is no difference above a certain level and future success is entirely dependent on individual performance. This is true for everything in life. A majority of IBD analysts come from Ivy League schools yet look at upper management of the firms. Jamie Dimon (tufts), James Gorman (Newman college), Larry fink (UCLA). But they all were the best performers, so they got promoted. Same likely applies to residency. Top derm programs will take somebody who went to the 25 ranked med school over Harvard if he/she did more once he/she was in med schoo

 

[deleted1025488]

Kind of a flex when you said you had 13 IIs from t20...

It was context for the other half of my post. Sorry I guess? I mean does it really matter?

 

[srirachamayonnaise]

It was context for the other half of my post. Sorry I guess? I mean does it really matter?

It's not about whether the ranking matters or not. It's about what the rankings ARE.

 

[deleted1025488]

It's not about whether the ranking matters or not. It's about what the rankings ARE.

Again, my post was literally just a +1 to Med Ed's post. Just ignore it then?

Also, again, USNews for your latter question.

 

[srirachamayonnaise]

There is no difference above a certain level and future success is entirely dependent on individual performance. This is true for everything in life. A majority of IBD analysts come from Ivy League schools yet look at upper management of the firms. Jamie Dimon (tufts), James Gorman (Newman college), Larry fink (UCLA). But they all were the best performers, so they got promoted. Same likely applies to residency. Top derm programs will take somebody who went to the 25 ranked med school over Harvard if he/she did more once he/she was in med schoo

Top derm programs will probably pick the Harvard kid over an emory kid anytime regardless what the emory kid has done, because pedigree is everything. However, that assumes that there's no room for both kids. In reality, it's a ranking system when it comes to match. And I bet Harvard kids will get ranked higher 10 out of 10 times just because it's Harvard and top programs love to brag about where their residents come from. The emory kid will still end up at a top program and after that that kid can still end up being the chair of some top derm program, but at the residency application level, HMS gives you a decisive edge.

 

[YCAGA]

SDN gestalt

 

[doomer_md]

Sorry mate but if someone includes "my father is a cardiothoracic surgeon" or "I spent some of quarantine and my last summer in my house in Florence" in their introduction on interview day I don't really know what else to think. And yes both of those happened, and various permutations of those. How you can be intelligent enough to get an II in the first place, and also say these things at the interview, is the real question.

Also as a URM myself, I care heavily about representation and having other URM peers in my cohort. Seeing zero at an interview day is mildly upsetting especially for a school that grounds itself in "giving free tuition to disadvantaged" or whatever. I know that they obviously have URMs on other days (I hope) but the point still stands.

Not sure what you were thinking but whatever, I appreciate your insight.

Buddy you literally just said you’d turn down a school because the people interviewing or attending there looked a certain way or had certain interests. How else am I supposed to look at it?

 

[DoctorFate]

Buddy you literally just said you’d turn down a school because the people interviewing or attending there looked a certain way or had certain interests. How else am I supposed to look at it?

Eh, I understand where he's coming from. Idk what race you are, but if youre white or Asian, imagine the reverse. You show up at interview day and every single person there is Black or Latino. I would definitely be disturbed by the thought of being around very few that shared my background.

Not enough to outweigh going there (assuming it's a top school) but still

 

[deleted1025488]

Buddy you literally just said you’d turn down a school because the people interviewing or attending there looked a certain way or had certain interests. How else am I supposed to look at it?

You use the magical power of logic and inference instead of trying to come up with some caustic comment for literally no reason.

Also yes I literally will turn down or weigh down a school for my experience with a possible future cohort/peers at interview day. That is...literally what the student meets/interview day is for.

Also I don't appreciate you framing my desire to have URM representation or URM peers, literally as URM myself, as me not attending or liking the school "because people look a certain way." Completely uncalled for and not cool at all, whatever you may be implying.

 

[deleted1025488]

@KnightDoc Dude, delete that

 

[KnightDoc]

@KnightDoc Dude, delete that.

Fine, but you're okay with it?

 

[deleted1025488]

Fine, but you're okay with it?

That would have started a dumpsterfire in this thread, you very well should know that. I'm also going to fix my comments. Not worth it.

 

[KnightDoc]

Dude that would have started a dumpsterfire in this thread, you very well should know that. I'm also going to fix my comments. Not worth it.

I know, but I was so offended that I couldn't help but react. Thanks for saving me from myself!

 

[wysdoc]

All right, y'all
This kind of a thread is just fodder for arguments to begin with.
"USNWR rankings are not good enough, what are MY rankings???" @msummer

Anyone who has profanities in their posts please edit them or I will. @srirachamayonnaise & @joe32

Nobody is getting a warning for TOS violations tonight, but I will check back in the morning.

Give an opinion, fine.
Insults and personal attacks, not helpful.

Violators will be sent out to the barn to stack hay bales.

Edited to add: Thanks @joe32 and @srirachamayonnaise for cleaning up your posts.

 

[DoctorFate]

All right, y'all
This kind of a thread is just fodder for arguments to begin with.
"USNWR rankings are not good enough, what are MY rankings???" @msummer

Anyone who has profanities in their posts please edit them or I will. @srirachamayonnaise & @joe32

Nobody is getting a warning for TOS violations tonight, but I will check back in the morning.

Give an opinion, fine.
Insults and personal attacks, not helpful.

Violators will be sent out to the barn to stack hay bales.

I mean, I dont really think the topic is entirely off base. Even Goro mentioned on a different thread a few days ago that the T20 consists of more than 20 schools. Thats what motivated me to post this. It's also known that T5 rankings by USNR change every year, so I was looking for a more long term opinion.

I can definitely see how its argument fodder though. Oh well.

 

[deleted1025488]

It's also known that T5 rankings by USNR change every year, so I was looking for a more long term opinion.

Same here, I'm in desperate need of a long-term T2 ranking. USNR sucks (how dare there change the near-biblical-level rankings each year?) and Jimmy told me that if I don't go to a T2 I will never be able to match ortho and my career will end up in the dumpster.

 

[hotlinebling0729]

Thats what motivated me to post this.

🛑 the 🧢

 

[Banco]

I first started browsing this site like 10 years ago. These threads will never end. And there will never be a consensus. Time is a flat circle.

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

USNEWS rankings are basically irrelevant. Columbia better than Yale colleg and Stanford? Okay.

Hopkins and Northwestern better than brown, dartmouth, and cornell? Not to most recruiters.

Note I’m talking about undergrad but the same applies to all of their rankings.

 

[Dave1980]

I'm just curious how all of you would define T5, T10, and T20. I know most people consider more than the respective number of schools to fall within each category, as there's some variance each year. Personally, I use a combination of PD Rankings (research) and USNR rankings (both current and historical) to define my list. These are my rankings:

T5: Harvard, UCSF, Johns Hopkins, NYU, Stanford, Penn, and Columbia.
T10: T5 + Duke, UWash, Yale, Mayo, WashU, Michigan, Pitt, UCLA.

Feel free to list any external rankings you can think of as well.

Considering your T5 has 7 schools in it (and your T10 has 15) I can confidently say that this is the worst rankings thread every. That is saying a lot. Congrats. Hopefully you can get into one of the 130 top 100 schools in the US

 

[srirachamayonnaise]

NYU had the highest GPA and MCAT selectivity long before it had free tuition.
It has some of the lowest student to faculty rotations across multiple world renown specialties
It has attracted more applicants than other highly regarded schools in New York City
Probably one of the best schools to both get an education and get networking in NYC
Schools like Harvard and JHU educate students to be leaders particularly in research and academia
If you want to be a top practicing doctor, NYU beats them probably only exceeded by Mayo

So what what is top goes to what you want out of medical school
as @Med Ed already pointed out

Other than derm, none of the NYU residency programs is highly ranked. I think you can be a top practicing doctor literally coming out of any school. But among academicians, NYU is seldom considered a top place. Most people in academic medicine will consider Weill a way higher ranked program in the city than NYU.

Furthermore, most patients in the city would opt for NYPresb over Bellevue for their care even if they live below 42nd street. NYers don't really consider NYU an elite school....

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

IMO Pitt, Uwash and UCLA are not T10. The McKinsey test also applies to medical schools. If McKinsey actively recruits at school then it is prestigious.

To test this, all you need to do is google “xxxxx medical school Mckinsey linkedin. If there are 5+ profiles, the school is considered prestigious.

 

[DoctorFate]

IMO Pitt, Uwash and UCLA are not T10. The McKinsey test also applies to medical schools. If McKinsey actively recruits at school then it is prestigious.

To test this, all you need to do is google “xxxxx medical school Mckinsey linkedin. If there are 5+ profiles, the school is considered prestigious.

I know you're in finance or consulting or something like that, so I can see why you would defer to such a test, but I feel like it's pretty irrelevant to medicine

 

[DoctorFate]

Considering your T5 has 7 schools in it (and your T10 has 15) I can confidently say that this is the worst rankings thread every. That is saying a lot. Congrats. Hopefully you can get into one of the 130 top 100 schools in the US

Good point. Honestly the feedback here has been informative for me.

T5: Harvard, UCSF, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, Penn, and Columbia.
T10: T5 + Duke, UWash, Yale, Mayo, NYU, Cornell

 

[KnightDoc]

I know you're in finance or consulting or something like that, so I can see why you would defer to such a test, but I feel like it's pretty irrelevant to medicine

Do you see it? Because I sure don't. Pick a med school, any med school at all. Just about all of them are far more selective in admissions than Harvard Business School, or any of the top MBA programs for that matter.

Does anyone who has any idea at all about anything to do with medical schools think a so-called "McKinsey Test" is an arbiter of anything in the world of medical education? I would think this is 1,000,000% irrelevant outside the confines of the McKinsey hiring committee. Still think there is a 0% chance you are being trolled?

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

Do you see it? Because I sure don't. Pick a med school, any med school at all. Just about all of them are far more selective in admissions than Harvard Business School, or any of the top MBA programs for that matter.

Does anyone who has any idea at all about anything to do with medical schools think a so-called "McKinsey Test" is an arbiter of anything in the world of medical education? I would think this is 1,000,000% irrelevant outside the confines of the McKinsey hiring committee. Still think there is a 0% chance you are being trolled?

Just trying to give some insight into how the public and non PDs perceive med school prestige.

Of course any doctor is more prestigious than any junior/mid level baker/consultant/software engineer

 

[deleted1025488]

Just trying to give some insight into how the public and non PDs perceive med school prestige.

The answer to this question is that literally no one outside of them cares or knows. Navigating the healthcare system is already an obstacle in itself for the vast majority of people in the U.S. (those that can access it in the first place, to be clear); anyone saying people care about where their doctor studied is either smoking a pack or just coping so they can justify and continue to perpetuate the notion that they need to attend a T1.5 school in their little minds.

Like honestly, unless you go to Harvard or Stanford there is a 95% chance no one will know (or maybe Columbia, Yale, Dartmouth, Brown) and a 99.9% chance no one will care.

Even as a premed, before applying I could not name any medical schools besides the ivy leagues, my main state school, and Stanford—I didn't even know Princeton had no medical school. If you told me you went to NYU I'd think you're a clown because their undergraduate school is a literal scam. If you told me you got to "Pritzker" or "Feinberg" I'd probably ask you what language you are speaking. If you told me you went to UCSF I'd ask when they added another UC since I never heard of that school during college applications.

Even people saying you need a top degree for "private practice" are clowns. I remember searching top plastics private clinics in New York and one of the most popular clinics had their surgeon flaunting his HMS education on the website but when you actually look at his education he just did a masters there and went to CUNY for medical school. Lmao.

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

The answer to this question is that literally no one outside of them cares or knows. Navigating the healthcare system is already an obstacle in itself for the vast majority of people in the U.S. (those that can access it in the first place, to be clear); anyone saying people care about where their doctor studied is either smoking a pack or just coping so they can justify and continue to perpetuate the notion that they need to attend a T1.5 school in their little minds.

Like honestly, unless you go to Harvard or Stanford there is a 95% chance no one will know (or maybe Columbia, Yale, Dartmouth, Brown) and a 99.9% chance no one will care.

Even as a premed, before applying I could not name any medical schools besides the ivy leagues, my main state school, and Stanford—I didn't even know Princeton had no medical school. If you told me you went to NYU I'd think you're a clown because their undergraduate school is a literal scam. If you told me you got to "Pritzker" or "Feinberg" I'd probably ask you what language you are speaking. If you told me you went to UCSF I'd ask when they added another UC since I never heard of that school during college applications.

Same tbh. I thought that brown and dartmouth must have high ranked med schools because of the undergrad rankings. I think I thought that Princeton had a medical school until like junior year

 

[KnightDoc]

Just trying to give some insight into how the public and non PDs perceive med school prestige.

Of course any doctor is more prestigious than any junior/mid level baker/consultant/software engineer

Excellent points. But should what unknowledgeable lay people think drive decisions? That's the very logic a disturbingly significant minority of the population is using to justify COVID vaccine hesitancy.

McKinsey is a name brand, whose clients like name brands, so they'd rather recruit at Dartmouth than Pitt, without realizing that Pitt is a much bigger "name" in our world than an Ivy League school in NH. Anyone who lets that drive a decision on where to go to school probably isn't sharp enough to go to either school.

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

I don't think the prestigiousness of the school matters--- I think it's the prestigiousness of the residencies that students receive that should really play into the rank of a med school.

The thing is, I don’t think that there are drastically different outcomes between doctors in the same speciality outside of careers in academia. The orthopedic surgeon who did her residency at Mayo Clinic will make roughly the same amount as the orthopedic surgeon who did her residency at a regional hospital.

Once physicians are practicing the main difference in earnings comes from equity. That is why financial literacy is so important. Despite making good salaries, most doctors are actually exploited according to a labor theory of value

 

[Goro]

I mean, I dont really think the topic is entirely off base. Even Goro mentioned on a different thread a few days ago that the T20 consists of more than 20 schools. Thats what motivated me to post this. It's also known that T5 rankings by USNR change every year, so I was looking for a more long term opinion.

I can definitely see how its argument fodder though. Oh well.

What is your opinion of "Top"?
Most NIH dollars?
Most grads who go into academics?
Most grads who go into Derm or Ortho?
Most grads who work in undeserved areas?
Most publications by faculty?
Best endowments?
Best name recognition by the lay public?

Or is it just "schools that I want to go to?"