New comparisons: is this useful?

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whoanelly

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Using the data on the site that Doctora Foxy shared with us, I did a compilation of the scores and stats given by current med students regarding their own schools. I picked three areas of interest to me--and the numbers appear after the school name in this order: the overall satisfaction rating (1 to 5 with 5 the most satisfied),how competitive the students are among themselves (1 to 5 with 1 being the most competitive and 5 being the most cooperative), and # hours/week spent in traditional lectures. I started with the US News "top ten". Here they are:

Harvard 5 5 11
Hopkins 4.3 4.0 28.3
WashU 4.5 4.3 21.8
Penn 4.8 4.5 26.5
Duke 4.9 4.7 23.6
UCSF 4.7 4.3 15.0
Columbia 4.7 4.3 35
Michigan 4.1 3.8 22.5
Yale 4.4 4.4 13
U of Wash 4.0 3.7 38

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Search on the <a href="http://www.amsa.org" target="_blank">www.amsa.org</a> site or go to the message initiated by gavroche re Columbia and Vandy and Doctora gives you a link.
 
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Here is the site: <a href="http://www.amsa.org/resource/cardev/medresults.cfm" target="_blank">http://www.amsa.org/resource/cardev/medresults.cfm</a>

It is an amsa site that has med students rate their schools.

I never ever look at those numbers that the students use to rate everything. Those ratings are too subjective to use numbers, IMHO. Especially because most surveys only have about 10 respondents, so it is not very representative of the whole class.

The best thing to look at in that site are the comments. I have found that the comments correspond to what med students have said when answering questions at interviews.

Please take those ratings with a grain of salt! It is not done "scientifically" like the USNews. I'm not even sure how accurate the class hours are--it's probably a result of students estimating, not a number submitted by the schools. I found that the survey for vermont reflected incorrect class time hours, for excample. Also please note that when students are rating how happy they are, or how competitive it is, for example, they have nothing to compare it to. Some people will always be unhappy in school, so they will give it a low score.

But I love those comments b/c they are honest. :)
 
I agree with your comments, except that the class hours are generally in the ball park. 38 hours a week is deadly (U of Wash)!I like the comments best, too. As I noted, this site is akin to visiting a campus and just talking to a few people, not surveying the whole student body, but I think maybe it should raise a little concern if there are even 7 respondents who aren't happy. If we have a bunch of SDNers berating Hopkins and then their overall satisfaction is 4.3 compared to a 5 at Harvard, maybe we're beginning to see a trend. Who knows what information is worth considering and what should be ignored--guess we each have to come to our own conclusions.
 
hehe, I keep thinking about hotornot.com, when I vote someone as a 3, and it turns out most people have voted them as an 8. It's just so subjective, since some people think differently about what the numbers are really worth. What's the difference between 4.3 and 5? I would say very little, they are almost the same, and on a bad day I would choose 4 over 5. But some would say that 4 is an 80%, which is very different from 100% (5). However, the numbers DO give us just another little thing to factor in when choosing a med school. :)

p.s. Thanks for all the data from US News whoanelly! :clap:
 
I wanted to throw some meaningful info in here. I've seen these surveys, and while you can believe some of the information, as people mentioned this is based on VERY few surveys. I'd like to post that info. So here is the sample size we're going on. Sample size is in () on the left. I also did the rest of the top 20, out of curiosity to see if there was a difference. To reiterate:

(sample size) | school | overall satisfaction (1-5) | competetiveness (1=competetive, 5=cooperative) | Hours per week in lectures for students in traditional curriculum

(3) Harvard 5.0 5.0 11.0
(3) Hopkins 4.3 4.0 28.3
(6) WashU 4.5 4.3 21.8
(13) Penn 4.8 4.5 26.5
(10) Duke 4.9 4.7 23.6
(3) UCSF 4.7 4.3 15.0
(3) Columbia 4.7 4.3 35.0
(25) Michigan 4.1 3.8 22.5
(7) Yale 4.4 4.4 13.0
(3) U of Wash 4.0 3.7 38.0

(4) Cornell 4.5 4.8 8.0
(5) Stanford 4.6 4.6 25.0
(13) Baylor 4.5 4.3 21.6
(2) UCLA 4.5 5.0 22.5
(4) Mayo 4.5 4.0 24.0
(13) Vandy 4.3 4.7 24.2
(25) Pitt 4.4 4.5 18.6
(11) UTSW 4.0 4.6 25.0
(7) Pritzker 4.7 4.9 23
(16) Emory 4.4 4.2 22.0
(3) UCSD 4.6 4.0 27.7

I think it's reasonable to accept the results from Mich and Pitt, but anything under 10 is so small it shouldn't be given much weight. (Harvard, Hopkins, WashU, UCSF, Columbia, Yale, U Wash, Cornell, Stanford, UCLA, Mayo, Pritzker, UCSD)

yay for more numbers for premeds!
 
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