Rankings by USNEWS

[Scooby Doo]

I came across a thread from last year and it was saying how Columbia went up a few notches and Yale dropped a few notches.

Now I know a lot of people on this board say that rankings don't matter that much but in the end I think a ton of people choose the school based on ranking. I know many of my classmates last year did this.

So for the question: Can we get a hold of the rankings for the past 4 years or so? I want to look at trends. To see if any school has been consistently moving up or if any school has been moving down or any startling changes. Does anyone know how to get this data???

Thanks

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[none]

I don't know about your question, but I definitely concur that they are often a major deciding factor for people. I'm not saying that's neccessarily bad or good, but rankings definitely have an impact on what schools get what people.

 

[chef]

Hi, I did a quick search on google but the data from past years are not available. You could try your university's library and just look up the past issues of USnews. Just an idea

 

[brickmanli]

Then I hope they take Harvard down a few notches, giving a person like me (who's not too bright and thus doesn't care about rankings) a chance.

 

[coop]

while I definately don't advocate picking because of the rankings, I am in a position to help out cause I have some old hard copies of the magazine from 1997 and 98 (I was a lot more into the rankings in high school). Enjoy:

1997
1. Harvard
2. JHU
3. Duke
4. UCSF
5. WashU
6. Yale
7. Penn
8. Columbia
9. Michigan
10. Stanford
11. UCLA
12. Cornell
13. U of Washington
14. Vanderbilt
15. Baylor
16. U Chicago
17. Pitt
18. Case Western
19. Emory
20. UCSD
21. Texas SW
22. Einstein
23. NYU
24. Mayo
25. Northwestern

1998
1. Harvard
2. JHU
3. WashU
t4. Duke
t4 Penn
t4. Yale
t7. Columbia
t7. UCSF
t9. Cornell
t9. Stanford
t9. Michigan
12. UCLA
t13. Baylor
t13. U of Washington
t15. Case Western
t15. Vanderbilt
17. Texas SW
18. U Chicago
t19. UCSD
t19. Pitt
t21. Emory
t21. NYU
t21. Northwestern
t24. Mayo
t24. Einstein

Let the silly nitpicking arguments begin!

 

[kafka79]

I posted these old US News rankings, which I found through Google, a while ago:

1994

1. HARVARD UNIVERSITY (Mass.)
2. JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY (Md.)
3. YALE UNIVERSITY (Conn.)
4. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT SAN FRANCISCO
5. WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY (Mo.)
6. DUKE UNIVERSITY (N.C.)
7. UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
8. COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY (N.Y.)
9. STANFORD UNIVERSITY (Calif.)
9. UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

1996

1. Harvard
2. Johns Hopkins
3. Yale
4. Washington University
5. Duke
6. UCSF
7. University of Pennsylvania
8. Columbia
9. Michigan
10. Stanford

1998

1. Harvard
2. Johns Hopkins
3. Washington University
4. Duke
4. University of Pennsylvania
4. Yale
7. Columbia
7. UCSF
9. Cornell
9. Stanford
9. University of Michigan

2000

1 Harvard University
2. Johns Hopkins University
3. University of Pennsylvania
4. Washington University (St. Louis)
5. Columbia University
6. Duke University
7. UCSF
8. Yale University
9. University of Washington (Seattle)
10. Stanford University.

2002

1. Harvard
2. Johns Hopkins
3. Duke
4. University of Pennsylvania
5. Washington University
6. Columbia
7. UCSF
8. Yale
9. Michigan
9. Stanford

 

[SMW]

Speaking of US News rankings, what can people tell me about the primary care as opposed to the research rankings? There is a lot of overlap, but some puzzling things. Like how can Columbia not be ranked at all in primary care? And how do OHSU at #2 and UNM at #3 (primary care rankings, unranked at all in research) get sandwiched in between U. Washington (ranked#1 primary care & #11 in research) and UCSF (ranked #4 primary care & #7 in research)?

 

[Dr. Kermit]

From my understanding, research rankings have to do with how much grant money and actual research a university perform. Primary care rankings have to do with an instituations programs that prepare students for a field in primary care (peds, FM, IM, sometimes OB/GYN and psych.) So, state schools that tend to want students to enter primary care have a lot of funding for those programs and usually rank better than large private institutions that gear more toward specialities.

Also, I don't think Columbia is big on primary care. Many of their graduates go onto high paying specialities, or enter internal medicine and then specialize.

 

[chef]

2 observations:

1. Steady decline of Yale. All the other schools are relatively steady, they might bounce around up and down but they always seem to hover around the rankings in 1994, but Yale has gone down steadily from #3 to #8 (ok ok, so it's not a huge drop, but interesting nonetheless)

2. Rankings are only given in every other year? (94, 96, 98 etc) Or did the poster not post rankings for 95, 97 etc?

 

[mpp]

You can read about U.S. News <a href="http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/beyond/gradrank/gbmedmet.htm" target="_blank">methodology</a>. The main difference is that 30 percent of the score given each school is either the percentage of graduates going into primary care (Primary Care Rankings) or the total amount of NIH funding (Research Rankings).

 

[Scooby Doo]

Another observation that's even bigger than Yale's decline is EINSTEIN's decline...They went from almost in the teens to low thirties!

It will be interesting to see the changes again at the end of this March. See just what happens. Seems to hold that Harvard and JHU all run in the front steadily!

 

[SMW]

Columbia has an upward trend (should've told 'em that in my acceptance letter :wink: ).

 

[lilycat]

I think there was a thread about this last year... anyways, most people cautioned against trying to find "trends" in the rankings because USNews likes to try and change their methodology every couple of years. I don't know how true that is, but just is something else to think about.

 

[eagle26]

Just think of it this way: whoever is applying and matriculates at one of these top ten schools could...dare I say it..GASP...end up in a #24 school by the time they graduate. All that ivy league money for naught...sigh.

Joe

 

[8deuce]

all of the ranking crap is really a crapshoot....anyway there is nothing worse than a toolbox rank *****! everybody pretty much knows where the top schools are anyway...

oh my yale has dropped 5 places...how dumb does that sound!!!!

take care!

 

[Scooby Doo]

•••quote:•••Bad sex and murder are alike...right when you finish it the first thought in your mind is....Damn! i gotta get the hell outta here!!!!!
••••If only I had a quarter for everytime I said that to myself <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="frown.gif" />

 

[brandonite]

•••quote:•••Originally posted by mpp:
•You can read about U.S. News <a href="http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/beyond/gradrank/gbmedmet.htm" target="_blank">methodology</a>. The main difference is that 30 percent of the score given each school is either the percentage of graduates going into primary care (Primary Care Rankings) or the total amount of NIH funding (Research Rankings).•••••Ya, exactly. I'm not sure why they do that. I mean, why would I care whether people that went to that school in the past went into primary care specialties? I don't think that the primary care ranking really has anything to do with graduating great primary care doctors - just what the percentage of them go into primary care!

I'm a bit curious as to the reasoning behind that decision.

Also, anybody care to speculate on the reasoning behind Yale's drop? I'm at a loss.

 

[SMW]

•••quote:•••Originally posted by brandonite:
• •••quote:•••Originally posted by mpp:
•You can read about U.S. News <a href="http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/beyond/gradrank/gbmedmet.htm" target="_blank">methodology</a>. The main difference is that 30 percent of the score given each school is either the percentage of graduates going into primary care (Primary Care Rankings) or the total amount of NIH funding (Research Rankings).•••••Ya, exactly. I'm not sure why they do that. I mean, why would I care whether people that went to that school in the past went into primary care specialties? I don't think that the primary care ranking really has anything to do with graduating great primary care doctors - just what the percentage of them go into primary care!

•••••thanks, mpp and brandonite. That was very helpful.

 

[Dr. Kermit]

I asked a fellow in my hospital why Einstein's ranking had dropped from the high 20s to the high 30s, which really isn't too terrible. I was concerned that their reputation was sliding, but it has to do with the student selectivity (SS) emphasis USNews incorporates. Part of their SS is acceptance:

Student selectivity (.20 in research model, .15 in primary-care model): three components, which describe the class entering in fall 2000: mean composite Medical College Admission Test score (65 percent ), mean undergraduate grade-point average (30 percent), and proportion of applicants accepted (5 percent).

It's a very small percent, but unfortunately for Einstein they are hurt by this aspect because many are accepted off the waitlist since students want to be in NYC more or less.

Also, Einstein's residency reputation scores low. Not because it isn't highly reputable, it's because Einstein and it's affiliates train 30-40% of NYC since Jacobi and Montefiore are really large teaching hospitals. Therefore, the residency directors of the 8 hospitals can't rank their own system.

This is just what I heard, I'm sure there are other aspects, but it doesn't have to do with their quality of teaching, just the stupidity of how USNews chooses to rank!

 

[matthew0126]

usnews rankings are so mysterious...

this isn't med school, but an example. in 1988/89, berkeley (my school) was ranked #6 nationwide. then from 90 to about 98, it steadily dropped first out of the top10, then out of the teens, i think bottoming out at #28 or so. then after that year, it's been coming up again, now up to #22. weird.

some people say that it's because of affirmative action. and very interestingly/coincidentally, the year it bottomed out and started moving up again was the year california banned affirmative action. but anyways, even if that was the case, i don't see how a school can fluctuate so quickly between #6 and #28. usnews is just weird.

 

[Mr.D]

Matthew0126,

I wanted to get clarification regarding a point you made about Berkeley being #6 in 88/89 and
then steadily dropping, and up until a few years ago beginning to creep up from the early twenties.
You said coincidentally this upward trend began
around the time the UC's dropped affirmative action, but my point is, wasn't affirmative action in place during the time it was riding in
the top ten in the mid-eighties? In other words,
how can something (such as AA) be considered a cause of the decline when it was in place during the same era Berkeley was rated so high (eg. #6 in US News and World)? Was AA being practiced somewhat differently in the 80s than it was in the mid 90s to cause a gradual decline in the rankings? I'm just asking because I don't know.
My 2 cents.

 

[Epi]

Thats true, can't always tell the quality of the school by the rankings. As soon as you get into the top 10 or so, they all look very similiar to me. after that, i think it just matters where you will be the happiest.

 

[matthew0126]

aesculapian -- good question, and i'm sorry i don't have a good answer. in fact, i guess i shouldn't have even mentioned it since i don't have any facts or anything to back that up. i only included that because it was in the article i read. anyways, who knows if AA has anything to do with it. maybe berkeley did not start really implementing AA-preference until that year? who knows? or maybe it's just two unrelated factors. my hunch is yes, AA certainly had a lot to do with the rankings movement -- but keep in mind, rankings aren't everything. diversity is something to be said for.

people are usually surprised to find out that berkeley isn't in the top10. but after all the fiascos of this year... (book burning, sex orgies, newspaper stealing, oppression of free speech, etc, etc) maybe it doesn't deserve to be there

•••quote:•••Originally posted by aesculapian:
•Matthew0126,

I wanted to get clarification regarding a point you made about Berkeley being #6 in 88/89 and
then steadily dropping, and up until a few years ago beginning to creep up from the early twenties.
You said coincidentally this upward trend began
around the time the UC's dropped affirmative action, but my point is, wasn't affirmative action in place during the time it was riding in
the top ten in the mid-eighties? In other words,
how can something (such as AA) be considered a cause of the decline when it was in place during the same era Berkeley was rated so high (eg. #6 in US News and World)? Was AA being practiced somewhat differently in the 80s than it was in the mid 90s to cause a gradual decline in the rankings? I'm just asking because I don't know.
My 2 cents.•••••

 

[tmesis]

Prop. 187 has little to do with Berkeley's fluctuation in US News's rankings. The fluctuation is simply the result of the magazine's methodology. During the 1980s, the rankings were solely or mostly based on reputation scores (and Berkeley's superb graduate programs' reputation trickled down to the undergrad division). Then US News began to fiddle with other criteria in order to seem more comprehensive and scientific. Berkeley, as an institution, hasn't changed all that much during the past decade.

•••quote:•••Originally posted by matthew0126:
•usnews rankings are so mysterious...

this isn't med school, but an example. in 1988/89, berkeley (my school) was ranked #6 nationwide. then from 90 to about 98, it steadily dropped first out of the top10, then out of the teens, i think bottoming out at #28 or so. then after that year, it's been coming up again, now up to #22. weird.

some people say that it's because of affirmative action. and very interestingly/coincidentally, the year it bottomed out and started moving up again was the year california banned affirmative action. but anyways, even if that was the case, i don't see how a school can fluctuate so quickly between #6 and #28. usnews is just weird.•••••