reliability of us news rankings

[secretasianman]

I noticed today that UCI isn't even on the top 50 schools list. How reliable is this thing really? What's the "primary care" rankings based on? I realize the schools are rated based on peer assessment scores, but what are we supposed to expect to find in a higher ranked school compared to a lesser one?

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[Mumpu]

US News rankings are entirely subjective. Not only are many of the parameters they use subjective, but so are the weights assigned to each parameter. There are demonstrations showing that simply adjusting the weight of the parameters (e.g. more importance to class size, less to NIH funding, etc.) completely reshuffles the list.

In other words, use US News for TP and read the many "choosing a med school" threads on this forum instead.

And before some smart-ass claims that I only say this because my school is not #1 and I'm compensating, I went to a #1-ranked college and said the same thing at the time.

 

[Jeffy]

I went to a #1-ranked college and said the same thing at the time.

(Cough) *bull***** Swarthmore's 1 lucky year! 😉

 

[jlee9531]

(Cough) *bull***** Swarthmore's 1 lucky year! 😉

haha.

doesnt matter how reliable usnews is. there are plenty of schools out there that advertise this on their websites and like to tell people about their rankings in usnews. it helps with the national reputation of the school.

just because uci isnt on the top 50 list (its like 51 by the way in research) doesn't mean its a bad medical school. if you want to know what schools get the most NIH grants and link this to the strength of the med school, then usnews is great.

if you want to know what schools graduate a lot of their kids in primary care, then the PC rankings on usnews are useful as well.

 

[JDAWG07]

I wouldn't trust the "rankings" persay, but if you want a more accurate view of the schools general reputation and the quality of the education, look at the peer assessment review and residency directors' review scores. The GPA and MCAT scores can give you a feeling for how competitive each school's successful applicants are based on numbers, which tends to correlate with the peer assessment and residency director scores.

 

[Mumpu]

I guess Swarthmore just had more lucky years than Amhers.

 

[Mumpu]

I guess Swarthmore just had more lucky years than Amherst.

 

[freaker]

How accurate are they? The question I would ask is how relevant they are. Honestly, the conclusion I've reached is "not very."

 

[aparecida]

Even the US News book itself admits that rankings are relatively unimportant for medical schools because they're held to such strict standards that there's just not all that much variation in the quality of the education or the importance of reputation -- certainly not nearly as much as for, say, undergrad or law school. Instead, focus on whether you can get in and on what the environment at the school is like (grading system, curriculum structure, location...).

 

[Barry Otter]

Rankings do matter, if only because the influence of US News rankings tends to be self-perpetuating over time. Another boon to attending one of the very top programs (which I do not) is that they tend to be incestuous and tend to take each other's students for residencies. Getting into academic medicine is also a good deal easier coming from a brand name school and residency. Not that I think prestige should necessarily guide someone's decision in choosing med school, but so it goes.

 

[edmadison]

The thing to think about is, what is the value of going to a high rated institution? Will it make you a better doctor? Probably not. Will a high-rated instense program make you happier than a lower ranked easier going program? I doubt it. Will it get you into a better residency? Perhaps.

The scariest thing is that people actually let these rankings determine where they will go to school. For that reason, they may become self perpetuating. Schools hire consultants to make changes specifically targetted at the rankings in order to "hack" them and they see changes in their pools from year to year based on them.

Ed

 

[entropy]

research rankings are based partly on how much money the school gets from uncle sam.

in the end, it means what you believe it means.