- Joined
- Jun 2, 2005
- Messages
- 309
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I've never been a big fan of the US News rankings, but I do understand that they often play an important role in the decision making process for alot of people. As I've visited more and more schools, I've come to realize that those rankings don't really reflect the quality of reasearch or the access of medical students to take part in studies.
US News weights the total NIH research money recieved 20%. I think that this overly favors the largely institutions and those with a network of affiliated hospitals. Granted, I understand that this is important, but I'm not sure it is as important as the funding received by each professor, which allows for a more equal comparison among schools. US News gives a 10% weighting to this, but it divides the total NIH funding by the total number of faculty...still not perfect.
I've done some other calculations which I think are more telling, although no single number can accurately reflect the spirit of any institution. I found the results to be interesting if nothing else. I hope this helps some of you as well. Take it all with a grain of salt...please. I don't want to start some showdown here.
Here's what I found for the schools to which I applied. If you want me to run the numbers on other schools, let me know. Some schools, however, did not supply all the required information. All numbers were from US News.
Research Funding Per NIH Grant
Stanford: $1,315,000 (I'm suspicious of this number)
UCSF: $469,000
Wake Forest: $452,000 (shocked)
Duke: $433,000
Harvard: $415,000
Columbia: $404,000
UPenn: $365,000
UNC: $357,000
Yale: $355,000
Brown: $337,000
Vanderbilt: $307,000
Dartmouth: $278,000
Research Funding Per Total Faculty - As Used by US News
Stanford: $332,000
UCSF: $262,000
UPenn: $239,000
Duke: $191,000
Yale: $190,000
Harvard: $171,000
UNC: $167,000
Vanderbilt: $159,00
Brown: $147,000
Wake Forest: $141,000
Columbia: $123,000
Dartmouth: $117,000
Research Funding Per Total Faculty Involved in NIH Research
Ok this one only counts the faculty that are doing NIH research rather than just the total faculty...a little more telling in my opinion. Not all schools report this.
Dartmouth: $522,000
UNC: $472,000
UPenn: $464,000
Columbia: $379,000
Brown: $342,000
Harvard: $338,000
Vanderbilt: $292,000
Yale: $288,000
US News weights the total NIH research money recieved 20%. I think that this overly favors the largely institutions and those with a network of affiliated hospitals. Granted, I understand that this is important, but I'm not sure it is as important as the funding received by each professor, which allows for a more equal comparison among schools. US News gives a 10% weighting to this, but it divides the total NIH funding by the total number of faculty...still not perfect.
I've done some other calculations which I think are more telling, although no single number can accurately reflect the spirit of any institution. I found the results to be interesting if nothing else. I hope this helps some of you as well. Take it all with a grain of salt...please. I don't want to start some showdown here.
Here's what I found for the schools to which I applied. If you want me to run the numbers on other schools, let me know. Some schools, however, did not supply all the required information. All numbers were from US News.
Research Funding Per NIH Grant
Stanford: $1,315,000 (I'm suspicious of this number)
UCSF: $469,000
Wake Forest: $452,000 (shocked)
Duke: $433,000
Harvard: $415,000
Columbia: $404,000
UPenn: $365,000
UNC: $357,000
Yale: $355,000
Brown: $337,000
Vanderbilt: $307,000
Dartmouth: $278,000
Research Funding Per Total Faculty - As Used by US News
Stanford: $332,000
UCSF: $262,000
UPenn: $239,000
Duke: $191,000
Yale: $190,000
Harvard: $171,000
UNC: $167,000
Vanderbilt: $159,00
Brown: $147,000
Wake Forest: $141,000
Columbia: $123,000
Dartmouth: $117,000
Research Funding Per Total Faculty Involved in NIH Research
Ok this one only counts the faculty that are doing NIH research rather than just the total faculty...a little more telling in my opinion. Not all schools report this.
Dartmouth: $522,000
UNC: $472,000
UPenn: $464,000
Columbia: $379,000
Brown: $342,000
Harvard: $338,000
Vanderbilt: $292,000
Yale: $288,000