The NEW Top 20: Med School Rankings Based on Research AND Primary Care Ranking

[yankeesmed]

Bored at work, I averaged each school's research rank and primary care rank. This way we can consider both when determining the "true" med school rankings. For schools that had "Rank Not Published," I gave them the median rank of possible ranks. For Research, this came out to a rank of 100 and for Primary Care, this came out to a rank of 104.

The excel document is attached, and it also has a bunch of other statistical data for every school.

Schools that enter the top 20:

U of Colorado, U of Iowa, U of Wisconsin, OHSU, U of Alabama, U of Minnesota

Schools that exit the top 20:

Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Columbia, Case Western, Stanford, Mount Sinai, Cornell, Yale



School name TRUERK RSCH PRM AVRK
U of Washington 1 6 1 3.5
U of Pennsylvania 2 2 7 4.5
UCSF 2 4 5 4.5
Harvard 4 1 17 9
U of Michigan 5 6 14 10
U of N. Carolina 6 20 2 11
UCLA 7 11 14 12.5
U of Pittsburgh 8 14 12 13
Johns Hopkins 9 3 25 14
U of Colorado 10 27 5 16
Washington U 11 4 30 17
U of Iowa 12 27 10 18.5
U of Wisconsin 13 27 12 19.5
OHSU 14 37 3 20
UT Southwestern 14 20 20 20
U of Chicago 16 13 30 21.5
UCSD 17 16 28 22
Emory 18 20 25 22.5
Duke 19 6 42 24
U of Alabama 20 26 23 24.5
U of Minnesota 20 38 11 24.5
U of Rochester 22 32 20 26
U of Massachusetts 23 47 9 28
Baylor 24 24 33 28.5
Vanderbilt 24 15 42 28.5
U of Vermont 26 55 4 29.5
Indiana U 27 44 17 30.5
U of Virginia 28 25 39 32
Ohio State 29 27 39 33
Northwestern 30 18 49 33.5
UC Davis 30 47 20 33.5
Columbia 32 10 62 36
Case Western 33 20 53 36.5
Dartmouth 33 34 39 36.5
Tufts 35 44 33 38.5
U of Utah 35 52 25 38.5
Wake Forest 35 44 33 38.5
Stanford 38 11 68 39.5
Mt. Sinai 39 18 62 40
Brown 40 32 49 40.5
Einstein 41 38 46 42
U of Nebraska 42 71 14 42.5
U of Maryland 43 40 46 43
Boston 44 34 56 45
Cornell 44 16 74 45
NYU 46 27 66 46.5
Yale 46 6 87 46.5
U of Connecticut 48 55 42 48.5
UT San Antonio 48 55 42 48.5
U of Cincinnati 50 40 58 49
MC Wisconsin 51 51 53 52
Michigan State 52 85 23 54
U of Florida 53 42 68 55
U of Missouri Columbia 53 77 33 55
Stony Brook 55 55 58 56.5
U of Kentucky 56 59 56 57.5
U of Miami 56 47 68 57.5
U of New Mexico 56 82 33 57.5
Jefferson 59 59 58 58.5
U of Arkansas 59 84 33 58.5
Georgetown 61 42 79 60.5
MUSC 61 63 58 60.5
U of Southern California 61 34 87 60.5
U of Kansas 64 71 53 62
East Carolina 65 100 28 64
Morehouse 66 100 30 65
UC Irvine 66 47 83 65
U of Arizona 68 66 68 67
W. Virginia 68 85 49 67
St. Louis U 70 63 74 68.5
U of Hawai'i 70 88 49 68.5
Temple 72 52 87 69.5
U of Oklahoma 72 71 68 69.5
Creighton 74 78 62 70
E. Tennessee State 75 100 46 73
U of Louisville 76 71 77 74
UMDNJ-RWJMS 76 71 77 74
UTMB 78 59 91 75
Rush 79 66 85 75.5
Texas Tech Lubbock 79 89 62 75.5
Virginia Commonwealth 79 66 85 75.5
Texas A&M 82 78 74 76
UT Houston 83 52 104 78
GWU 84 66 91 78.5
U of Tennessee 84 78 79 78.5
USUHS 86 63 97 80
U at Buffalo 87 59 104 81.5
EVMS 88 100 66 83
U of N. Dakota 89 100 68 84
U of S. Florida 90 66 104 85
SUNY Upstate 91 78 96 87
Wayne State 92 71 104 87.5
U of S. Carolina 93 85 91 88
Florida State 94 100 79 89.5
S. Illinois 95 100 83 91.5
Loyola 96 82 104 93
Wright State 97 100 87 93.5
Northeastern Ohio 98 100 91 95.5
U of S. Dakota 98 100 91 95.5
Drexel 100 89 104 96.5
NYMC 100 89 104 96.5
U of Nevada 100 89 104 96.5
LSU Shreveport 103 100 104 102
Meharry 103 100 104 102
Mercer 103 100 104 102
San Juan Bautista 103 100 104 102
U of Toledo 103 100 104 102
Albany NR NR
Florida International
Howard NR NR
Loma Linda NR NR
LSU New Orleans NR NR
Marshall NR NR
Mayo NR NR
MC Georgia NR NR
Penn State NR NR
Ponce NR NR
Rosalind Franklin NR NR
SUNY Downstate NR NR
Texas Tech El Paso
Tulane NR NR
U Central del Caribe NR NR
U of Central Florida
U of Illinois NR NR
U of Mississippi NR NR
U of Missouri KC NR NR
U of Puerto Rico NR NR
U of S. Alabama NR NR
UMDNJ-NJMS NR NR

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[n3xa]

THAT slow at work, eh? 😛

 

[bucks2010]

Lol. That is some serious boredom.

 

[rhesuspieces]

Interesting idea. I think it's a good call to incorporate both research and primary care rankings, but should research and primary care really be weighted equally?

 

[Techmed07]

 

[Cetsiphon]

Haha state schools in!!
Private schools out!

 

[MeowMeowCAT]

Nice!

...Now someone just needs to add a box to input your scores and gpa and tell you what your chances are and it will be perfect!

 

[DoctwoB]

Theres about 10 reasons why the research rankings are imperfect and 1000 reasons why the primary care rankings are worthless. Averaging the two doesn't make the system any more valid.

The only validity that USnews rankings has is its incorporation of NIH funding, peer reviews, and residency reviews, that altogether give a general perception of prestige, that correlates (very very roughly) with how well students match from that program.

Edit: Woohoo, top 10!

 

[blehm98]

ucsf finally pulled ahead of harvard, with ucla only just behind that. I like this!
not sure what happened to stanford though

edit: wait, no link?
DECEIVER

 

[SilverBvllet]

This was a complete waste of your time and has zero significance. Just thought I'd let you know. Adios!

edit: oh and lol at people who are taking this seriously... "omgwtfbbq what happened to stanford?!?" hilarious...

 

[RogueUnicorn]

way to take the usnews rankings and make them even more worthless.. that takes effert.

 

[WeAreNotRobots]

This was a complete waste of your time and has zero significance. Just thought I'd let you know. Adios!

edit: oh and lol at people who are taking this seriously... "omgwtfbbq what happened to stanford?!?" hilarious...

Not a total waste of time...all that msar data is pretty nice to see compiled.

You're right, combining research and PC is meaningless. To try to get a better ranking system, you should first develop an arbitrary ranking for every specialty (like they already do for PC ) and then combine them all into a composite score based on all of that. But even then, what would THAT mean? and unless it was widely adopted the way the research stand-alone rankings are, It wouldn't matter at all.

 

[addo]

This was a complete waste of your time and has zero significance. Just thought I'd let you know. Adios!

edit: oh and lol at people who are taking this seriously... "omgwtfbbq what happened to stanford?!?" hilarious...

well clearly Stanford, as well as all those once-fine medical schools have gone to ****, because they are off the top 20. I cant believe i even applied to some of them

 

[SilverBvllet]

well clearly Stanford, as well as all those once-fine medical schools have gone to ****, because they are off the top 20. I cant believe i even applied to some of them

You know I have actually compiled a NEW ranking list that puts all the schools alphabetically, and Stanford as well as all the UCs all go to crap immediately. I will definitely not be matriculating at THOSE low ranked* schools.

*ranked alphabetically

 

[LizzyM]

To really mix things up, add the "social mission" rankings that came out last summer in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Still meaningless but what the hell...

 

[Dr Gerrard]

yale is way off

i dont know what else is

 

[Hah]

Hah, private schools got judo kicked.

 

[wanderer]

I find it amusing that whenever someone brings up the topic of USNWR rankings, the comment is followed by several posts all saying how meaningless the (research) rankings are, yet when you look through mdapps or the school threads, you don't see too many people turning down highly ranked schools for much lower-ranked schools.

 

[Cinclus]

Interesting. I had wondered about this, but I didn't feel like going through all the trouble to find out. Dang, you really were bored!

 

[yankeesmed]

yale is way off

i dont know what else is

Wow, thanks for catching that.

What happened was that Yale had Einstein's research ranking (38) because Einstein is listed as Yeshiva on US News and I was going alphabetically.

I will change it on the original post and re-upload the file with the new change. That should be the only glaring mistake.

 

[gravitywave]

I find it amusing that whenever someone brings up the topic of USNWR rankings, the comment is followed by several posts all saying how meaningless the (research) rankings are, yet when you look through mdapps or the school threads, you don't see too many people turning down highly ranked schools for much lower-ranked schools.

correlation vs causation much? USN rankings are dumb because people appeal to them as a reason to prefer the #55 school to the #56 school. i doubt that you would say though that attending Harvard isn't going to give you some pretty substantial opportunities over some other places that aren't Harvard. awesome schools are awesome, don't be a d**k

and, i attend a top 30 school school now yeessssss

 

[addo]

I find it amusing that whenever someone brings up the topic of USNWR rankings, the comment is followed by several posts all saying how meaningless the (research) rankings are, yet when you look through mdapps or the school threads, you don't see too many people turning down highly ranked schools for much lower-ranked schools.

Well regardless of rankings, some schools do benefit from a better reputation. I mean youre not going to pass over the big names, for some school that historically has had terrible usmle scores, has next to none research, and their students place at their last residency choice. Its the way these lists are put together that render them meaningless.

 

[yankeesmed]

and, i attend a top 30 school school now yeessssss

My school dropped three places to exit the top 40. I'm considering reapplying next cycle.

 

[WeAreNotRobots]

I find it amusing that whenever someone brings up the topic of USNWR rankings, the comment is followed by several posts all saying how meaningless the (research) rankings are, yet when you look through mdapps or the school threads, you don't see too many people turning down highly ranked schools for much lower-ranked schools.

The research rankings are actually the MOST meaningful. It's the names that are associated with the most prestige/recognition among other schools/residency programs (to some degree) and the general public (to a great degree). You could probably even argue it's the best ranking to use because it's what the lay person knows. Ask anyone if they think Stanford is a good school versus, say, Wayne state...people have a tendency to want to go to schools with that recognition/reputation behind them, even if it says very little about the quality of the education itself.

No offense to Wayne state, just an offhand example.

 

[wanderer]

correlation vs causation much? USN rankings are dumb because people appeal to them as a reason to prefer the #55 school to the #56 school. i doubt that you would say though that attending Harvard isn't going to give you some pretty substantial opportunities over some other places that aren't Harvard. awesome schools are awesome, don't be a d**k

and, i attend a top 30 school school now yeessssss

We're not even arguing. I never said there's a causation, but if the higher ranked schools do tend to be better, then the rankings DO have value. I don't think anyone's picking #55 over #56; at least I have never heard of anyone doing that. For me, I'd pick a top 30 school over almost any other school (unless the school is #31 🙄), and if I'm deciding between two schools that are pretty far apart (like at least 20 away), then I'll definitely take it into consideration. In my experience, the rankings did correlate somewhat to my perceptions of the schools.


Oh, inb4 WingedOx calls me out.

 

[WingedOx]

To really mix things up, add the "social mission" rankings that came out last summer in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Still meaningless but what the hell...

I'd throw in the ELO rankings from the BCS computer polls too just to add some validity.

 

[SilverBvllet]

I find it amusing that whenever someone brings up the topic of USNWR rankings, the comment is followed by several posts all saying how meaningless the (research) rankings are, yet when you look through mdapps or the school threads, you don't see too many people turning down highly ranked schools for much lower-ranked schools.

I think research rankings are pretty legit. Not sure how you measure primary care though.

Actually I do know, but I'm not sure I agree with their methodology for PC.

 

[gravitywave]

We're not even arguing. I never said there's a causation, but if the higher ranked schools do tend to be better, then the rankings DO have value. I don't think anyone's picking #55 over #56; at least I have never heard of anyone doing that. For me, I'd pick a top 30 school over almost any other school (unless the school is #31 🙄), and if I'm deciding between two schools that are pretty far apart (like at least 20 away), then I'll definitely take it into consideration. In my experience, the rankings did correlate somewhat to my perceptions of the schools.


Oh, inb4 WingedOx calls me out.

you appeared to be saying that the USN rankings had some kind of objective value, independent of what anyone could just figure out. Moreover, you seemed to suggest that USN rankings were influencing people's decisions to choose one school over another. My contention is that anyone could figure out that Stanford is better than unranked school xxxxxx (the very fact that they don't rank the schools that don't do well is i think indicative of what a cynical process the editors must know they are propagating), and that the only purpose to going out and ranking the schools in a discrete, ordinal fashion is so that people can either a) secure bragging rights, or b) make stupid threads on SDN.

higher ranking is correlated with higher admissions yield, but people's decisions to attend certain schools over others is a pretty independent process, ie: if the rankings didn't exist, you'd still see the same choices being made. the rankings don't inform meaningful debate in any useful way.

if the rankings are trying to say anything at all that can't just be established by looking around, then they are saying that the difference between #30 and #31 is a meaningful one, and that's just silly.

sorry if i was snippy, it just seemed like you were being deliberately obtuse.

 

[LizzyM]

Let's wait a few weeks and rank the school according to the their seeds for men and women's teams in the March Madness. Prediction: UConn and Duke rise to the top!

and frankly, the public's opinions of the schools are largely based on which ones they've "heard of".

 

[mmmcdowe]

When do the actual new USN rankings come out?

 

[RogueUnicorn]

april i think

 

[WingedOx]

I think research rankings are pretty legit. Not sure how you measure primary care though.

Actually I do know, but I'm not sure I agree with their methodology for PC.

they're legit but ultimately have jack shyt to do with the medical education you get at the school. Simply using the "what do other schools think of this school" component alone would ironically probably have greater validity.

 

[0919mmk]

This exercise is low yield.

 

[Cster0905]

The research rankings are actually the MOST meaningful. It's the names that are associated with the most prestige/recognition among other schools/residency programs (to some degree) and the general public (to a great degree). You could probably even argue it's the best ranking to use because it's what the lay person knows. Ask anyone if they think Stanford is a good school versus, say, Wayne state...people have a tendency to want to go to schools with that recognition/reputation behind them, even if it says very little about the quality of the education itself.

No offense to Wayne state, just an offhand example.

Uh, basing the assessment of quality off of what the 'lay' person 'knows' is a terrible metric, and hardly validation of the research rankings.

Most people will assume Yale or Harvard are better than most schools in any academic subject you mention. But does that mean they're correct? Heck no.

The ranking of medical schools should actually reflect which schools are the best. Do you think most average Joes and Janes would know that the University of Washington, for example, is consistently ranked higher than Stanford? Probably not. Does that mean a ranking that does rank UW > than Stanford suddenly is less valuable?

Also, primary care rankings are useful. Being a good research institution and being a good primary care institution are not mutually inclusive. Some schools (e.g., Duke) are heavily focused on research and, while research is valuable, it may not be the direction every top medical school applicant wants to go.

I'm not trying to single you out at all...I just hate this notion that only rankings that have historically prestigious schools at the top are relevant.

 

[Ignatius M.D.]

OP, you have kicked Vanderbilt out of the top 20, therefore you are dead to me. I take these things very seriously.

 

[yankeesmed]

OP, you have kicked Vanderbilt out of the top 20, therefore you are dead to me. I take these things very seriously.

They shouldn't have rejected me without an interview. Enjoy Nashville while I'm living it up in the. . .um. . .Bronx.

That didn't work too well

 

[WingedOx]

The research rankings are actually the MOST meaningful. It's the names that are associated with the most prestige/recognition among other schools/residency programs (to some degree) and the general public (to a great degree). You could probably even argue it's the best ranking to use because it's what the lay person knows. Ask anyone if they think Stanford is a good school versus, say, Wayne state...people have a tendency to want to go to schools with that recognition/reputation behind them, even if it says very little about the quality of the education itself.

No offense to Wayne state, just an offhand example.

well ask a lay person in MI to rank the med schools in Michigan and the results would probably be near unanimous: Michigan>MSU>Wayne

Ask a physician in the state, and you'd get Michigan>Wayne>MSU.

As I said below, the greatest validity for prestige and any "bias" that program directors may have for or against an applicant can probably be achieved by simply pulling out the "peer rank" score and ordering those 1-150ish.

 

[WingedOx]

We're not even arguing. I never said there's a causation, but if the higher ranked schools do tend to be better, then the rankings DO have value. I don't think anyone's picking #55 over #56; at least I have never heard of anyone doing that. For me, I'd pick a top 30 school over almost any other school (unless the school is #31 🙄), and if I'm deciding between two schools that are pretty far apart (like at least 20 away), then I'll definitely take it into consideration. In my experience, the rankings did correlate somewhat to my perceptions of the schools.


Oh, inb4 WingedOx calls me out.

actually nothing you said was unreasonable.

so HA!

 

[WeAreNotRobots]

Uh, basing the assessment of quality off of what the 'lay' person 'knows' is a terrible metric, and hardly validation of the research rankings.
....
I'm not trying to single you out at all...I just hate this notion that only rankings that have historically prestigious schools at the top are relevant.

I didn't say recognizability of the name of a school validates the rankings...recognizability is associated with (and maybe caused by) the rankings. That's why I say it's just the best one to use if you're gonna use any because that's what everybody "knows". And I never said to rely on the rankings when making a decision; that's just silly.

I don't feel singled-out out at all. I was only defending the pure research rank vs this new ludicrous ranking system that was invented this morning. For me the rankings (which are mostly based on research $$$ and and other stuff not related to a student's actual education there) do little more than provide an indication of how competitive the applicant pool will be at a particular school (since everyone knows the names of higher ranked schools and more strong applicants will likely apply there). They basically helped me to be sure that I applied broadly.

 

[slatermd]

You guys keep jawing about this. Maybe next cycle I'll be the only sdn member to apply to unranked Mayo

 

[getdown]

I find it amusing that whenever someone brings up the topic of USNWR rankings, the comment is followed by several posts all saying how meaningless the (research) rankings are, yet when you look through mdapps or the school threads, you don't see too many people turning down highly ranked schools for much lower-ranked schools.

Yeah, it's called ego. Especially when you're able to say you go to a "top 10 med school" to a lay person who has no freakin clue what that really means. Anyone who's in the field would probably judge you on the actual product and/or rigor of the courses at said school. Thank God, PD directors don't think like this.

 

[Techmed07]

You guys keep jawing about this. Maybe next cycle I'll be the only sdn member to apply to unranked Mayo

Count me in with unranked Mayo too.. 👍

 

[Ignatius M.D.]

They shouldn't have rejected me without an interview. Enjoy Nashville while I'm living it up in the. . .um. . .Bronx.

That didn't work too well

Is this pre-secondary? I think that screening is the more humane thing to do really. Most schools just take the money and run. Don't worry, I will not get an interview here either. I know that comforts you.

 

[slatermd]

Count me in with unranked Mayo too.. 👍

Ok but just the two of us. We can make it if we try:

[YOUTUBE]_WamkRSDeD8[/YOUTUBE]

Srsly, though, you applying this summer or next? I'll be applying June 2012.

 

[BBender716]

Anyone else think that whether or not the school has an open bar at second-look should factor in?

 

[KTownGT]

"Texas Tech Lubbock 79 89 62 75.5
Virginia Commonwealth 79 66 85 75.5
Texas A&M 82 78 74 76
UT Houston 83 52 104 78"

Wreck 'em! 🙄

 

[mdeast]

The primary care rankings are completely useless. They factor in students who enter into general pediatrics or general internal medicine residencies as "primary care" even though most of these students from schools such as Penn, UCSF, etc. are going to a pediatric or internal medicine subspecialty that is anything but "primary care".

 

[WingedOx]

The primary care rankings are completely useless. They factor in students who enter into general pediatrics or general internal medicine residencies as "primary care" even though most of these students from schools such as Penn, UCSF, etc. are going to a pediatric or internal medicine subspecialty that is anything but "primary care".

furthermore, I'm still not sure what the number of students going into primary care has to do with the quality of the education they get.

 

[venacontracta]

Anyone else think that whether or not the school has an open bar at second-look should factor in?

yes.

interview day lunch ratings too.

 

[slatermd]

furthermore, I'm still not sure what the number of students going into primary care has to do with the quality of the education they get.

...he's...heating up (NBA Jam voice)