US News 2006 Rankings

[patzan]

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I got this email today:

In the past year, you purchased personal access to the 2005 Premium Online
Edition of America's Best Graduate Schools. While this email is to remind you
that your access will end March 31, 2005, it is also to inform you that
USNews.com will be lauching a new and updated edition of America's Best
Graduate Schools on Friday, April 1.

 

[housemd]

uh oh, better panic when the school you are going to drops two slots

 

[Sigma]

uh oh, better panic when the school you are going to drops two slots

Dude, you made me laugh so hard I just spit Diet Coke all over my monitor.

 

[sdnstud]

Since we're talking about rankings, which schools do you think will climb the ranks and which schools do you think will take a free fall?

 

[canttouchthis]

I'm guessing any school I got into will drop out of the rankings, while the schools I either withdrew from or got rejected by will all climb siginificantly in the rankings. Because of this people will ridicule me for the rest of my life.

 

[javert]

Since we're talking about rankings, which schools do you think will climb the ranks and which schools do you think will take a free fall?

I predict UC Berkley will fall significantly in the undergrad rankings...


🙁 🙄

 

[superdevil]

I'm guessing any school I got into will drop out of the rankings, while the schools I either withdrew from or got rejected by will all climb siginificantly in the rankings. Because of this people will ridicule me for the rest of my life.

ditto. i imagine the ridicule will involve pelting us with spoiled fruit. i'm not looking foward to it.

 

[lakersfan]

I predict UC Berkley will fall significantly in the undergrad rankings...


🙁 🙄

haha, yes...for screwing their undergrads. I kind of hope Cal falls since it's not as good a school as most people (especially those on the east coast ) think.

But honestly speaking, if I were to help one out with choosing a college now, I would not recommend Berkeley. I wont get into the details, but the lack of attention and care shown for the students by the administration/faculty is amazing. I had a horrible incident this past semester with the molecular cell bio deparment at Cal and would never recommend the school to anyone. So for any of those southern californian high school students thinking Berkeley would be a good place to go to, go to UCLA or USC (or Stanford if you're lucky/smart enough to get in). USC has more connections and UCLA is at least in a much much nicer area. People, especially the faculty, in Berkeley are so full of themselves that they will never admit it if they are wrong. There is a better school across the a bay that actually cares for its students unlike Berkeley. Yes, I'm really really mad at the MCB department at Cal.

 

[CalGirl]

haha, yes...for screwing their undergrads. I kind of hope Cal falls since it's not as good a school as most people (especially those on the east coast ) think.

But honestly speaking, if I were to help one out with choosing a college now, I would not recommend Berkeley. I wont get into the details, but the lack of attention and care shown for the students by the administration/faculty is amazing. I had a horrible incident this past semester with the molecular cell bio deparment at Cal and would never recommend the school to anyone. So for any of those southern californian high school students thinking Berkeley would be a good place to go to, go to UCLA or USC (or Stanford if you're lucky/smart enough to get in). USC has more connections and UCLA is at least in a much much nicer area. People, especially the faculty, in Berkeley are so full of themselves that they will never admit it if they are wrong. There is a better school across the a bay that actually cares for its students unlike Berkeley. Yes, I'm really really mad at the MCB department at Cal.

Hey Lakersfan, yeah I know what you're talking about...I loved Cal but there is DEFINITELY a lack of support/help from faculty. Especially if you're MCB!!! I've had my share of problems w/ the department too...graduated 2004. I feel for ya! 😡

 

[javert]

I was joking (see sdnstud's sig)...but OK!

 

[Pinkertinkle]

Definitely no one to baby you at Berkeley, it builds character ya know.

 

[Revolution #9]

New US News, huh? I guess it might rearrange some SND'ers desired school list. I think the most important reason not to care about the list is because the list can change drastically from the time you matriculate to the time you are practicing. Wasn't NYU ranked in the teens just a decade ago? Now it's ranked 30th. And a similar thing happened to Case Western - used to be #15, and now its in the mid 20s. Just something to keep in mind when choosing between schools that are within 20 or so slots of each other - that difference isn't going to be the same when you graduate.

 

[canttouchthis]

I love when you go on interviews and they tell you their goal is to be in the US news top 10 in the near future. That is almost as bad as the georgetowns and uchicagos that tell you that rankings don't matter, but then give you the US news hospital rankings and mention how prestigious their school is.

 

[Haybrant]

Definitely no one to baby you at Berkeley, it builds character ya know.

completely agreed; berkeley is the best undergrad institution in the nation; see old posts for rationale; i dunno what kinda support you guys are looking for from the MCB dept. but if you are diligent you can easily manage any problems that arise and get close to profs if you put in the effort.

where else are you ever gonna get so much for so little?

 

[sunUCB]

the lack of attention and care shown for the students by the administration/faculty is amazing.

would you like everything spoon-fed to you?

 

[eulogia228]

Berkeley is a mixed bag. The administration is so bureaucratic, you'd think it was the government of a developing country. Some people come here and never want to leave (hence, BAs/BSs from Berkeley that come back for the PhD from Berkeley) and some people want to get out of here as fast as humanly possible. Personally, I've had a good time here and I really enjoyed working with the faculty in my department (re: NOT mcb) as well as the graduate students. However, my experience definitely cannot be taken as standard.

I predict most of the schools will stay roughly where they are with some of the schools in the 20s shuffling up or down by 1 or 2 spots and with similar activity in the 30s. The top ten will stay the top ten and in roughly the order they're in now.

 

[lakersfan]

and some people want to get out of here as fast as humanly possible

That was me...lol.

I feel there are departments at Cal that are great. For example, I also majored in business admin and I can say that Haas takes care of its students very well. I don't need anyone to baby me around. I'm talking of the MCB department screwing up the schedule of classes and telebears and then not admitting it was their fault. I don't need anyone to spoon feed me but when people are so full of themselves that they can't admit that they made a mistake, then there is a problem.

 

[lakersfan]

would you like everything spoon-fed to you?

??? where did that come from ???

 

[Haybrant]

That was me...lol.

I feel there are departments at Cal that are great. For example, I also majored in business admin and I can say that Haas takes care of its students very well. I don't need anyone to baby me around. I'm talking of the MCB department screwing up the schedule of classes and telebears and then not admitting it was their fault. I don't need anyone to spoon feed me but when people are so full of themselves that they can't admit that they made a mistake, then there is a problem.

this seems like a really exceptional case; why do you need some confirmation from them that they screwed up; does that make you feel better inside?

 

[Revolution #9]

How the hell did this become a thread about Berkeley? I've never seen such a group of students so insecure over how people view their school.

 

[lakersfan]

this seems like a really exceptional case; why do you need some confirmation from them that they screwed up; does that make you feel better inside?

No, it just is very frustrating. Like I said, this is something I would rather not spell out completely out on this forum but I'm sure if I were to PM you and tell you everything, you would be sympathetic towards what happened to me.

You can see in my previous posts from September/October how much I loved Cal. However this once incident was rather ugly and has changed my view my of my years at Cal. I so antagonized by the MCB faculty that I think I will never set foot near VLSB again...I'll just go to my Haas graduation.

Haybryant, why do you care? You got into the 'furd, lol. You've got the best of both worlds... a great football team in Cal and California's number 2 med school (probably should be number 1 but eh, still good enough, right?). That's one heck of an accomplishment. Congrats man!!!

 

[javert]

How the hell did this become a thread about Berkeley?

that would be my fault...sorry 😳

 

[scattered]

Back to the OP's question, my guess is that NYU will go up in the rankings for 2006 in US News. Last year, they weren't on AMCAS and their acceptance rate was relatively high due to the lower volume of applicants. This year, they had 8,000 applicants so the selectivity component of their ranking should help them move a few slots upward.

 

[eulogia228]

Back to the OP's question, my guess is that NYU will go up in the rankings for 2006 in US News. Last year, they weren't on AMCAS and their acceptance rate was relatively high due to the lower volume of applicants. This year, they had 8,000 applicants so the selectivity component of their ranking should help them move a few slots upward.

For med school rankings, I also think NYU will be seeing some upward movement. I also think USC-Keck will move up and I'm HOPING that WUSTL moves down.

WUSTL=We Usually Send Thousands of Letters (this applies to undergrad, not med school)

All throughout high school, practically every other kid in my class got mail from WUSTL asking them to apply. They didn't send this mail because they were so eager to see applications from some suburban magnet school in CA, they sent the mail so they could artificially boost their ranking in the US News rankings by increasing their selectivity. These annoying packets of "informative material" were sent to hundreds of thousands of high school students across the nation. By aggressively marketing their school to as many high school students as possible, they were hoping to boost their # of applications while keeping the # of students accepted constant. If they do this, they can artificially decrease their acceptance rate and this will cause a significant boost in their selectivity rating for undergrad. Unfortunately, their plan actually did work to a certain extent. Unsuspecting, gullible high school students did receive 843794832 pieces of mail from Wash U begging them to apply and they actually thought that Wash U was sincerely interested in them.

Wash U also looks like its gaming the system with its med school rankings. Their entering class pretty much has the highest average numbers in the country (higher than both Harvard and JHU) and they just recently reached that point. Either they want a class chock FULL of future Nobel prize caliber researchers with 35+ MCATs and 3.8+ GPAs, or they're trying to game the system to go up in the rankings. Personally, I think the latter.

 

[arraysyn]

Either they want a class chock FULL of future Nobel prize caliber researchers with 35+ MCATs and 3.8+ GPAs, or they're trying to game the system to go up in the rankings. Personally, I think the latter.

Yeah, I agreed, havin' 35+ MCAT and 3.8+GPA don't mean a jack about predict a person's success in research. It requires total another set of talent which washU don't even look.

 

[scattered]

I have a quick question while on the subject of US News rankings: If the magazine is coming out in early April, then how do they calculate the selectivity criteria? They must've received data from all of the schools already and some schools (e.g., Yale) haven't even sent their acceptances yet. Do they lag a year behind or use projected figures?

 

[scootad.]

I was wondering the same thing. I assume it lags a year behind. Thus, you'll have to wait till the 2007 rankings for NYU to move up based on selectivity criteria.

 

[lakersfan]

Back to the OP's question, my guess is that NYU will go up in the rankings for 2006 in US News. Last year, they weren't on AMCAS and their acceptance rate was relatively high due to the lower volume of applicants. This year, they had 8,000 applicants so the selectivity component of their ranking should help them move a few slots upward.

What I never understood was USNEWS saying NYU had a 29% acceptance rate in 2003-2004? Is that an error or was it actually true (since apparently NYU was not on the AMCAS app before)?

 

[Revolution #9]

I have a quick question while on the subject of US News rankings: If the magazine is coming out in early April, then how do they calculate the selectivity criteria? They must've received data from all of the schools already and some schools (e.g., Yale) haven't even sent their acceptances yet. Do they lag a year behind or use projected figures?

I looked at US News, and the current data is for 2003, so this data will be for 2004. The data does lag about 9 months, which is understandable for the volume of data they process.

 

[Revolution #9]

What I never understood was USNEWS saying NYU had a 29% acceptance rate in 2003-2004? Is that an error or was it actually true (since apparently NYU was not on the AMCAS app before)?

Haha - total error. Wouldnt it be nice, though?

 

[scootad.]

Do you think the 29% acceptance rate was merely a typo or was it an error that artificially decreased NYU's ranking?

 

[getunconcsious]

About this thread:

1. No one except for a few disgruntled californians cares about UC-Berkeley. At all. No one.

2. WHY does everyone hate WashU so much? It's a fabulous school. Did any of the haters interview there?

3. Sadly, I predict that NYU will go up, as will Northwestern.

 

[Haybrant]

About this thread:

1. No one except for a few disgruntled californians cares about UC-Berkeley. At all. No one.

tell that to the millions of people that have benefitted from the research done there, including your future patients

 

[CTNeuro20]

About this thread:
2. WHY does everyone hate WashU so much? It's a fabulous school. Did any of the haters interview there?

I agree - many peeps out there are pissed off that WashU does such an amazing job with their numbers. As for research talent, being an MD/PhD applicant, trust me when I say that WashU's MSTP alumni and their current research faculty are just amazing. So much for that. I think I'll be seeing some folks from SDN in St. Louis this summer. August 10th, is it?

ctneuro20
WUSTL MSTP entering class of 2005! graduation - whenever🙂

 

[rme04]

i would love to see a graph tracking the movement of schools over the last 20 years.

does that exist somewhere?

 

[YzIa]

2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1995 1993
Harvard 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Wash U 2 3 4 3 4 3 5 4 5 5
Hopkins 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2
Duke 4 5 3 5 6 4 3 5 6 6
U Penn 4 4 4 3 3 4 7 6 7 7
UCSF 6 6 7 7 6 7 4 6 4 4
U Mich 7 8 9 12 10 9 9 9 11
Columbia 8 7 6 5 8 7 8 8 8 8
Stanford 8 11 9 10 10 9 10 10 9 9
U Wash 10 10 11 9 9 13 13 11 9 9
Yale 10 9 8 7 5 4 6 3 3 3
Cornell 12 11 11 14 13 9 12 12 17
Baylor 13 13 11 12 15 13 15 15 15
UCLA 14 13 14 10 10 12 11 13 12
U Pitt 15 17 20 19 24 19 17 17 18
Vanderbilt 15 16 16 16 16 15 14 14 14
UCSD 17 20 24 23 22 19 20 18 13
UTSW 17 17 17 19 19 17 21 20
Emory 19 20 22 19 19 21 19 24
Northwestern 20 22 20 22 21 25
UNC 20 22 24 23 22
Mayo 22 15 15 15 14 24 24 22
U Chicago 22 19 17 18 18 18 16 16 16
Case 24 22 17 17 16 15 18 19 19
U Alabama 25 28 27 26 24 25
UVa 25 27 28 30 28
U Wisc 25 31 30 31 32
MSSM 28 22 23 23 27
Iowa 28 30 29 32 30
NYU 30 26 24 27 24 21 23 22 20
U Colorado 31 31 33 33 33
U Rochester 32 28 31 28 30
USC 32 36 43 40 36
Dartmouth 34 34 34 36 41
OHSU 34 35 35 39 36
U Minn 34 36 35 33 36
Yeshiva/Einstein 37 31 32 28 28 24 22 21
OSU 38 44 40 40 39
Indiana 39 47 43 40 41
Tufts 40 43 37 36 41
U Florida 40 44 40 44 45
Wake 40 39 43 50 45
Boston U 43 39 37 33 33
Brown 43 39 40 44
Georgetown 43 43 44 39
U Cinn 43 44 48 40 45
U Maryland 43 39 43 44 48
Utah 48 38 39 36 33
UCD 49
Jefferson 50 48 50 48
MCW 50 50 50
U Miami 50 49 48 50
UCI 53
U Mass 53 48 48 44 41
UT-Houston 53
StonyBrook 56
Tulane 56
UMDNJ RWJ 56
U Conn 59
VCU/MCV 60

 

[eyeful]

i would love to see a graph tracking the movement of schools over the last 20 years.

does that exist somewhere?

its posted somewhere her eon SDN, the USnews for the last like 15 years or something. You'll see washu rise from the high single digits (8 or 9?) to its current spot at 2, concurrent with the progression of its number whoring admissions process. Tell me, can a school really change that much in 10 years to go from being the 7th best school to the 2nd best? all that has changed is the stats.

 

[MadameLULU]

thanks Yzia

 

[YzIa]

For the schools that do not have the full number of rankings, they were not included/rankings did not go that far in previous years. So those school rankings may not be in consecutive years.

I just pasted out of an excel file so it is a bit messy and I never made a graph of it. If anyone wants to, let me know and ill send the excel file.

 

[Pinkertinkle]

its posted somewhere her eon SDN, the USnews for the last like 15 years or something. You'll see washu rise from the high single digits (8 or 9?) to its current spot at 2, concurrent with the progression of its number whoring admissions process. Tell me, can a school really change that much in 10 years to go from being the 7th best school to the 2nd best? all that has changed is the stats.

Is there that much difference between rank 8, 5, or 2? No.

 

[Pinkertinkle]

About this thread:

1. No one except for a few disgruntled californians cares about UC-Berkeley. At all. No one.

4. No one except for a few texans even know UT exists. At all. No one.

 

[YzIa]

Of interest (since 93):

Wash U was never ranked below 5
NYU was never ranked above 20

NYU, Case, Einstein, BU, Yale, and Chicago have been on steady declining trends
Mayo dropped from 15 to 22 last year, I think the single biggest movement outside of Utahs drop from 38 to 48.

 

[tacrum43]

I was just wondering, are there any other rankings besides just U.S. News?

 

[Larsitron]

Well, here's my take on the rankings that no one asked for:

As far as I can tell, the only numbers that really affect a med student's future are the peer assessment score and assessment scores by residency directors. I'm not sure if any of the other numbers can directly be a comment on the education one receives there. While the research dollars flowing into the school stand as a good comment on the research going on there/at the associated facilities, does that really equate to killer education? I suppose the argument could be made that cutting edge researchers=cutting edge education, but my counter-argument would be, "some of the best researchers I know are the worst teachers."

My question is this: why don't the rankings take into account average boards scores? I don't know if I could think of another objective factor other than that for how well the students within the school are doing compared to their peers.

But I'm new to this game. I may have gotten in, but I'll be the last to call myself qualified to comment on this stuff.

 

[superdevil]

Of interest (since 93):

Wash U was never ranked below 5
NYU was never ranked above 20

NYU, Case, Einstein, BU, Yale, and Chicago have been on steady declining trends
Mayo dropped from 15 to 22 last year, I think the single biggest movement outside of Utahs drop from 38 to 48.

you know, it really amazes me that yale is ranked lower each time the rankings come out. you'd think a school with that much money and ego would be furious that they seem to drop year after year after year, but i guess not.

in other news, i predict yale will rise in the rankings this year, and celebrate by waitlisting me.

 

[housemd]

Well, here's my take on the rankings that no one asked for:

As far as I can tell, the only numbers that really affect a med student's future are the peer assessment score and assessment scores by residency directors. I'm not sure if any of the other numbers can directly be a comment on the education one receives there. While the research dollars flowing into the school stand as a good comment on the research going on there/at the associated facilities, does that really equate to killer education? I suppose the argument could be made that cutting edge researchers=cutting edge education, but my counter-argument would be, "some of the best researchers I know are the worst teachers."

My question is this: why don't the rankings take into account average boards scores? I don't know if I could think of another objective factor other than that for how well the students within the school are doing compared to their peers.

But I'm new to this game. I may have gotten in, but I'll be the last to call myself qualified to comment on this stuff.

I agree. I think the only categories that really matter are peer assessment and residency director assessment. I think this really shows you what kind of respect a specific program gets across the country.

 

[superdevil]

I agree. I think the only categories that really matter are peer assessment and residency director assessment. I think this really shows you what kind of respect a specific program gets across the country.

in theory those should be the most important, but the reality is that they are also the most subjective part of the rankings. GPA/MCAT/research $$$ are all quantitative, whereas having a residency program director scratch his head and say "hmmm, i guess Pitt grads feel like a...3.6. yea, that's it! a 3.6" just doesn't tell me anything.

of course, i'm open to correction if someone knows the methodology better than i and can provide rational, objective criteria for peer assessment and PD assessment.

 

[housemd]

in theory those should be the most important, but the reality is that they are also the most subjective part of the rankings. GPA/MCAT/research $$$ are all quantitative, whereas having a residency program director scratch his head and say "hmmm, i guess Pitt grads feel like a...3.6. yea, that's it! a 3.6" just doesn't tell me anything.

of course, i'm open to correction if someone knows the methodology better than i and can provide rational, objective criteria for peer assessment and PD assessment.

True, but what purpose do the rankings serve other than a subjective way to rank schools and their students for residencies. So, while you are right in saying the other cateogries are quantitative, the selection for residencies and such is not. Someone will not match according to their GPA and MCAT score in college but rather according to that program director who scratches his head and "hmmmm, I think this Pitt grad must have some potential"

 

[Larsitron]

...whereas having a residency program director scratch his head and say "hmmm, i guess Pitt grads feel like a...3.6. yea, that's it! a 3.6" just doesn't tell me anything.

While I understand where you're coming from, this person isn't reading the rankings to find out how they feel about the school. Rather, residency program directors are the ones being surveyed for the rankings themselves. And when you're surveying the number of residency directors that they do (I'm presuming at least all the ranked schools if not a huge chunk of the residency programs in other places) I'd say that's a fairly good measure for people wanting to get information from the rankings.

I agree that it's subjective, but done right, it can provide a data point for those of us outside their doors to understand a little of how they (the residency directors) are thinking.

Edit: To clarify, Superdevil wasn't implying that residency directors get their info from the rankings. I was just pointing out that when you survey enough residency directors on a scale of 1-5, you can sort of get a feel for how they view the school. You're right that it's inherently subjective, but if I'm picking a school, I want to know what the subjective thinking is too.

 

[exmike]

Youll soon realize when in med school that the one thing you really care about is what the residency director thinks about your school. That in the end is the major determinant of your success in matching all else being equal. For many of us, matching in our area of choice at our institution of choice is the ultimate end point of medical school, and your schools reputation in the eye's of a residency director will go far to help you to that end.