USN 2009 Out

[devilishlyblue]

Hi All,

USN 2009 rankings have been released.

Besides the usual meaningless jockeying (WUSTL back at 3, Duke back at 6), two things instantly caught my attention:

First, UCLA jumps into the top ten, squeezing out last year's three-way tie between Columbia (11), Michigan(11) and Baylor (13).

Second, there might have been some dramatic recalibration of the primary care formula. We're seeing a lot of movement -- WUSTL jumps from last year's 52 to 13, and I promise you we aren't doing anything differently. Never been a big fan of this list, and oddly enough our rise makes me feel even more skeptical of it. HMS goes from 25 to 7, while Duke drops from 6 to 41. Either there's a ridiculous amount of turnover, or there's some dramatic underlying change. Methodology is here, but I don't have access to last year's.

(Somebody in pre-allo beat me to it by a minute.)

 

[BrainBuff]

Years ago, the meteoric rise of WashU made everyone realize just how dubious these rankings really are.

The sad thing is that no matter how much they continue to rise in the rankings, they continue to lack the cachet that the ivy league and schools like Northwestern, Duke and Chicago have.

 

[devilishlyblue]

By cachet, I'm going to assume you mean lay prestige, where Princeton's medical school is routinely considered one of the best in the country?

 

[thebeatblitz]

Rankings need to change to sell copies and subscriptions. How often do they "tweak" their methodology? Change the formula every year, and you're almost guaranteed to change the rankings every year...