USNWR Best Med Schools 2022

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What in the world happened this year? Is this a methodology thing or a covid thing?
 
Interesting. These rankings seems to follow how much research funding each school reports in the MSAR.
Is USNWR trying to rank PhD programs rather than MD lol?
 
Some high flyers took a hard fall this year.

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hm, last year:
1) Harvard
2) Hopkins
3) UPenn
4)Stanford, NYU
6) WashU, Columbia, UCLA, UCSF, Mayo
11)Cornell
12)Duke
13)University of Washington
14) Pitt
15) Michigan, Yale
17) UChicago
18)Northwestern, Vandy
20)Mt Sinai

This year...
1) Harvard
2) NYU (+2)
3) Duke (+9)
4) Columbia (+2)
4) Stanford
4) UCSF (+2)
7) Hopkins (-5)
7) University of Washington (+6)
9) UPenn (-6)
10) Yale (+5)
11) Mayo (-5), WashU (-5)
13) Pitt (+1), Vandy (+5)
15) Northwestern (+3), Michigan
17) Mt Sinai (+3), UChicago
19) Cornell (-8), UCSD
21) UCLA (-15??)
 
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TheDataKing said:
hm, last year:
1) Harvard
2) Hopkins
3) UPenn
4)Stanford, NYU
6) WashU, Columbia, UCLA, UCSF, Mayo
11)Cornell
12)Duke
13)University of Washington
14) Pitt
15) Michigan, Yale
17) UChicago
18)Northwestern, Vandy
20)Mt Sinai

This year...
1) Harvard
2) NYU (+2)
3) Duke (+9)
4) Columbia (+2)
4) Stanford
4) UCSF (+2)
7) Hopkins (-5)
7) University of Washington (+6)
9) UPenn (-6)
10) Yale (+5)
11) Mayo (-5), WashU (-5)
13) Pitt (+1), Vandy (+5)
15) Northwestern (+3), Michigan
17) Mt Sinai (+3), UChicago
19) Cornell (-8), UCSD
21) UCLA (-15??)
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When do PD survey rankings usually come out? How do you find them?
 
LMAO I love these rankings just for this time of year because it leads to so many upsets. I'm here for the salt about NYU - it actually seems to have bounced quite a bit in the PD survey too over the years (now at #5) - but that's no surprise, the methodologies there are intermingled.

Hopkins and Penn dropping are the real upsets probably.

Also just goes to show how volatile these lists really are aside from rough judgements on "tier."

Let's see how many pre-meds change their pick based on this ****ery.
 
I’m curious, would Lerner/CCLCM be ranked the same as case’s UP?
 
Lifeblood_20 said:
Lmao @ NYU. I can't care less as they have made it clear with their actions that they are corporate money-hungry sharks who do not give any peep about trainees.
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Could you elaborate? I haven’t looked much into their actions other than them making the medical school tuition free?
 
Lifeblood_20 said:
Lmao @ NYU. I can't care less as they have made it clear with their actions that they are corporate money-hungry sharks who do not give any peep about trainees.
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NYU didn't do anything wrong, the US News methodology is the issue. But it has always been an issue. There's a reason that premeds and adcoms are the only ones who really pay attention to them. They're meaningless.
 
TheDataKing said:
View attachment 333733
ignore some of the color-coding bc I haven't fixed it but here is the cursory overview vs last year View attachment 333734
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How seriously should we be taking the PD ranking when picking a school? There's like a 10-point difference in ranking # (~0.5 pt difference in PD score?) between the two schools I am considering, even though the lower-ranked school according to this chart arguably matches better...
 
runner_researcher said:
Is there typically this much volatility year to year, or is this an anomaly?
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There's always a ton of volatility. If you're old enough, you remember when Stanford jumped from #11 to #2 over a couple years and remained there for a while...or when Mayo and NYU very rapidly jumped into the T10. Every time they add a major change to the methodology, there is a big change in rankings.

The important thing to really focus on is that these rankings do not indicate the quality of research, primary care, or education. If they really cared about research, they'd be looking at publication, citations, money spent on R&D, domestic and international collaboration, % of faculty who receive research accolades (think National Academy of Sciences, HHMI Investigators, Nobel Laureates, etc), % of graduates who go into research-based medical practices, and funding other than what's reported by the NIH.

But their research score is just NIH funding, opinions from other peers/program directors, and MCAT/GPA and acceptance rate (wtf does this have to do with research at all? lol)

Edit: They've changed their main methodology from NIH funding to federal grants...my point still stands, though. That plus stats and acceptance rate is not a valid or useful way to assess research resources or research productivity/activity.
 
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joycat1 said:
How seriously should we be taking the PD ranking when picking a school? There's like a 10-point difference in ranking # (~0.5 pt difference in PD score?) between the two schools I am considering, even though the lower-ranked school according to this chart arguably matches better...
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If you want to consider the rankings do it in tiers (T10, T20, T30 and rest). Are you a medical student or current cycle applicant?
 
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Putkernerinthehall said:
I find it hard to believe NYU is the number 2 research medical school in the country😎
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Is it really that suprising? It's almost certainly the hardest program to get into stat-wise in the country with free tuition. The caliber of its student has gotta be sky high.
 
EdgeTrimmer said:
If you want to consider the rankings do it in tiers (T10, T20, T30 and rest). Are you a medical student or current cycle applicant?
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Current cycle applicant! In my mind the schools are in the same tier, but according to this they are not... lol I don't know what to believe!
 
joycat1 said:
Current cycle applicant! In my mind the schools are in the same tier, but according to this they are not... lol I don't know what to believe!
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I got confused by your status 🙂 Looks like you have Vandy and Yale As so look into those schools pros and cons vs going by rankings.
 
ingobingo said:
What in the world happened this year? Is this a methodology thing or a covid thing?
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You may be on to something, one claim is schools who got Covid research funding went up in the rankings.
 
Wow, worst ranks ever for some of the biggest names! And ouch for UCLA.

Looks like they changed their methodology again, specifically by no longer using NIH funding values. They tried this a couple years ago (when NYU catapulted to #3) and then reverted back (because the new list was whack)

Will be interesting to see if it sticks this time. I feel like most premeds use US News rank as a proxy for academic reputation, but they seem to be moving further away from their research PD survey results.
 
CorgiLoaf said:
Interesting. These rankings seems to follow how much research funding each school reports in the MSAR.
Is USNWR trying to rank PhD programs rather than MD lol?
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well, it's literally rankings for research. they also have rankings for primary care, right? but people only seem to care about the research rankings
 
ThatSerb said:
well, it's literally rankings for research. they also have rankings for primary care, right? but people only seem to care about the research rankings
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Right, but they weighed research funding almost 3x (0.40 vs 0.15) as much as PD rankings. If literally half the weight is coming from $$$ for research, they should just take out the "medical" part and say these are the best research schools. No one in an MD program is spending 60hrs/wk on independent projects. Research $$$ should be max 0.15 weight.

Also, why don't they look at and use research productivity? More funding doesn't always mean higher productivity per $.
 
CorgiLoaf said:
Right, but they weighed research funding almost 3x (0.40 vs 0.15) as much as PD rankings. If literally half the weight is coming from $$$ for research, they should just take out the "medical" part and say these are the best research schools. No one in an MD program is spending 60hrs/wk on independent projects. Research $$$ should be max 0.15 weight.

Also, why don't they look at and use research productivity? More funding doesn't always mean higher productivity per $.
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Yeah, I was just about to say this. Even for PhD research, their rankings would suck. They don't look at publications, citations, collaborations, research accolades, % that continue to do significant research in their medical careers, or any of that. Those are easily the most important research metrics they should be including in their methodology, not MCAT/GPA and acceptance rate.
 
Fortunately where you are in the top 20-30 doesn’t really matter much for residency. You either go to a big baller school or you don’t.

Also these schools train like what…5% of doctors in the US? This is peak SDN* 🤡

*rankings are somewhat useful in determining how top heavy a school list is. I will admit that
 
CorgiLoaf said:
No one in an MD program is spending 60hrs/wk on independent projects.
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I know it’s hard for us plebes to understand, but many (most?) of these top MD schools have an entire year dedicated to research: 1 year preclinical, 1 year clinical, 1 year research, 1 year electives + residency interviews. The ones without an entire year have a full semester normally. So…yeah tons of people are doing full time research in MD programs at these schools.
 
I'mInDer! said:
Yeah, I was just about to say this. Even for PhD research, their rankings would suck. They don't look at publications, citations, collaborations, research accolades, % that continue to do significant research in their medical careers, or any of that. Those are easily the most important research metrics they should be including in their methodology, not MCAT/GPA and acceptance rate.
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Yeah I can't believe stats and research $$$ make up 60% of rank weight lol. Sadly, a lot of premeds/parents/advisors get suckered into these rankings.

But even a cursory glance at USWNR's methodology shows how crap their research "rankings" are for grad programs, let alone medical schools.

YCAGA said:
I know it’s hard for us plebes to understand, but many (most?) of these top MD schools have an entire year dedicated to research: 1 year preclinical, 1 year clinical, 1 year research, 1 year electives + residency interviews. The ones without an entire year have a full semester normally. So…yeah tons of people are doing full time research in MD programs at these schools.
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Even if they spend 1 year doing FT research, how productive are they really? There's a reason why PhD students spend 4,5,6,7 years on their projects, because basic science research takes a ton of time. I spent 1.7 years doing FT research in a lab funded with 2 R01's for around ~1.8mil and I'm getting my final set of data in 2 weeks. Research funding may be important for PhD students, but definitely not for MD students, even for those who take a full year for research. I don't believe a school with 50mil vs 500mil of funding is going to make a meaningful difference for that 1 year.

If USWNR wants to weigh research heavily, it should be 0.15 research $$$ and 0.25 productivity, measured by pubs/citations/awards/etc.
 
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efle said:
If you read their methodology page it says a group of med school deans convinced them to switch from NIH funding to multiple funding sources.

Hmmmmmmm.....
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TBH, for certain big names, even a drop in ranking won't change a thing. It's those schools that have risen recently that might take a hit.
 
CorgiLoaf said:
Yeah I can't believe stats and research $$$ make up 60% of rank weight lol. Sadly, a lot of premeds/parents/advisors get suckered into these rankings.

But even a cursory glance at USWNR's methodology shows how crap their research "rankings" are for grad programs, let alone medical schools.


Even if they spend 1 year doing FT research, how productive are they really? There's a reason why PhD students spend 4,5,6,7 years on their projects, because basic science research takes a ton of time. I spent 1.7 years doing FT research in a lab funded with 2 R01's for around ~1.8mil and I'm getting my final set of data in 2 weeks. Research funding may be important for PhD students, but definitely not for MD students, even for those who take a full year for research. I don't believe a school with 50mil vs 500mil of funding is going to make a meaningful difference for that 1 year.

If USWNR wants to weigh research heavily, it should be 0.15 research $$$ and 0.25 productivity, measured by pubs/citations/awards/etc.
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Not all research is basic science research though…even then, it is a red hot take to say that having ten times as much funding won’t increase your opportunities to publish as a medical student. That doesn’t make any sense just by looking through the department websites of a 90-120 ranked medical school and a top 40 school. Sooooo many PhD’s in clinical departments at top schools that you can do research with…plus a bunch of MD’s who are getting money to do research in addition to their clinical stuff.

Are you in medical school and have done research in that setting? Just doesn’t make any sense what you’re saying.
 
YCAGA said:
Not all research is basic science research though…even then, it is a red hot take to say that having ten times as much funding won’t increase your opportunities to publish as a medical student. That doesn’t make any sense just by looking through the department websites of a 90-120 ranked medical school and a top 40 school. Sooooo many PhD’s in clinical departments at top schools that you can do research with…plus a bunch of MD’s who are getting money to do research in addition to their clinical stuff.

Are you in medical school and have done research in that setting? Just doesn’t make any sense what you’re saying.
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I have been doing research at a medical school for the past few years and will be matriculating this summer. My PI is an MD and we've had several MD students rotate through our lab in the past years.

It is a pretty hot take but imo, if you want to publish, you'll get to publish, no matter what MD school you go to. There are always more labs looking for free labor than there are medical students. And again, research funding doesn't mean higher productivity. A better barometer would be how many pubs/student each school has. Weighting research funding at 40% is just lazy and imo deceptive.

I will say that higher funding probably attracts more well-known researchers, which could help you. But PD rankings should cover that aspect already.
 
efle said:
If you read their methodology page it says a group of med school deans convinced them to switch from NIH funding to multiple funding sources.

Hmmmmmmm.....
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I mean frankly, why should they only look at NIH funding? That’s arbitrary as well. The schools that this helps will be happy about it. The schools it hurts unhappy.

The old guard is just pissed that there are schools taking there place now. Pre-meds are having their minds blown that X School couldn’t possibly be X rank - but like, why not? Pre-med conceptions of prestige were based on this list mostly anyway. It’s just a funny cycle of “that can’t possibly be right” without any real reason.
 
Banco said:
I mean frankly, why should they only look at NIH funding? That’s arbitrary as well. The schools that this helps will be happy about it. The schools it hurts unhappy.

The old guard is just pissed that there are schools taking there place now. Pre-meds are having their minds blown that X School couldn’t possibly be X rank - but like, why not? Pre-med conceptions of prestige were based on this list mostly anyway. It’s just a funny cycle of “that can’t possibly be right” without any real reason.
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Hence why rankings shouldn’t matter at all (or even exist tbh).
 
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