What qualifies as top tier?

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what qualifies as top tier?

  • top 5

    Votes: 5 4.6%

  • top 10

    Votes: 26 24.1%

  • top 20

    Votes: 66 61.1%

  • top 50

    Votes: 11 10.2%
  • Total voters
    108
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Oh look... nvm not worth the effort.

Top tier= SGU
 
there should probably be a poll option for "there's no such thing as top tier, this isn't law school"
 
"Top tier" is a generic, meaningless categorization. It is only invoked in blanket statements (often ironically) regarding some sort of perceived yet non-definitive and highly debatable ranking of medical school prestige/quality. In other words, "top tier" means whatever you want it to mean.
 
Just to add some counter argument, and I'm open to corrections if I made some false assumptions.

But I've been browsing websites of schools, and it definitely seem like the top schools have way more resources for their medical students.

For example, Cornell. They allow their medical students to to research at nearby places like Sloan-Kettering, and Rockefeller. If you're interested in being any type of physician scientist, this seems like a huge advantage. They also have the music and medicine program, and a cool opportunity for students to volunteer at a camps for kids who suffered burn injuries. These are not crucial things, especially if you're shooting to be a clinician, but it's always nice to have this stuff available.

Now, when I go through the website for Albany Medical College, I hardly find anything as far as student opportunities. I'm sure they have a good program that will get a hardworking student to most any specialty. However, it just doesn't compare.

Granted these are extreme cases, but it's just to show the point I am trying to make.

If your goal is to be a doctor, any medical school will do well. However, for students who want to focus on a specific area like research, then top schools are likely to be a better choice.

However, I do agree that once you're below the top 30 or so, most schools will probably have about the same to offer to students.
 
zeppelinpage4 said:
Just to add some counter argument, and I'm open to corrections if I made some false assumption.

But I've been cruising website of schools I am applying to, and it definitely seem like the top schools have way more resources for their medical students. I'll use Cornell as an example. They allow their medical students to to research at nearby places like Sloan-Kettering, and Rockefeller. If you're interested in being any type of physician scientist, this is seems like a huge advantage. They also have the music and medicine program, and a cool opportunity for students to volunteer at a camps for kids who suffered burn injuries.

When I go through the website for Albany Med, I hardly find anything as far as student opportunities.

Granted these are extreme cases, but it's just to show the point I am trying to make.

If your goal is to be a doctor, any medical school will do well. However, for students who want to focus on a specific area like research, then top schools are likely to be a better choice.

However, I do agree that once you're below the top 15, most schools will probably have about the same to offer to students.
Click to expand...

Jelly. My numbers aren't good enough for Cornell but I would love to stay involved in music in medical school.
 
A school that makes people say "Wow, you're going there!?!?" when you say you got in.
 
The funniest is when someone get's into a school ranked, say, 79th and they say "I got into a top 80 school.

It's like, at what number do you stop using "top"?
 
Fivo said:
The funniest is when someone get's into a school ranked, say, 79th and they say "I got into a top 80 school.

It's like, at what number do you stop using "top"?
Click to expand...

my undergrad is Top 150 u mad bro? 🙂
 
Well the school I'm planning on attending is top 30 so we'll cut it off there 🙄
 
My school is ranked 20th, so I'd say let's cut it off there instead. 🙂
 
Let's go ahead and say the top 134 schools qualify as top tier.
 
zeppelinpage4 said:
Just to add some counter argument, and I'm open to corrections if I made some false assumptions.

But I've been browsing websites of schools, and it definitely seem like the top schools have way more resources for their medical students.

For example, Cornell. They allow their medical students to to research at nearby places like Sloan-Kettering, and Rockefeller. If you're interested in being any type of physician scientist, this seems like a huge advantage. They also have the music and medicine program, and a cool opportunity for students to volunteer at a camps for kids who suffered burn injuries. These are not crucial things, especially if you're shooting to be a clinician, but it's always nice to have this stuff available.

Now, when I go through the website for Albany Medical College, I hardly find anything as far as student opportunities. I'm sure they have a good program that will get a hardworking student to most any specialty. However, it just doesn't compare.

Granted these are extreme cases, but it's just to show the point I am trying to make.

If your goal is to be a doctor, any medical school will do well. However, for students who want to focus on a specific area like research, then top schools are likely to be a better choice.

However, I do agree that once you're below the top 30 or so, most schools will probably have about the same to offer to students.
Click to expand...

The US news research rankings are heavily weighted on research dollars, so they will have better "resources" because they have greater funding. And prestigious faculty often follow these resources. Whether this translates to a more valuable med student experience or whether this just means more faculty who see teaching as the chore they need to get done before they can go back to their research is debatable. There are definitely smaller places where you get great teaching and have faculty that work the phones for you when it's time to line up interviews, and bigger places which have poor reputations for training, and you will have Nobel prize winning faculty who are too busy to involve themselves with med students or teaching. So it's really hard to glean much from the rankings list in terms of "top" tier. So use very broad strokes. The top half of the list has better funding than the bottom half, so it has more resources, particularly if you might want to go into a field that requires research. The top 20-30 places carry more prestige than the next 100, so there's potentially some resume value. Beyond that id probably give up on trying to pigeon hole places into tiers.
 
zeppelinpage4 said:
Just to add some counter argument, and I'm open to corrections if I made some false assumptions.

But I've been browsing websites of schools, and it definitely seem like the top schools have way more resources for their medical students.

For example, Cornell. They allow their medical students to to research at nearby places like Sloan-Kettering, and Rockefeller. If you're interested in being any type of physician scientist, this seems like a huge advantage. They also have the music and medicine program, and a cool opportunity for students to volunteer at a camps for kids who suffered burn injuries. These are not crucial things, especially if you're shooting to be a clinician, but it's always nice to have this stuff available.

Now, when I go through the website for Albany Medical College, I hardly find anything as far as student opportunities. I'm sure they have a good program that will get a hardworking student to most any specialty. However, it just doesn't compare.

Granted these are extreme cases, but it's just to show the point I am trying to make.

If your goal is to be a doctor, any medical school will do well. However, for students who want to focus on a specific area like research, then top schools are likely to be a better choice.

However, I do agree that once you're below the top 30 or so, most schools will probably have about the same to offer to students.
Click to expand...

Some schools just don't update their website very often or really think to include these things. I know you can find fabulous research opportunities in Albany and I'm sure that you could find opportunities for music in medicine. They just haven't made it a major selling point for their institution.
 
I think in terms of prestige and reputation, the top 5 schools carry a nice cache. I think top 10 would be a decent cut off as well.
 
I think that top tier medical schools are the ones with shorter names, because if you stack them all on top of each other, the ones with shorter names would balance best at the top.
 
The top tier medical schools are those school that are largely represented in competitive specialties at prestigious hospitals. Take a look at the neuro surg. match list for MGH over a few years and see where they pull their residents from.

Self selection also plays a role, question is how much?
 
TheMightySmiter said:
I think that top tier medical schools are the ones with shorter names, because if you stack them all on top of each other, the ones with shorter names would balance best at the top.
Click to expand...
But stacking schools with larger names would give the stack more potential...
 
Top 5 I would say are the "WOW!" schools of medicine. Otherwise, top 20.
 
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