Will the new US NEWS Rankings affect your decision??

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wazupshah

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The new US NEWS rankings come out in less than a week. Will this affect those of you that are sitting on multiple acceptances.

I ain't gunna lie - As much as I wanna say it won't, I have a feeling that it'll have an unconscious effect on me.

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i don't know if it will affect me but i will definitely consider it.
 
I wouldn't let the overall rankings influence you too much, but the individual components can be useful. When I was applying to schools, I paid the $10 to get full access so that I could sort the list according to criteria I actually cared about (e.g., residency director score, peer reputation, NOT MCAT, GPA, or NIH funding), which gave me ideas and helped me pick out my range of schools.
 
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A large jump or drop in the rankings by a school I'm considering would probably make me reexamine my impressions of the school, with an eye for why its evaluation changed dramatically.
 
Originally posted by wazupshah
The new US NEWS rankings come out in less than a week. Will this affect those of you that are sitting on multiple acceptances.

Dumb question...when do they come out?

Rankings won't do much to sway my decision. Granted I am holding only one accept right now. But lets say all my interviews eventually come through with accepts....

I've been fortunate enough to interview at schools mostly in the top 40(of the past year's rankings). So the majority of those schools will offer me a great education. It will still come down to where I feel I am the best fit. In fact....even the old rankings show Pitt ranked higher than NU...but I'd still rather go to NU.

Of course....I AM hoping that NU moves up. :D

The rankings won't do much to change my decision. They'll be interesting to see though.
 
Originally posted by UCLAMAN
Dumb question...when do they come out?

I've been fortunate enough to interview at schools mostly in the top 40(of the past year's rankings).

Whoa, 1 acceptance and UCLAMAN picks up som sass! Hallelujah! Northwestern's a fine school and it always will be. For one thing, you're in a great part of a great city. For another, peer reputation will consistently be tops.
 
Originally posted by shamthis
Whoa, 1 acceptance and UCLAMAN picks up som sass! Hallelujah! Northwestern's a fine school and it always will be. For one thing, you're in a great part of a great city. For another, peer reputation will consistently be tops.

:D
 
Originally posted by VienneseWaltz
I wouldn't let the overall rankings influence you too much, but the individual components can be useful. When I was applying to schools, I paid the $10 to get full access so that I could sort the list according to criteria I actually cared about (e.g., residency director score, peer reputation, NOT MCAT, GPA, or NIH funding), which gave me ideas and helped me pick out my range of schools.

Is residency director score a) the score given by residency directors as an assessment of the school's merit, or b) the score FOR the merit of residency directors at that school?

:confused:

If "a" , then I wonder how is it computed, since an orthopod PD would view a school differently than a FP PD...
 
carrigallen-- (a)

Residency directors work for hospitals, not medical schools (although I'm sure there's some affiliation at most teaching hospitals). US News asks residency directors to score schools on a scale of 0-5 (maybe 1-5), so the residency-director score indicates what residency directors think of students coming from different medical schools.

Also, I think the residency director US news is talking about is an administrator for the entire residency program at a hospital, not just a particular specialty. Anyway, medical schools don't differ that much from specialty to specialty, although some schools are known for better resources in primary care or research. While a hospital might have better residency programs in certain specialties, you would not necessarily expect the affiliated med school to produce better graduates for those specialties.
 
thanks VW!

another question: so, I guess that the deans of other schools evaluate "peer reputation"? or are these academics at other schools? And finally, what does this score tell you that the PD score does not? (ie, if the PD score tells you how prepared the graduates are, then what does peer reputation tell you?)
 
It's not a decision I am fortunate enough to have to make as of now, but it would be interesting to see who ranks higher between Cincy and OSU seeing as they were tied for 40 last year...

I think it's interesting just to see the directional movement of all the schools I applied to. But again, more of a curiosity than anything that would help me make my mind at this point.
 
I posed the question b/c I think its funny that despite the fact that I chose the school that I'm probably going to without regard for the rankings, I still find myself hoping that my #1 choice school moves up some this year. Somewhat ironic isn't it?
 
If I remember correctly, I think they come out around may 1st. As for them affecting decisions, I think there is a lot of usefull information in the actually rankings, as long as you are willing to look hard. But one thing to realize is that this is just for research schools. Most people don't want to end up as a research doctor, so it doesn't help someone who wants to work in New York to go to University of Michigan over a Mount Sinai. But if you wanted to be the head of Mount Sinai's internal medicine department someday, then you should definately go to University of Michigan.
 
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Hey,

The rankings come out well before May. I looked online and they will be available on the 4th of April. I don't think that it should affect your choices. Think abou it...how can things change in a year. They're just trying to sell more copies.
 
Jalby, according to usnews.com, the new rankings come out in early April. There are 2 sets of rankings, one for research and one for primary care.
 
Originally posted by indiandoc
Hey,

The rankings come out well before May. I looked online and they will be available on the 4th of April. I don't think that it should affect your choices. Think abou it...how can things change in a year. They're just trying to sell more copies.

I'm not sure I would say April 4th is well before May, but like I said, I was recalling.

One thing that I would notice is if over the past few years, a school moves significatly up or down on the rankings. (An exaple is that GT was ranked 35th 3-4 years ago, now they don't exist)

As for the two rankings, I think the research is more accurate than clinical (if you can call it accurate)
One of the biggest thing that goes into the clinical ranking is the percentage of graduates who go into clinical residencies. I think that part is pure ****. If Harvard had only 5 people go into clinical residencies, it would still prepare you well for it. So that's why you really need to do the analysis for yourself, but the numbers USnews provides are very usefull.
 
Jalby,

Your point about Georgetown is valid. I was thinking more about small movements, e.g., school x being 5 one year and 10 two years later without any reason. I think in the case of Georgetown, the rankings are very valid. I think earlier in this thread people were talking about Pittsburgh moving up. From the schools that I've visitied, that's the only one that I think should move up.
 
Looking at big drops or increases may be somewhat useful, but who's to say what the rankings will be 3-4years from now when trying to match?

And why isn't Georgetown in the top 50 (research) in the 2003 edition? And neither Tulane nor LSU submitted info to USNEWS, so neither were ranked last year.
 
You know, I always hear about how Tulane never submits it's info to USnews. I think it is because it might not make it into the top 50 in research. It has hardly any research, so it's NIH funding wouldn't be that great. The teaching is good, but I don't think the other stats would make up for the almost no NIH funding.

All that being said, I think Tulane is a great school, but the way the rankings are set up, I can't see it in the top 50.

GT isn't in the top 50 because they have been having huge problems lately.
 
Jalby or others who know,

What type of problems is Georgetown having? ... I had no idea
 
shayla,
gtown is having financial troubles. i'm not sure of the details, but it is likely the main reason they have dropped out of the rankings. it makes no sense to me why this could drop them from the mid-high 30's to out of the top 50, but i don't know of any other possible reason for the drop.
 
Originally posted by lola
shayla,
gtown is having financial troubles. i'm not sure of the details, but it is likely the main reason they have dropped out of the rankings. it makes no sense to me why this could drop them from the mid-high 30's to out of the top 50, but i don't know of any other possible reason for the drop.

I think that's it to the best of my knowledge, but I don't know to to much about it. But the problems Georgetown is having doesn't detract from why people should want to go there. Georgetown is known for producing great clinicians, not researchers. If you want to be a clinician, you really don't need to be at a school where there is a ton of research. But the funding could affect your tuition payment.....
 
Exactly what day are the new US rankings coming out? Will they be available on their US News website?
Thanks.
 
I would strongly urge anyone looking into Georgetown to check into the financial situation at this school. While Georgetowns financial woes peaked in the mid-late90's their after effects are still being felt at the school across the board. I think the biggest concern should be that Georgetown's teaching hospitals aren't technically their own anymore. They were acquired in a partnership with an HMO (medstar, I believe). The effects of this merger are broad reaching from the micro (loss of parking spots) to macro (deparment heads being recruited by medstar/georgetown search committees, profit driven teaching hospitals, academic faculty suddenly become medstar staff). During my interview, there was a large focus on convincing us how "OK" the finances were which seemed to have the opposite effect on most of my interview group. While the medstar merger provided temporary financial solvency I would take a hard look at the fallout regardless of whether you plan on heading into research or clinical medicine.
 
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