Your Thoughts on High-Tier/Mid-Tier/Low-Tier

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Andnosoupforyou

Andnosoupforyou

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A similar thread was started previously by someone else and went nowhere, so I'm gonna go ahead and try again, just because I'm curious to know. What are some top-tier schools/mid-tier schools/low-tier schools in your head, that you would use to categorize a school when explaining the application process to your elderly grandmama, or when applying to med school?

It's not a huge deal, ranking schools into tiers is silly, all med schools are excellent, but we mentally rank them nonetheless. I'm just wondering where folks consider the boundaries between tiers lie.

For instance, if my grandmama wanted to know, I'd go by the USNews research rankings:


Top-tier: Everything up to Mayo (#1-26)
Mid-Tier: Everything up to Jefferson (#27-60)
Low-Tier: The rest & Carib

What's your breakdown?
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This ain't law school...no US MD school is a ttt. Even the lowest ranked school has placed residents into top ranked residencies. In lieu of ranking, sorting by categorical differences would be a more useful thread (i.e. "Research intensive schools", "Clinically focused", etc.)
 
I'm sorry, but ranking the Caribbean schools in with lower ranked US MD schools is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard.

Try again.
 
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Astarael said:
I'm sorry, but ranking the Caribbean schools in with lower ranked US MD schools is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard.

Try again.
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+1 I forgot to mention this.......................it is ridiculous! :laugh:
 
It's so arrogant to classify medical schools into "tiers". It's also especially arrogant to assume you "deserve" to go to a top tier school. Every accredited medical school in America is exceptionally competitive and you should consider yourself lucky and honored to attend any one of them. The people who care about "tiers" aren't the kinds of doctors I want to go to when I have a serious, life-threatening illness. For them, it's all about the money.
 
SDN becomes a **** parade during the summer, doesn't it?
 
+1. Schools for primary care, research etc...

JESSFALLING said:
This ain't law school...no US MD school is a ttt. Even the lowest ranked school has placed residents into top ranked residencies. In lieu of ranking, sorting by categorical differences would be a more useful thread (i.e. "Research intensive schools", "Clinically focused", etc.)
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Lovin' the hostility. Y'know, I personally don't consider Carib schools to be in a different category than low-tier med schools, only because I've worked with two great docs who came from Carib med schools, and they themselves felt the Carib schools were about the same as a low-tier med school. I figured I'll trust their judgement. But what do they know, right?? I mean, they came from a non-accredited institution. No, the folks on this thread must surely be more correct.

Even so, the title of this thread asks for your personal thoughts on tiers. My original post states that all med schools are excellent. If those who commented feel my thoughts are wrong, then I feel I should state that many of you may have missed the point of this thread entirely.

Guess I'll never find out what the majority of folks consider high-tier/mid-tier/low-tier, especially since I see those terms used so often here on sdn.


JESSFALLING said:
In lieu of ranking, sorting by categorical differences would be a more useful thread (i.e. "Research intensive schools", "Clinically focused", etc.)
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Good point, but I think dividing research intensive schools and clinically focused schools has already been done, most evidently by USNews. I think I was aiming more towards, which med schools are in which tiers when you're applying, or explaining a med school's status to someone who doesn't know? I'll change my original post slightly to clarify.
 
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Andnosoupforyou said:
Guess I'll never find out what the majority of folks consider high-tier/mid-tier/low-tier, especially since I see those terms used so often here on sdn.
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You're conflating populations. A few vocal posters repeating them ad nauseam does not a majority make.

To answer your questions, I never tiered schools in my mind in the manner you suggest. There might be big-name schools or schools that are more recognizable to the general public than others, but that's a separate consideration. I have never had a situation where I've needed to explain any distinction between schools based on this "tiering."
 
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Andnosoupforyou said:
I think I was aiming more towards, which med schools are in which tiers when you're applying, or explaining a med school's status to someone who doesn't know? I'll change my original post slightly to clarify.
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Why would I ever need to do this?

And no offense, but grouping any MD school with Caribbean schools is ridiculous. If they were on the same plane then NO ONE would be turning down four years of studying on the beach to go to unranked schools in US News and World Report. And yet... those unranked schools seem to have zero problems filling in their seats every year.
 
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I personally believe that US Americans are unable to do so because some people out there in our nation don't have that and I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and the Iraq everywhere like such as and...I believe that they should...our education over here in the US should help the US or should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future...for our children.
 
Gigantron said:
I personally believe that US Americans are unable to do so because some people out there in our nation don't have that and I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and the Iraq everywhere like such as and...I believe that they should...our education over here in the US should help the US or should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future...for our children.
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:confused: Does anyone know what this is saying? Anyone?
 
NickNaylor said:
My expert opinion is that if you don't go to a top tier school, you're going to be a horrible doctor. Oh, and you're not fit for anything but family practice.

trollface.jpg
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If you don't get into top 10 you should just be a nurse.
 
Andnosoupforyou said:
Lovin' the hostility. Y'know, I personally don't consider Carib schools to be in a different category than low-tier med schools, only because I've worked with two great docs who came from Carib med schools, and they themselves felt the Carib schools were about the same as a low-tier med school. I figured I'll trust their judgement. But what do they know, right?? I mean, they came from a non-accredited institution. No, the folks on this thread must surely be more correct.
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Just curious, but how does it mean anything that two doctors from the Caribbean considered their schools equivalent to a US school? They have a vested interest in protecting the perception of their institution and thus the legitimacy of their degree. They are a biased source of information.

If you don't believe me, look at the numbers. Most medical schools in the US have an approximately 95% graduation rate and approximately 95% match rate. SGU has maybe an 80% graduation rate and a 70% match rate (I'm ballparking these, I haven't seen the actual data). The average of all schools in the Caribbean is about a 50-60% graduation rate and a 50% match rate. How can you call those schools equivalent to US schools?

I'm not saying that good doctors don't come out of those schools. But you asked about the perceived quality of schools, and I'm telling you that the Caribbean schools are perceived to be of the lowest quality, because they treat their students like crap.
 
Andnosoupforyou said:
A similar thread was started previously by someone else and went nowhere, so I'm gonna go ahead and try again, just because I'm curious to know. What are some top-tier schools/mid-tier schools/low-tier schools in your head, that you would use to categorize a school when explaining the application process to your elderly grandmama, or when applying to med school?

It's not a huge deal, ranking schools into tiers is silly, all med schools are excellent, but we mentally rank them nonetheless. I'm just wondering where folks consider the boundaries between tiers lie.

For instance, if my grandmama wanted to know, I'd go by the USNews research rankings:


Top-tier: Everything up to Mayo (#1-26)
Mid-Tier: Everything up to Jefferson (#27-60)
Low-Tier: The rest & Carib

What's your breakdown?
Click to expand...

I think you answered your own question before this thread even got started...
 
Andnosoupforyou said:
Lovin' the hostility. Y'know, I personally don't consider Carib schools to be in a different category than low-tier med schools, only because I've worked with two great docs who came from Carib med schools, and they themselves felt the Carib schools were about the same as a low-tier med school. I figured I'll trust their judgement. But what do they know, right?? I mean, they came from a non-accredited institution. No, the folks on this thread must surely be more correct.
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When did those doctors graduate and do residency? Because times are a'changing. If I took my doctors' advice on applying, I only would have applied to about 8 schools and expected nearly a 100% acceptance rate, all WITHIN CA; thats what they did. So should i listen to them, or look at the current trends and data on competitiveness? Right.
Anyway, the present worsening issue of international grads trying to secure US residency spots and the general questionableness of most Carib schools have been discussed here ad nauseum. So unless your Carib-trained doctors are familiar with these current issues, then yes, the people in this tread are correct, and we have yet another reason to avoid the Carib.






1000th post.
 
Gigantron said:
I personally believe that US Americans are unable to do so because some people out there in our nation don't have that and I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and the Iraq everywhere like such as and...I believe that they should...our education over here in the US should help the US or should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future...for our children.
Click to expand...

Yep
 
Besides the extremely high attrition rate which can be attributed to lower quality students because all Carib schools care about is money.. I'm surprised no one mentioned that those students that do match end up at unwanted programs in the middle of no where and more likely than not primary care which many people don't want to do. So there is another reason OP you can not lump lower tier MD (in ur view half of US MD schools) schools with the Caribean schools.
 
Gigantron said:
I personally believe that US Americans are unable to do so because some people out there in our nation don't have that and I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and the Iraq everywhere like such as and...I believe that they should...our education over here in the US should help the US or should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future...for our children.
Click to expand...

are you high?
 
Phange said:
It's so arrogant to classify medical schools into "tiers". It's also especially arrogant to assume you "deserve" to go to a top tier school. Every accredited medical school in America is exceptionally competitive and you should consider yourself lucky and honored to attend any one of them. The people who care about "tiers" aren't the kinds of doctors I want to go to when I have a serious, life-threatening illness. For them, it's all about the money.
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I'm going to be the dissenting opinion and say that I think some med schools, (US MD Schools) are clearly inferior to others. My old state (MD) school was terrible. Everyone there was unhappy, the curriculum was poorly structured, the clinical experiences were lacking, the diversity of patients was low, and the administration didn't give a flying crap about anything but themselves. They had one of the highest dropout rates of any med school, IIRC. (I am not referring to CO for those of you who check my mdapps, that school is excellent)

Furthermore, it is silly to claim that you should feel lucky to be accepted. Honored, maybe, but I think it reeks of pseudo-religious sentiment that anything good that happens in your life is by act of God (or luck or karma or whatever) instead of by skill, hard work, and preparation of the individual. Maybe I'm just a little more humanist than I used to be.

IlDestriero said:
1. Top 20 research schools.
2. Everything else
3. DO
4. IMG
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Yep. (1. maybe like top-30, but either way works; 20 sounds cooler)
 
The only reasonable way I would group schools in tiers is on personal preference on how much I want to attend that school (E.x., Tier 1- UMiami, FSU, Wake Forrest, Tier 3- Howard, Merharry)
 
BigMac92 said:
The only reasonable way I would group schools in tiers is on personal preference on how much I want to attend that school (E.x., Tier 1- UMiami, FSU, Wake Forrest, Tier 3- Howard, Merharry)
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No, that's too reasonable.
 
I have learned from this thread that to tier is to be arrogant. I wonder what the WAMC folks will think of this.
 
Andnosoupforyou said:
I have learned from this thread that to tier is to be arrogant. I wonder what the WAMC folks will think of this.
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Only one poster I saw said that, but thanks for latching onto that as the takeaway message.
 
FlowRate said:
Furthermore, it is silly to claim that you should feel lucky to be accepted. Honored, maybe, but I think it reeks of pseudo-religious sentiment that anything good that happens in your life is by act of God (or luck or karma or whatever) instead of by skill, hard work, and preparation of the individual. Maybe I'm just a little more humanist than I used to be.

Yep. (1. maybe like top-30, but either way works; 20 sounds cooler)
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I agree that one's own achievements are largely the result of one's own work, but you're kidding yourself if you don't think luck/fortunate circumstances don't play a part in your life. You're lucky, for example, that enough people turned down Harvard so that you were pulled off the waitlist.
 
I should add that the fact that luck plays a role doesn't discount one's achievements. I know I've been on the good side of it more than a few times. But I refuse to believe that one's achievements are SOLELY the result of one's actions.
 
NickNaylor said:
But I refuse to believe that one's achievements are SOLELY the result of one's actions.
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I don't know how we got to this point, but I definitely agree, and can honestly say that without some extra help (call it luck, whatever), I would not be going to the medical school I am. Hell, I wouldn't have even applied there if it hadn't been for one of my friends' influence.


mauberley said:
Only one poster I saw said that, but thanks for latching onto that as the takeaway message.
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Guess my thinly-veiled sarcasm wasn't veiled thinly enough.
 
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That's easy, the Caribbean!! duhhh!! the weather and beautiful beaches!!!
 
I'd stratify by academic acheivement of those who are admitted/matriculate indicated by LizzyM score (gpa* 10+ MCAT):

Top tier: LizzyM score >72
Mid tier: Lizzy M score 68-72
Lower tier: LizzyM score 64-67
Lowest tier: LizzyM score <64

I suspect that some very good schools have lower LizzyM scores because they limit themselves to a small subset of the total pool of applicants (e.g. in-state residents only).

Some schools might have a public perception of being better than their LizzyM score would suggest because they have an excellent basketball program or are otherwise well known to the general public.
 
LizzyM said:
I'd stratify by academic acheivement of those who are admitted/matriculate indicated by LizzyM score (gpa* 10+ MCAT):

Top tier: LizzyM score >72
Mid tier: Lizzy M score 68-72
Lower tier: LizzyM score 64-67
Lowest tier: LizzyM score <64

I suspect that some very good schools have lower LizzyM scores because they limit themselves to a small subset of the total pool of applicants (e.g. in-state residents only).

Some schools might have a public perception of being better than their LizzyM score would suggest because they have an excellent basketball program or are otherwise well known to the general public.
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Looking at you, Duke :smuggrin:
 
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