If you are looking for information on medical schools and their respective rankings in the USA you will be aware that the results found online can be conflicting and more than a touch confusing if you don’t understand how the rankings work. There are a number of websites available that rank medical schools in numerical order but details are sketchy to say the least on how these rankings are derived.
In the following article, we will take an in-depth look at how medical schools in the USA are ranked and the criteria that should be of most importance to you.
When reviewing rankings, some of the features that you can compare include:
- Acceptance rates
- Ratio of students to staff
- Reputation
- Funding
It’s also important that the information you are referencing is up to date. From one year to the next, the rankings might change, even within one ranking agency.
Competition for enrolment
In a time when many of the top medical institutions are expected to increase the level of enrolment by up to 30 percent in 2015, there is increasing competition to attract top students to apply and then to enrol. When looking at the top educational institutions, there needs to be a distinction between those institutions and rankings that stress research as opposed to those that are primarily interested in clinical practice.
That being said, based on enrolment growth alone, some of the more established institutions do not fare as well as facilities such as the Centre for Health Sciences at Oklahoma State University and the University Of Kansas Medical Centre. Both of these institutions share the top spot on many medical school rankings tables for acceptance vs enrolment as both institutions increased enrolment over the previous 12 months.
How the USA rankings really work
There are a number of ranking categories to take into consideration. Medical school rankings in the USA can be categorised into two specific groups. The first is by the type of specialty. The second is by popularity.
In looking at the choice of which graduate institutions are the best, you need to know which elements are considerations in the rankings. For example, the popularity poll as stated above is Oklahoma State University and Univ. Of Kansas. Each has an acceptance rate of 85.7 percent. Oklahoma State University is not ranked for research strength or as a primary care school. It has a faculty-student ratio of 0.3:1.
The Univ. Of Kansas is ranked number 72 as a research school and number 35 in primary care excellence. The Univ. Of Kansas faculty-student ratio is 1.1:1. The annual costs respectively are $20,953 and $27,724.
The popularity figures may be at least partially explained by the great faculty-student ratios. The top two places for studying the primary care specialty are Univ. Of Washington and the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. The University of Washington has a tuition cost of $25,320 annually. The faculty-student ratio at the University of Washington is 2.6:1. The University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill charges a tuition rate of $13,971. The faculty-student ratio at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill is 1.7:1.
Internal Medicine Excellence
Another category of medical school stresses internal medicine excellence. The top two schools in this category are Harvard University Medical School and Johns Hopkins University. Harvard charges full-time students $47,500 annually and has a faculty-student ratio of 12.6:1. In a similar price range is Johns Hopkins University at $42,600 tuition annually. The faculty-student ratio at John Hopkins University comes in at 5.8:1 Schools which emphasize pediatrics are yet another category which can be ranked according to the criteria set by ranking agencies.
The top two slots in this specialty are Harvard University Medical School and University of Pennsylvania (Perelman). The tuition rate for the University of Pennsylvania is $45,498. With a faculty-student ratio of 3.9:1, the school is a satisfactory contender.
Participant Voting
Other ranking agencies may have very different approaches to determining the top schools. In some cases, a ranking is determined by participant votes. As might be expected, the top-ranked schools using this measurement are the big name schools in most instances. The rankings there are developed from a relatively small sample. They are in order from number one to number ten.
- Johns Hopkins U School of Medicine
- UPenn
- Columbia University
- Harvard Med School
- Duke University School of Medicine
- Washington University in St. Louis
- Yale University
- University of California San Francisco
- Stanford University School of Medicine
Reputation isn’t everything, but it is an important reason why students select a particular school over another. Reputation is hard to measure. For some ranking agencies, a complex algorithm is laid out to determine which of the schools is ranked overall #1. Other ranking organizations credit publishing or award recognition of the faculty and staff members in determining the highest rank. Choosing the best medical schools in the US may also be influenced by location or best residency acceptance rates.
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