Medical
school finder: see how your MCAT scores and GPA would
fare at ranked medical schools across the country.
Well, the new medical school rankings from US News are
out. Who cares? It turns out a lot of people care. In general
there are three types of people who care about the rankings,
and here they are:
3. Medical schools that rely on private donations to fund
expansion and education. Getting into the top 10 is a big
deal, and if you've ever seen a cheerleading session given
by the president of a top 10 medical school, you know how
much weight they give these rankings.
2. Medical students. When you apply for residencies where
you're coming from makes a huge difference. If your school
has been hanging around the top of the ranking list you'll
be a residency program favorite.
1. Your mom. Ain't no one going to be happier than your
mom when she can say "yes, you remember my little Katie,
she's in the best medical school in the country. Isn't she
adorable?"
So who were the big winners and who were the big losers
this year?
Big Winners:
University of Washington - ranked the top Primary Care
medical school
Harvard (ever heard of this place before?) - ranked the
top Research medical school
University of California, San Francisco - the only school
to make the top 10 in both primary care and research
The student - here's a very important point. The goal of going
to medical school is that you have to learn how to treat patients.
It turns out that all those famous medical schools don't have a
monopoly on providing a great medical education. The "primary care"
rankings bring this into perspective. If you ask the person on the
street, would you rather be treated by someone who trained at Duke
or at the University of New Mexico, what do you think they'd say?
Mention that Michigan State Univeristy College of Osteopathic Medicine
ranked more than 30 spots better than Johns Hopkins among primary
care medical schools and watch the confused look on their face.
The medical school rankings are always a point of debate
among medical schools and medical students. No single method
for determining these rankings works perfectly, and every
institution feels it should be ranked higher. Having two
lists, research and primary care, deals with this problem
a little, but also points out where weaknesses reside.
A list of the top
10 medical schools in the U.S. There's also a new hospital
rankings tool that displays rankings graphically.
