Very different results from US News rankings.
just see the abstract. what does it say?
Download and read the pdf file.
tl;dr (USNWR rank in parentheses)
1 Harvard Medical School (1)
2 Johns Hopkins University (3)
3 Yale School of Medicine (7)
4 University of Chicago (Pritzker) (11)
5 Weill Cornell Medical College (15)
6 Stanford University School of Medicine (2)
7 University of Pennsylvania (Perelman) (4)
7 Columbia University (8)
9 Duke University School of Medicine (8)
10 Washington University in St. Louis (6)
The full list ranks the top 24 schools
This list correlates with the top 10-15 research institutions by research grants. This is not that valuable for the typical premed student who just want to obtain a medical degree.
perhaps for private universities–the University of Washington receives hundreds of millions in research grants annually.
What’s most interesting to me about this – which effectively measures the historical output of medical researchers – is how little difference there is vs. USNWR, and how systematic the differences vs. USNWR are.
For the most part, the authors’ proposed ranking compared to USNWR looks as important as rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Given the high quality level of the medical education system as a whole, it just isn’t a big deal if #11 becomes #4, or #2 becomes #6. In the authors’ top 25, there are only 6 schools from the USNWR top 25 missing. That’s hardly an earth-shattering change.
And which schools are those that are missing? Which schools look worst when viewed through the proposed lens? Why – surprise! surprise! – it’s public medical schools! Only three public medical schools are included in the authors’ top 25 – UCSF, Michigan, and Virginia. UCSF, however, falls from #3 to #17, and Michigan goes from #12 to #21. (Virginia, somehow, actually improves its ranking position a slot, from #26 USNWR to a tie for #24.) Included in the USNWR top 25, and excluded by the authors, are UWashington, Pitt, UCLA, UCSD, UNC, and UTexas - Southwestern. Of their replacements, only Virginia is a public institution. Every public institution in the USNWR top 25 was downgraded significantly.
That, alone, is not very interesting. Here’s what interests me: Why does a study that objectively measures medical school graduates’ documented participation in and contribution to medical research turn out to be also measuring, at least in part, privateness?