I’ve seen that there are only 17 schools of optometry in the US. Out of those select few, what would be, say, the top 5? Or does it really matter in a selection of so few?
You might want to ask this in the medical school forums - this forum is focused largely on research-based programs, and there are going to be few (if any!) on here who can speak intelligently on professional programs, much less optometry.
Yeah, I know next to nothing about optometry, although I do have to say that I am very happy that you are considering an allied health career (as in, something besides an MD)! I try to push my pre-med students to consider careers other than medicine, one because med school is so competitive and two because there’s a shortage and need in other areas.
That said, given that I know nothing - I will say that I imagine that it doesn’t matter where you go to optometry school, unless you want to be a researcher or professor. I know it doesn’t matter where you go to med school as far as getting a job. And with only 18 schools and so many people with vision problems…well, I would say that I don’t know where my last couple of optometrists went to school, and I didn’t care. I only cared that they were covered by my vision plan and offered a nice selection of frames! (I do know where my newest optometrists went to school, but only because their websites freely offered that information and there’s only one optometry school nearby here).
The top ranked optometry school in the US is UC Berkeley. The Southern CA School of Optometry is another good school. The big name universities, Indiana University and Ohio State University are also good and I assume they are ranked in the top 5. You can see a list of US optometry schools in Wikipedia.com. There are 21 schools.