<p>Hello all, I have a question on the accuracy (?) of rankings. I ran into this when choosing between University of Massachusetts Medical School's biomedical science program and Dartmouth College's MCB program.</p>
<p>From US News and World Report, Dartmouth is 34 (3.6) and UMass is 58 (3.3). However, when I go to the 1995 NRC ranking, 1995 NRC Rankings, UMass is not bad at all in all the different biomed categories (mol bio, biochem...), while Dartmouth is not even ranked on several of the categories. </p>
<p>So my question is how do I tell which program is stronger and just how useful are these rankings, thanks all.</p>
<p>You are probably much better off getting the opinions of some of your current professors than relying much on rankings of any kind. The USNews rankings are based on fairly limited surveys and are not likely to be based on the level of detail about a particular program that would be useful to you. </p>
<p>There is a new NRC ranking due out soon, perhaps before you need to make a decision. This is MUCH more carefully done, and might provide some information. </p>
<p>Still, the determining factors will include the strength of faculty in the particular area you want to study, and even the NRC might not be that helpful. Other things, like the structure of the program, number of faculty in your area, "feel" of the department, support for the students, etc will also be factors.</p>