<p>I can't seem to understand why Brown, a very prestigious university, would have such a low ranking on US News (38 research, 16 primary care). What accounts for this? Also, is Brown's med school curriculum more structured to churning out primary care physicians (internists, family doctors)? I actually want to be a hematologist at the moment. The only thing I can figure for why Brown's ranking is so low is its location. Providence, RI isn't exactly a major city, and obviously it won't offer a wide variety of cases for med students to see. I'm considering applying to PLME next year, and so I want to know if its worth it to go to Brown's med school. What's your take on this?</p>
<p>I applied to the PLME. Have yet to hear, RD.
I've visited Brown's med school and I found it pretty nice.
Rankings have a lot to do with the whole "money and research" in the surrounding areas - at least that's what I was told. So it pretty much reiterates what you said about it not being in a MAJOR city.
Cheers!</p>
<p>Research list is dominated by your more selective ivy-type schools with tons of money set aside for research.</p>
<p>Primary care tends to have schools with the biggest/best hospitals attached to rotations.</p>
<p>Brown is a prestigious undergraduate university - medical school is an entirely different game.</p>
<p>Well, except that Providence is generally considered a nicer city than, say, St. Louis, or Durham, or Cleveland, all of which have medical schools which are doing just fine.</p>
<p>The reality is that undergrad rankings don't line up very well with medical school rankings -- because they're not measuring remotely the same thing. These are professional schools, and they're asked to do very specific things that the undergrad school is not asked to do.</p>
<p>Why is the Yale MBA program less prestigious than Yale undergrad/law? Or why is WUSTL Med so much higher than the rest of the school? UCSF doesn't even HAVE an undergraduate program. What makes Hopkins so special for medicine but not in other fields? How did Chicago and NYU law end up so prestigious when the rest of their schools are mid-top-tier? Or, a few years back, what was so spectacular about Wharton when the rest of Penn was merely "excellent"? How did Kellogg excel so much in comparison to the rest of Northwestern?</p>
<p>Because professional school reputations are affected by very specific things which don't always correlate very well with more general pictures of a university.</p>
<p>keep in mind that the USNWR, for research uses the $ amount from NIH grants for 25% of the ranking and for primary care, replaces that 25% with % entering primary care residencies. Even though you want to be a hematologist (are you interested in blood banking?) you'll have to enter an internal medicine residency first, thus making you a part of that % entering primary care, despite your intentions to be a very particular type of specialist.</p>
<p>Second, realize that the rankings of medical schools is largely irrelevant. There are only 125 medical schools in the US and they are all GREAT schools, all will provide you with the knowledge, skill set and experiences needed to be a practicing physician in the US (evidenced by the 93% first try pass rate on USMLE Step 1 and the 93% match rate for US Seniors in the Match for residency). </p>
<p>Third, there have been articles, in particular an article in Academic Medicine, which call into question the accuracy of the USNWR rankings and if they really hold any merit at all. The consensus of most in medical education is that those rankings mean next to nothing. </p>
<p>Fourth, as ckmed mentioned, supposed medical school prestige is a different game. One only needs to see that state schools stack up very favorably to private schools, even in the USNWR rankings. When looking at med school rankings Nebraska, Iowa, Baylor, East Carolina, and the University of Washington among others rank above schools whose undergrad institutions supposedly blow those schools listed out of the water. There really is no correlation between undergrad prestige and medical school prestige.</p>
<p>Fifth, is Brown's curriculum structured for primary care? Hard to say - like I said, the fact that you want to go into to hematology, but will first enter an internal medicine residency means you'll be contributing to the % entering primary care statistics wherever you end up for medical school. I'm in the same boat as I know I want to go into some sort of pediatrics specialty, but will first do that peds residency. Do some schools put students in a situation to experience primary care fields more? Sure, my own school is pretty high up on the primary care ratings and gives us exposure to rural family practice or surgery for three weeks during the summer between M1 and M2, and then requires to do an 8-week family practice rotation during third year in a small town. Students are also given the option of doing our 8 weeks of pediatrics away from our medical center campus. Things like that may open some students eyes to family practice or rural medicine and push them towards that field. Other schools substitute family practice with Neurology or emergency med, and thus are less likely to push students towards the primary care field. Not knowing Brown's clerkship requirements, I can't tell you which they lean.</p>
<p>In the end, though you need to keep your mind open to specialties (all med students change their thoughts on residency multiple times), ignore the ratings and if you decide to apply to programs like PLME, that medicine is absolutely what you want to do.</p>
<p>PS: For the USN Rankings, I tend to sort them based on residency director score. Those scores tend to look more in line with med school "gossip chain" reputations.</p>
<p>Is there a web site to have every school's step score?</p>
<p>No. I've accumulated a few over the years. If you tell me what school you have in mind and why you're asking, I might be able to help.</p>
<p>S only applied to schools that have BSMD program. He already got accepted to SLU medical scholar with $20000/yr scholarships. He is also waiting for the results from 7 interviews. Several schools (undergraduate) already gave him merit scholarships from half tuition to full-ride scholarships. It's very difficult to determine to go to a school (VCU/MCV) with full-ride or to a school (Rice, USC) with half-tuition schcolarsips, or to a school (Northwestern, Brown) with no scholarships.
The programs that he had interviews are: TCNJ/NJMS, Rochester, PSU/Jefferson, VCU/MCV, USC, Northwestern, GWU. He is waiting for interview on Rice/Baylor. Brown does not require interview.</p>
<p>Let me know when admissions come through and we'll talk in more depth then.</p>
<p>brown also has a relatively small med school</p>
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I can't seem to understand why Brown, a very prestigious university, would have such a low ranking on US News (38 research, 16 primary care).
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<p>Harvard's engineering program is ranked somewhere in the 20's. Yale's engineering program is ranked somewhere in the 40's. Now, these are actually pretty decent rankings (because there are hundreds of engineering programs out there), but still, engineering at those schools is clearly a laggard relative to other programs. What about that?</p>
<p>slu doesn't give $20,000 scholarships</p>
<p>Brown is not low ranked, for whatever its worth 38 is a high number given the total number of US med schools..There are many larger, more established med schools than Brown.However it is highly regarded and you will have no problem getting an internal medicine residency and hematology fellowship from there.In fact you can do this with little problem from virtually all US med schools.Check the Brown website for residency matching of recent graduates they do very well and get into many top hospitals in all specialties.</p>
<p>with Warren Alpert's $100 million donation, I think Brown is poised to jump quite a bit in these rankings.</p>
<p>I've often thought that about a variety of schools, and I've usually turned out to be wrong. While that logic makes sense to me, I'm afraid it hasn't helped me make accurate predictions in the past.</p>
<p>Yeah, a lot depends on what that money is used for - new buildings? Endowed professorships? new technology? Even then it's hard to argue that anyone of those necessarily means improved quality of education.</p>
<p>S got accepted to 6 bs/md programs - PSU/Jefferson, VCU/MCV, SLU, USC/Keck, Northwestern/Feinberg, and TCNJ/NJMS. All schools (except PSU) gave good financial packages. Which school do you recommend?</p>
<p>Obviously this is a very personal decision. Does geography matter? Does he have a career plan? Etc.</p>
<p>I could simply repeat USN's opinion for you (Feinberg), but that doesn't take into account the fact that different people have different preferences.</p>
<p>In particular, was he admitted to any normal undergraduate programs that are on the table as well? On balance I'm not a fan of "tracked" programs and think that he might have some options here worth discussing as well.</p>
<p>River, you son has to consider other factors other than what looks best on his resume. As blue said, geography. Do he is like PLM method of learning, how is the curriculum structured, how much time do they allow you to study for step 1, does the hospital he will be rotating through during his 3rd year have a dept in the specialty he may wish to go into, cost, high board scores, P/F grading system?, etc.</p>