Every year US News and World Reports ranks medical schools based on a complicated process of assigning varying values to different criteria. For instance, how much research is performed at a given institute is put on a scale of 1-10. Quite frankly, this is a very asinine way of going about things.
What they really did was determine what schools would be considered the consensus top 5 schools based upon reputation alone (Harvard, Hopkins etc.) and then devised a system where these schools ended up on top and the rest of the medical schools fell into place somewhere behind.
Does anyone look at these from year to year? Oh look! Harvard is back in first this year! Hopkins sure had a good run going! How ridiculous! But they can do one better!
Now the braintrust over at US News has created a ranking system even more backwards. Did your 2 years of advanced chemistry during undergrad foster an interest in Geriatrics? Better find the best school for preparing you for your future career! Never mind that 99.999% of students either change what specialty they were interested in or seriously consider other options.
And how would you rank medical schools for how they prepare you for a career in geriatrics. Do some medical schools have especially old cadavers? Is the average age of the faculty >65?
Here are my thoughts: talk to medical students, talk to doctors--evaluate the advice they give you and see if it applies to you. At the end of the day it really doesn't matter where you end up. Got into Hopkins, Penn or Harvard. Congratulations! Now whenever you introduce yourself people are going to think that you are either grandpa gave a sizable donation to build a new library, or that you sold yourself as some oppressed Eskimo-Latino who grew up as the son of toilet assembler only to survive mean streets of Malibu and USC.
In other words, you are probably better off going where you know nothing is going to be handed to you. Newsflash: in California they won't know the difference between Wright State and Wayne State, so you better spend your time in med school wisely, e.g. study hard for Step 1 and get some research done during your four years.
Your thoughts?
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