Stanford on US News Rankings

[PrettyPlease]

From the Stanford Med Dean's Newsletter

Ratings: Better But Still Not Right

On Monday April 7th, US News & World Reports came out with its annual ranking of graduate schools, including schools of medicine. In this latest report, Stanford was ranked #8 among research-intensive medical schools. While it is gratifying to be listed as a top ten school, the methodology used in this ranking is flawed in my opinion and actually adversely impacts our School.

Here's the problem. US News & World Reports weighs most heavily among its criteria the total amount of NIH funding. Stanford has the highest amount of peer-reviewed NIH funding in the nation per principal investigator, but because we are also among the smallest of the research-intensive schools, our total amount of NIH funding is necessarily limited compared to larger Schools of Medicine. Thus, in actuality, US News & World Reports values size more than quality.

Last year I wrote to the Editors of US News & World Reports about this problem and visited with them in Washington, DC. My message was that they should employ a methodology more akin to that used in schools of engineering whereby they weigh equally the total amount of NIH funding and the NIH funding per PI. That would be much fairer. If this is done for medical schools, it would mean that Stanford would be within the top 5 schools -- more accurately reflecting our true ranking.

I intend to continue to try to "educate" the editors of US News & World Reports with the hopes that they might revise the criteria for future years. In the interim, it is only fair to say that our ranking this year is better, but still not right!

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[painres]

Does this keep you up at night?

 

[Rapid Decomposition]

Yes, in order to be fair to schools that are unlucky enough to be ranked below #6, and thus seen as a "lower end" medical school, I think it would be a great idea if, next year, USNews provides a set of rankings criteria custom tailored to the specifications of each school.

In this way, every school will be able to be in the top five in at least one of the 125 sets of medical school rankings, more accurately reflecting the unique contribution and critical importance of each medical school to the state of American medical education, and ensuring that the self-esteem of every perfectionistic medical school dean is left intact.

 

[Horseradish99]

While I can understand where the dean of stanford med would be concerned about US news rankings, I think it's kinda silly that he's making that part of his public agenda... I would hope that deans spend more of their time and energy informing the public and their med school population about the 99.99% of other things they do (like keep the med school running).

I understand that rankings draw prospective students... but making trips to Wash DC to argue over three silly spots on a stupid rankings system is wacko.

Scott (proudly attending my #37th ranked school-- HA...ridiculous)

 

[dynx]

Yeah but your facilities are crap

 

[PrettyPlease]

What? have you ever been there? or you're just going based on rumor? my friend goes there and it

 

[USeF]

For better or worst, the US News and World Report rankings are the only widespread ranking of the top 50 primary care and research medical schools. The applicants that are most coveted by med schools do indeed look at these rankings while selecting which to apply to and later choosing a medical school if so fortunate as to be accepted to multiple.

A dean's mission is to run the best damn medical school he can. One part of this at top institutions is to attract the future leaders of medicine. A huge part of who you attract is your PR and like it or not (like many of you, I'm a not) rankings play a large role in a school's public reputation.

Selfish reasons as dean of a med school aside, I view it is a positive thing for a dean to seek a more equitable ranking system. I'd only hope if I choose a path of academic medicine that I too would call for internal and external improvements that would not only better the institution that writes my checks, but the medical establishment as a whole.

 

[PrettyPlease]

USef, couldn't have said it better myself

Is bigger necessarily better? No. A smaller school like Stanford is more intimiate but there are so many research labs to get involvled in that it doesn't matter that it's a little smaller than another school. It's lots of labs and such, but fewer doing the same types of things

 

[Rapid Decomposition]

Of course the rankings are used by applicants in determining what schools to apply to, and so schools try to increase their ranking. But the fact is, there has to be one ranking system. Some schools may not like it because they are short-shrifted by the way USNews does things (or at least think they are - personally I think Stanford's dean needs to stop whining), but that's just the way it goes. If Stanford's dean had his way, Harvard would probably fall several places in the rankings (since their rank is based on the sheer amount of NIH dollars - which is exactly what Stanford's dean is saying is unfair), and that would just create a whole new crisis.

Larger doesn't necessarily mean better, but you would be hard pressed to tell me that smaller does. I could just as easily say despite the "intimacy" that a smaller school affords, that having fewer ongoing research projects hurts the school in terms of research opportunities for its students, and therefore its research ranking should be decreased. Doesn't mean I'm right, but everybody has a different opinion on what characterizes the "best" research school. Some people want intimacy, some people want the sheer number of opportunities that a larger school would have.

People on this forum have been rightfully saying forever to take the USNews rankings with a grain of salt. The system they use is arbitrary, but the system applicants should use ISN'T. This is something Stanford's dean still needs to learn.

And wtf? They're ranked #8! Their dean must have been a gunner when he was premed.

 

[rajneel1]

UCsF:
"
For better or worst, the US News and World Report rankings are the only widespread ranking of the top 50 primary care and research medical schools. The applicants that are most coveted by med schools do indeed look at these rankings while selecting which to apply to and later choosing a medical school if so fortunate as to be accepted to multiple.

A dean's mission is to run the best damn medical school he can. One part of this at top institutions is to attract the future leaders of medicine. A huge part of who you attract is your PR and like it or not (like many of you, I'm a not) rankings play a large role in a school's public reputation.

Selfish reasons as dean of a med school aside, I view it is a positive thing for a dean to seek a more equitable ranking system. I'd only help if I choose a path of academic medicine that I too would call for internal and external improvements that would not only better the institution that writes my checks, but the medical establishment as a whole. "

I agree with UCsF. our dean is from harvard.

 

[Street Philosopher]

everyone should stop trying to be objective and just have a separate rankings based on reputation. that's all people want to know about anyway. and keep the other useful info in a separate ranking.

 

[Bonds756]

Every school can do some manipulating and letter-writing campaign to make a case that they were treated unfairly in a category used in the rankings. Standford is number 8 this year and the dean has to deal.

 

[MacGyver]

Ha ha ha this is absolutely ridiculous.

The stanford dean doesnt like the US news methodology so he wants to change it specifically so that stanford will look better?

What a bunch of crap. Surely he has more pressing issues to deal with. Maybe getting his MD/PHD program off of probation from the NIH is something he should look into instead of such a trivial matter.

His whole attitude reaks of hypocrisy. Its one thing if he wants to claim that rankings are important; thats totally reasonable position to argue.

However, to argue not only that the rankings are inadequate WHILE ALSO ARGUING that they should be changed to specifically benefit his school is absolutely laughable.

 

[gramcracker]

#8. Damn. How horrible Stanford's doing.

This isn't news. The PR department at my alma mater always puts out some stupid press release when the new rankings comes out. If we did better, the rankings reflect "our great school," if we did worse, "the rankings don't accurately reflect XYZ or don't take XYZ into consideration."

 

[SunnyS81]

I dunno. At my school (a pessimestic one at that), we are pretty happy whenever rankings come out. We always have headlines like "one of the elite 5" or something like that. I say that the dean should be happy with being 8. If anyone can provide a definitive way to rank the top ten school, that will be pretty impressive. From what I've seen, the match lists, MCAT's, GPA's, and faculty are amazing at all the schools. Yeah, there are certain things like Harvard and JHU will always be at the top, but I find the differences really hard to tell. Heck, this year you could argue that WashU and JHU's match rates aren't that great because of being 0/4 in Derm.

As for US News as a whole, I think they should realize something is really scewed with the way they rank certain schools. For example in their engineering rankings, Cal Tech isn't near the top. Anyone who has a clue about the schools knows that it is a great school. I'm sure that's the case with a lot of medical schools too that are essentially overlooked by ranking systems.

Just my $.02.

 

[Sage144]

WHO CARES.

God. Why don't you find something important to worry about.

 

[MacGyver]

Originally posted by SunnyS81
Yeah, there are certain things like Harvard and JHU will always be at the top, but I find the differences really hard to tell. Heck, this year you could argue that WashU and JHU's match rates aren't that great because of being 0/4 in Derm.

You cant judge match list from just one specialty in one year.

There's a matchlist thread somewhere on one of the other forums. Harvard didnt specify a true matchlist (they just gave percentages on certain specialties) so its hard to compare them, but otherwise Hopkins has the best matchlist out of any of the other schools posted on that thread.

My school hasnt published their list yet but I've seen it and I know there were at least 3 derm matches. However, since I've seen Hopkins matchlist I know right now that despite our 3 derms, our matchlist overall is nowhere near as good as JHU.

 

[AIM-MEDDY]

Seriously making a big deal about your school's ranking is B.S.!!!

I think to just make these top med school deans happy they should just have a top ten section so they do not have to make such a big deal about it. No specific rankings within these top medical schools.

These are my two cents!

-AIM-MEDDY
HMS 2007