U.S. News Pulls Preview of Top Medical Schools Amid Rankings Delay

A little more than a week after U.S. News & World Report previewed its annual list of the best medical schools, the sneak peek has been removed from the outlet's website.

The move comes amid a continued delay in the release of this year's complete and final list, and as a number of top medical schools have publicly announced their plans to no longer participate in the rankings, following their law school counterparts. A preview of this year's best law schools has also been removed.

"As U.S. News previously announced, we are dealing with an unprecedented number of inquiries during our embargo period for the 2023-2024 Best Graduate Schools, including requests from law and medical schools to update data submitted after the collection period," stated a note posted late Friday on the preview page of the U.S. News website.

"While we address these inquiries, we have removed the preview content for the 2023-2024 Best Medical Schools: Research and 2023-2024 Best Law Schools rankings published here on April 11," the note continued. "As previously noted, the rankings are not final until they are published in their entirety on USNews.com."

A spokesperson for U.S. News declined a request from MedPage Today for further information on the preview's removal and ongoing delay in the release of the complete rankings Monday afternoon.

The "Best Medical Schools" rankings were originally due out April 18, but were then delayed until April 25. They have since been delayed again -- without an updated time frame for publication.

As for the outlet's decision to release a preview of this year's highest performers, in a departure from its procedure in prior years, Eric Gertler, executive chairman and CEO of U.S. News, previously told MedPage Today in an email that "we are releasing these previews now to share the top 14 schools in the two categories that have gotten the most attention in the media, which represent approximately 10% of their respective student populations."

In regards to the anticipated release of the complete rankings, Gertler had noted, "we hope the attention will be focused on those schools that represent the remaining 90% of students seeking to make the best choice for their legal and/or medical education."

Comment