U.S. News 'Best Medical Schools' Rankings See Measurable Changes From Preview

The top of this year's "Best Medical Schools" list from U.S. News & World Report measurably changed since a preview was released last month and then subsequently pulled ahead of the final rankings rolled out today.

Changes affecting this year's highest performers come amid a tumultuous time for the rankings as a number of high-profile schools publicly announced their decision to no longer participate and submit data to U.S. News earlier this year. Notably, Harvard Medical School -- which was the first medical school to do so -- once again placed first in the overall rankings for best medical schools for research.

Johns Hopkins University, which had been listed in the top spot in the preview, moved to second. And the University of Pennsylvania (Perelman), which had been second, ended up third.

When asked about the reasoning for the changes to the top of the list, a spokeswoman for U.S. News noted in an emailed statement to MedPage Today that the preview "did not include affiliated hospitals for NIH funding."

"In order to provide students with the most recent data collected by U.S. News, the 2023-2024 Medical Schools: Research rankings were re-calculated for the May 8 embargo files to include total federal research from LCME [Liaison Committee on Medical Education] from FY 21 and 20, NIH grants to medical schools, and affiliated hospitals using the newest data collected by U.S. News from the schools for FY 22 and FY 21," the statement read. "Within the 2023-2024 methodology, there are four medical research indicators, and two-year averages were used for those indicators."

As for the rest of this year's highest performers, Columbia University took the fourth place spot, and was previously sixth in the preview. There was a five-way tie for fifth among Duke University (previously tied for 9th), Stanford University (previously tied for 7th), the University of California San Francisco (previously tied for 4th), Vanderbilt University (previously not among the top 14), and Washington University in St. Louis (previously tied for 4th).

Cornell University (Weill), New York University (Grossman), and Yale University tied for 10th place. They were previously tied for 14th, individually ranked 13th, and tied for 7th, respectively.

Rounding out the rest of the list were the Mayo Clinic School of Medicine (Alix), Northwestern University (Feinberg), the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Washington, in another five-way tie for 13th. Mayo previously tied for 14th, while Northwestern had taken the number 12 spot in the preview. The University of Michigan previously tied for 9th, while the University of Pittsburgh had placed 11th. The University of Washington had not been among the top 14 in the preview.

In an overview accompanying this year's lists, U.S. News noted that dozens of medical schools and law schools had publicly announced their plans to withdraw from its rankings.

"For medical programs that did not respond to the survey, U.S. News used survey data reported the previous year," the outlet stated. "If that was unavailable, the school was not ranked. Data from the National Institutes of Health and the American Academy of Family Physicians was also incorporated in the medical rankings."

"Methodology changes to these rankings were based in part on feedback from schools," U.S. News added. "For instance, there was more emphasis on outcome measures and less emphasis on reputation and selectivity this year, which led to some shifts in the rankings. For both full-time law and medicine, the reputation factors went from a weight of 40% of a school's overall ranking to 25%."

As for the outlet's decision to release a preview of this year's highest performers -- a departure from its procedure in prior years -- U.S. News executive chairman and CEO Eric Gertler previously told MedPage Today 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."

The entirety of this year's "Best Medical Schools" rankings from U.S. News can be found here.

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