Harvard Medical School Pulls Out of U.S. News Ranking
Over the past year, multiple undergraduate programs, starting with Columbia University, have stopped submitting their data to the U.S. News and World Report, which led to a handful of top law schools, including Harvard and Yale, to follow suit. Now, Harvard Medical School has announced that they will no longer participate in the rankings.
The decision for Harvard Medical School to leave the rankings was largely inspired by Harvard Law School’s decision. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Dr. George Q. Daley, dean of the faculty of medicine at Harvard, stated, “Rankings cannot meaningfully reflect the high aspirations for educational excellence, graduate preparedness, and compassionate and equitable patient care that we strive to foster in our medical education program.” Does this statement sound familiar? It is very similar to the statements released by the other schools who have pulled out of the ranking system. This shows that many schools have the same concerns about how the data used in the ranking system does not reflect the missions of the individual schools.
According to the Wall Street Journal article, several deans from different schools have wanted to walk away from the ranking system for years, but nobody wanted to be the first. Now that the precedent has been set, it seems like many are on board.
It is important to note that U.S. News will continue to rank the schools, but they will have to rely on data from external sources rather than data directly from the schools. Traditionally, in the medical school rankings, 15% of the score comes from reviews from deans and admissions directors, and 15% from reviews of residency program directors. The rest of the information used in the ranking comes from data submitted directly by the school. This includes information such as median scores on the Medical College Admissions Test, undergraduate GPAs, and factors such as research productivity. When a school stops submitting their own data, U.S. News uses external data to rank them.
Where does that external data come from? We’re not entirely sure because U.S. News is not very transparent with that information. Remember, Columbia’s undergraduate program fell from the No. 2 spot to No. 18 in a single year without making many, if any, changes to the way they operate. But, the publication has not explained how that drop occurred. So while students, parents, and employers alike put a lot of emphasis on the rankings, to some degree they should be taken with a grain of salt.
As of the writing of this article, Harvard is the only medical school to leave the rankings. However, if recent history shows us anything, other schools will soon follow suit. If and when that happens, we will let you know.
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