'Top medical schools' list includes schools boycotting the rankings

The following is an excerpt from Becker's Hospital Review.

More than half of U.S. News & World Report's top 15 research medical schools have boycotted its rankings in the past year. 

The publication released its top 15 medical schools for research on April 11, a preview of the full list to come April 18.

Its methodology has been updated to prioritize outcomes for students — reflecting several schools' objections that the rankings are reductive and hinder diversity measures by prioritizing prestige. 

Of the 15 schools named, at least nine — including the top three contenders — have withdrawn from the rankings, refusing to submit data for 2023.

For these institutions, U.S. News used data from submitted statistical surveys in 2023, or 2022 if there was none. It also analyzed publicly available metrics from the National Institutes of Health.

U.S. News previewed its law school rankings, which have been met with similar media and collegiate backlash, in an identical fashion. 

"We develop our education rankings with the purpose of empowering students with helpful information to make one of the most important — and most expensive — decisions of their lives," Eric Gertler, U.S. News' executive chairman and CEO, said in a news release. "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 percent of their respective student populations.

Here are the top 15 medical schools for research, according to U.S. News: 

1. Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore) 

2. University of Pennsylvania-Perelman School (Philadelphia) 

3. Harvard University (Boston) 

4 (tie). University of California San Francisco 

4 (tie). Washington University (St. Louis)

6. Columbia University (New York City) 

7 (tie). Stanford (Calif.) University 

7 (tie). Yale University (New Haven, Conn.) 

9 (tie). Duke University (Durham, N.C.) 

9 (tie). University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) 

11. University of Pittsburgh

12. Northwestern University-Feinberg School (Chicago) 

13. New York University-Grossman School

14 (tie). Cornell University-Weill Medical College (New York City) 

14 (tie). Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine (Rochester, Minn.) 

Link to article here.