These pillars of academic virtue are simply refusing to release performance data to the public. They aren't singling out US News; they're putting up an iron curtain (I know I'm a true poet) to everyone who's a potential customer. Why? Because US News spanked a few elite institutions that had fudged their numbers. The Ivy's don't feel they should answer to anyone, even the poor bastards that pay their now exorbitant tuition.
Harvard Medical School Withdraws From U.S. News Ranking
Dean says he was compelled to act after top schools pulled out of the law school ranking
Harvard held the top spot on the latest U.S. News & World Report ranking of medical schools for research and landed at No. 9 for primary care.
By Melissa Korn, WSJ
Updated Jan. 17, 2023 5:28 pm ET
Harvard Medical School will no longer submit information to the U.S. News & World Report’s medical-school ranking, the school’s dean said Tuesday, saying he was inspired by the recent withdrawal of top law schools.
Dr. George Q. Daley, dean of the faculty of medicine at Harvard, said he has a philosophical concern with rankings.
“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,” he said.
Harvard held the top spot on the latest ranking of medical schools for research and landed at No. 9 for primary care.
U.S. News CEO Eric Gertler said the publication provides prospective students with valuable data—and rankings should be just one component in the decision-making process.
Dr. Daley said he has been considering the move since becoming dean six years ago—and said the decisions made this winter by Harvard Law School and other high-ranking institutions to stop cooperating with U.S. News’s law-school ranking compelled him to act on behalf of Harvard Medical School.
In November, Yale Law School shook up its corner of the higher-education universe by announcing it wouldn’t participate in the U.S. News rankings; Harvard pulled out later that day. They were followed by more than a dozen top schools. The exodus pushed U.S. News to unveil a series of reforms to its methodology earlier this month.
U.S. News has ranked colleges and graduate programs since the 1980s and said it intends to continue ranking even those law schools that don’t provide internal data for the list.
Several law-school deans told The Journal they had wanted to walk away from the ranking for years, but were afraid to be the first and risk losing ground to competitors who continued to participate. It isn’t yet clear whether other medical schools will follow Harvard’s lead.
Dr. Daley said that while not intentional, rankings can lead schools to falsify data, center policies around rankings “rather than nobler objectives,” and divert financial aid from students with need to those with the highest test scores.
The U.S. News medical-school ranking relies heavily on peer assessment surveys, with 15% of the score based on reviews from deans, admissions directors and other academics and 15% based on reviews from residency program directors. Median scores on the Medical College Admission Test, or MCAT, and undergraduate grade-point averages also factored in, as did research activity and the production of primary-care doctors, for the two separate lists.
“Ultimately, the suitability of any particular medical school for any given student is too complex, nuanced, and individualized to be served by a rigid ranked list, no matter the methodology,” Dr. Daley said.
Write to Melissa Korn at Melissa.Korn@wsj.com
Appeared in the January 18, 2023, print edition as 'Harvard Pulls Out of Medical Schools Ranking'.
Comments