Sometimes No (US) News Is Good News - Part 13 (What's Up Doc?)

We previously reported that the Harvard med school was joining law schools - including at UC - in abandoning cooperation with the rankings provided by US News and World Report.* Now more med schools are joining Harvard. From the Washington Post:

Within the past few days, medical schools at the University of Pennsylvania and at Columbia and Stanford universities have declared that they would no longer provide U.S. News with data it uses to rank them. Their actions came after Harvard University’s top-ranked medical school on Jan. 17 announced a similar withdrawal from participation. As a result, four of the top 10 on the U.S. News list of best medical schools for research are on record in opposing the ranking process.

The rankings “perpetuate a vision for medical education and the future physician and scientist workforce that we do not share,” J. Larry Jameson, the dean of U-Penn.’s medical school, said in a statement Tuesday. He said the metrics U.S. News uses encourage schools to enroll students with the highest grades and test scores. “Yet, we strive to identify and attract students with a wide array of characteristics that predict promise,” Jameson said. “The careers of transformative physicians, scientists, and leaders reveal the importance of other personal qualities, including creativity, passion, resilience, and empathy.”

Hours after that statement, the 11th-ranked Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai announced that it would no longer participate, either.

“I’ve been dean for 16 years, and I didn’t like living with the rankings,” said Dennis Charney, dean of the Icahn School of Medicine. The school almost made this decision more than five years ago, he said, but some people were concerned that it might affect their ability to recruit top students.

A similar dynamic unfolded in legal education after Yale University’s top-ranked law school renounced the U.S. News rankings in November. Many prominent schools followed Yale Law School’s lead...

Full story at https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/01/24/medical-schools-revolt-us-news-rankings/.

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*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2023/01/sometimes-no-us-news-is-good-news-part_19.html.

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https://ia904704.us.archive.org/3/items/new-year-outlook/more%20med%20schools.mp3