After holding the number two spot for 13 years, the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine has slipped to third place in the U.S. News and World Report's rankings of the nation's best medical schools for 2005.
According to the magazine, which was released this week, medical school rankings are based on a combination of two reputational surveys, one from deans and senior faculty peers and another from directors of intern-residency programs, as well as objective data, including such criteria as research awarded to the medical school and all its affiliated hospitals, student selectivity and faculty resources.
Hopkins lost number two status to Washington University in St. Louis, the Midwestern school that it shared the rating with last year. Both research universities suffered minute losses in composite scores, Washington University dropping from 97 to 96 and Hopkins dropping from 97 to 95. Harvard University, which remained at number one, kept a score of 100.
While Hopkins equaled Harvard in assessment scores, with a 4.8 out of 5 ranking from peers and a 4.7 ranking from residency directors, Washington University held its own with top rankings in the categories of student selectivity, average MCAT and GPA scores and student to faculty ratio.
Hopkins, however, did continue to rank within the top 10 in six out of eight specialized areas of medicine detailed by the magazine, including number one standings in the fields of Geriatrics, Internal Medicine and Drug/Alcohol Abuse and number two standings in the fields of AIDS and Pediatrics.
"We are among the most desirable medical schools in the country, the cr??me de la cr??me," said Johns Hopkins School of Medicine spokesperson Gary Stephenson. "I don't think it is so much that we have fallen, but that Washington has risen, and that just goes to show that the bar keeps rising, and that's a good thing, because there is always room for improvement. Anyone from the top 10 should be proud, and we are happy for Washington University."
Rounding out the magazine's top 10 research intensive medical schools were Duke University and University of Pennsylvania, tied at 4th place; University of California--San Francisco, University of Michigan--Ann Arbor, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and Stanford University, tied at eighth; and University of Washington and Yale University tied at 10th place.
"We do not consider this a horserace," said Richard Folkers, director of media relations at U.S. News. "We are known to make methodical surveys, and these ratings are solely for the benefit of students contemplating where to go to school."
Folkers pointed out the minute difference between the rankings of the top ten schools, advising students not to fixate on the numbers but to read across the line and look for the school that best fits their individual needs. "We are the first to say that our rankings are only a tool in the decision making process, and in the real world, I don't think that students take them so much into consideration as the rest of us do."
Despite the release of the new rankings, pre-med junior Amar Purewal said that he does not give much credibility to the statistics. "I don't put much faith in those rankings, and the only people it probably really matters to are the school's publicists and the parents of the kids attending," he said.
"I think judging a school based solely on its ranking is somewhat arbitrary, since there are a lot of intangible things that make Hopkins a great institution," said third year Hopkins medical student Amit Malhotra.
"I applied to a lot of schools, and the rankings were more a guide to get started. Then it was just about asking around and seeing from your professors and mentors what schools are worth visiting, and then once you visit, that's the only real way to get an idea whether that school is a match for you."
