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More medical and law schools have announced that they are leaving the U.S. News & World Report rankings of those institutions.
The medical schools of Cornell University and the University of Chicago are the latest to join the movement. Harvard University kicked off the effort this month, and it was quickly joined by the medical schools of Columbia and Stanford Universities and the University of Pennsylvania and the Icahn medical school of Mount Sinai.
On Thursday, Francis Lee, interim dean of Weill Cornell Medicine, announced that it would join. He said, “Critically, the rankings measure more about the students who enter the school than about the physicians who graduate, or about the actual substance and quality of the medical education we provide along the way. The volatility of the rankings, and the lack of transparency about the formulas and algorithms upon which they are based, also speak to the inadequacy of this annual survey.”
At the University of Chicago, the leaders of the medical school announced the change in a memo to students and faculty members, The Chicago Tribune reported.
They said, “Our overriding concern is to help address and reduce inequities in medical school education.”
Mark Anderson, medical school dean, and Vineet Arora, dean for medical education of the biological sciences division and Pritzker School of Medicine, said, “This decision is based on our judgment that the current methodology raises deep concerns about inequity perpetuated by the misuse of metrics that fail to capture the quality or outcomes of medical education for those who most need these data: applicants to medical school.”
Meanwhile, the law schools at Gonzaga University and the University of Wisconsin at Madison announced that they will not participate in the law school rankings.
Wisconsin dean Dan Tokaji said, “The ranking contravenes UW Law’s mission of providing an outstanding legal education at an accessible price so our graduates can pursue any career path they choose” and “The ranking undermines UW Law’s core value of equal access to the legal profession by penalizing schools in states that allow licensure without the bar exam.”
