By Aaron Miller-
The dean of Harvard University’s medical school announced on Tuesday that the institution would no longer contribute data to or otherwise help U.S. News & World Report’s rankings of medical schools.
Harvard has routinely dominated U.S. News’s medical school rankings for prospective students who want to focus on research, and is one of if not the most respected university i the world today.
Its withdrawal from contribution to U.S News and World Report’s from the rankings of medical schools follows discontent on the mechanism used to determine rankings.
Deal Daly said in a statement to The Eye Of Media.Com: “Educational leaders have long criticized the methodology used by USNWR to assess and rank medical schools.” “However, my concerns and the perspectives I have heard from others are more philosophical than methodological, and rest on the principled belief that 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 programs.”
Similar withdrawals were made by Yale Law School, the top-rated law school, led many other highly ranked law schools to withdraw from the U.S. News rankings this fall. Harvard’s was the second law school to join a movement that potentially threatens to spread wider.
“I have contemplated this decision since becoming dean six years ago,” wrote Daley. “The courageous and bold moves by my respected colleague Dean John Manning of Harvard Law School and those of peer law schools compelled me to act on behalf of Harvard Medical School. What matters most to me as dean, alumnus and faculty member is not a #1 ranking, but the quality and richness of the educational experience we provide at Harvard Medical School that encourages personal growth and lifelong learning.”
Daley added, “As unintended consequences, rankings create perverse incentives for institutions to report misleading or inaccurate data, set policies to boost rankings rather than nobler objectives, or divert financial aid from students with financial need to high-scoring students with means in order to maximize ranking criteria. 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.”
Harvard is not the first medical school to drop out of U.S. News. The F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine of the Uniformed Services University dropped out in 2016. An article in Health Affairs by Arthur L. Kellermann, a professor there, and Charles Rice, then the president, discredited the ranking stating that it: “illustrates the limitations of U.S. News’ ’one-size-fits-all’ approach.
U.S News & World Report rankings had recently tried to make amends to assure disgruntled institutions that its ranking mechanisms were credible and well intended.
A rounded discussion of the issues at hand would better serve all parties rather than what is now evolving to a discrediting of the longstanding establishment of The US News &World rankings whose expertise has been brought under scrutiny.
The issue has raised awareness of the all important need to question and scrutinise systems of rankings, with some academics reportedly now examining the methodology used by the World University Ranking of respected Times Higher Education in the Uk.
No dispute has been raised in relation to the credibility of the Times Higher Education’s ranking for the top 30 universities in the world, but some questions have now been raised i relation to its assessment of Universities ranked further down the hierachichal structure in terms of its methodology, which some of its emerging critics say may be too narrow and worthy of review
A statement set to this publication from the CEO and executive chairman of U.S. News, Eric Gertner said:
“Our mission is to help prospective students make the best decisions for their educational future,” Gertler said. “Where students attend school and how they use their education are among the most critical decisions of their life, and with admissions more competitive and less transparent, and tuition increasingly expensive, we believe students deserve access to all the data and information necessary to make the right decision. We know that comparing diverse academic institutions across a common data set is challenging, and that is why we have consistently stated that the rankings should be one component in a prospective student’s decision-making process.
The fact is, millions of prospective students annually visit U.S. News medical school rankings because we provide students with valuable data and solutions to help with that process”.