Harvard Medical School pulls out of leading ranking system over dean’s ‘philosophical concerns’
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Harvard Medical School is pulled from an annual ranking of the nation’s best medical schools amid claims it discourages support for low-income students.
Citing “philosophical” problems with the long list of US News & World Report, Dean George Daley conveyed the decision Tuesday in a message to members of the medical school community.
The list ranks the best medical schools in the nation and is often used by prospective students and parents to determine which colleges to apply to.
Opponents are now calling the annual compilation “flawed,” alleging that it may unfairly influence students’ opportunities when applying for jobs, graduate schools and doctoral programs.
Previously, Harvard’s medical school was ranked the best in the country in terms of research and ninth in primary care.
Citing “philosophical” problems with US News & World Report’s long-running list, Dean George Daley conveyed the decision Tuesday in a message to members of the medical school community.
Announcing the school’s decision to refrain from submitting information to the media company for its tabulations, Dean Daley said he was inspired by recent decisions by Harvard and Yale law schools to withdraw from their list of top law schools. right for equity concerns.
“The rankings cannot meaningfully reflect the high aspirations for educational excellence, graduate preparation, and compassionate and equitable patient care that we strive to foster in our medical education program,” said Daley, a longtime HMS faculty member. longtime who took over as dean of the school in 2017.
The dean cited problems that educational leaders have had with the methodology used by US News & World Report for their lists.which had been dominated by Yale and Harvard since the 1980s.
Daley, a recognized leader in stem cell science and cancer biology, argued that the ratings create ‘perverse’ incentives for institutions to report misleading or inaccurate data to get a better rating.
Announcing the school’s decision to refrain from submitting information to the media company for its tabulations, Dean Daley said he was inspired by recent decisions by Harvard and Yale law schools to remove themselves from their list of top law schools. right for equity concerns.
The biologist added that instead of helping those in financial need, the school establish policies designed to raise their rankings, thus diverting financial aid only to high-achieving students, and not to those who really need it.
“Ultimately, the suitability of a particular medical school for a given student is too complex, nuanced and individualized to be addressed by a rigid ranked list, regardless of methodology,” Daley said.
US News’ ranking of medical schools is based on peer review surveys, and 15 percent of a school’s score is based on reviews by deans, admissions directors and other scholars.
Another 15 percent is based on reviews from residency program directors.
Last year, Harvard’s medical school was ranked the best in the country in terms of research by the media company, and ninth in primary care.
Mean scores on the Medical College Admission Test, or MCAT, and grade point averages of undergraduate candidates are also taken into account.
Research activity and the production of primary care physicians are also taken into account for each of the two lists of medical schools.
Daley said that, while not intentional, the rankings encourage schools to flip the numbers to get a better spot, diverting aid from students in need to those with high test scores in the process.
Instead, Daley insisted that his priority is not to receive a higher ranking, but rather to focus on the “quality and richness of the educational experience” for Massachusetts Medical School students, while creating an optimal environment for the personal growth of students and their ‘lifelong education’. learning.’
The school official then referred to recent decisions by Yale and Harvard law deans, praising them as “bold and courageous.”
Both schools caused a stir in November when they recused themselves from the law school’s version of the US report from the list in November.
Daley said the school’s maneuvering, which has since faced criticism, set the blueprint for his decision.
The school official said he was influenced by recent decisions by the deans of Yale and Harvard law schools, hailing them as “bold and courageous.” Yale Law School dean Heather Gerken (above) removed her law school from the company’s list of law schools in November
In announcing its intention to stop providing information to the US Report to be blacked out, the school criticized the the ranking methodology as fundamentally flawed, saying it discourages support for low-income students.
Yale Law Dean Heather Gerken argued that the system incentivizes schools to give aid to high scorers rather than to low-income applicants who need it most.
Gerken said the current list devalues programs aimed at helping low-income students and programs that encourage low-paying public interest jobs.
“US News’ classifications are deeply flawed,” Gerken said in a statement. ‘They discourage programs that support careers in the public interest, advocate need-based aid, and welcome working-class students into the profession.
‘Your approach not only fails to advance the legal profession, it stands squarely in the way of progress.’
The dean ultimately said the system undermines altruistic efforts to provide opportunities for students, as universities focus on prestigious rankings.
“In fact, in recent years, we have invested a significant amount of energy and capital in major initiatives that make our law school a better place, but work perversely to lower our scores,” he said of the university’s work.
He also criticized the rankings’ preference for schools that award scholarships to students with the best scores, not those who need the financial aid.
“This heavily weighted metric puts tremendous pressure on schools to overlook promising students, especially those who can’t afford expensive test prep courses,” Gerken said.
“At a time when economic equity concerns are at the center of our national dialogue, only two law schools in the country continue to provide aid based entirely on need: Harvard and Yale.”
The dean added that graduates appeared to be classified as unemployed in the US News classification if they took a school-funded scholarship for jobs in the public interest, or enrolled in higher education.
Yale remained at the top of the prestigious list for 32 years, but officials have long complained about lists that prioritize test scores and graduate employment.
US News & World Report, which began these lists in the 1980s, has since faced criticism in the months since, with several academic institutions, including Harvard Law, cut ties with the company.
Several other law schools have joined Yale and Harvard, two of the best schools in the country, in dropping out of the rankings.
The high-profile departures following a series of controversies over US News ranking lists.
In March, former Temple University business school dean Moshe Porat was convicted on fraud charges over a scheme to bolster schools’ MBA rankings by submitting false data to US News.
Porat, 76, was sentenced to 14 months in prison and ordered to pay $250,000 after a jury found him guilty on charges of conspiring to deceive donors and applicants.
Temple is now ranked 77th in the nation after falling to 100 last year.
Similar schemes were discovered at the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California and at Columbia University.
The US News & World report has long been criticized for accepting self-reported data by schools without any real audit function.
Yale’s drop from the ranking system comes after it clinched first place for the 32nd consecutive year.
The law school is known for producing some of the nation’s foremost lawyers and legal scholars, though several graduates have faced recent challenges over their connection to Wake Ivy League University.