Brown announced it will no longer participate in the US News and World Report medical school rankings. It should come as no surprise to those that follow medical school admissions that the boycott is not going to dissipate any time soon.
Dr. Mukesh K. Jain, the Dean of The Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University stated, “Central to Brown’s decision to end participation is our belief that such quantitative rankings do not adequately capture the quality of education nor the level of support provided to students at any medical school. The rankings also do not reflect the unique foci and missions of all medical schools, instead ranking them on factors that are not equally valued by all schools. At their worst, they perpetuate a culture of rewarding the most elite and historically privileged groups.”
The medical schools who have chosen to withdraw from the US News rankings have given different reasons for their decisions. One decision that is more unique to Brown is the ranking’s emphasis on full-time faculty. This “disadvantages schools like Brown that value the learning students gain from the clinical faculty who are practicing physicians in affiliated hospitals or other health care settings” according to the press release from yesterday.
