Every year, thousands of pre-med students flock to newsstands and bookstores to see the updated rankings published by U.S. News. What are the best medical schools this year? Where should I apply? Did my school increase or decrease? Though controversial, the renowned rankings allow people to compare between medical schools within the United States. But have you ever wondered, what are the best medical programs in the world?
The Academic Ranking of World Universities, an annual ranking published from Shanghai Jia Tong University in China, compares medical programs from across the entire globe. According to the ARWU, these are the top 15 schools in the world:
1. Harvard University (USA)
2. University of California, San Francisco (USA)
3. University of Washington (USA)
4. The Johns Hopkins University (USA)
5. Columbia University (USA)
6. The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas (USA)
7. University of California, Los Angeles (USA)
8. University of Cambridge (United Kingdom)
9. Stanford University (USA)
10. University of Pittsburgh (USA)
11. Karolinska Institute (Sweden)
12. University of Michigan – Ann Arbor (USA)
13. University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (USA)
14. Mayo Medical School (USA)
15. University College London (United Kingdom)
What methodology do they use?
Institutions are ranked according to their academic or research performance in each broad subject field. Ranking indicators include alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, Highly Cited Researchers, articles indexed in Science Citation Index-Expanded (SCIE) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI). Two new indicators were introduced, one is the percentage of articles published in the top 20% journals of each field, and the other is the engineering research expenditure.
According to the ARWU, US programs dominate medical education. 12 of the top 15 programs were from the United States. Furthermore, 32 of the top 50 medical programs were located in the United States.
