Is it better to go to medical school at the University of Colorado(home state(low tuition)) or say Harvard.?
Is it better to go to medical school at the University of Colorado(home state(low tuition)) or say Harvard.?
before you unanimously say yes take a look at these rankings.
http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-medical-schools/primary-care-rankings
The rankings are for the training of primary care physicians. The elite medical schools such as Harvard produce mainly specialists. The name of one’s medical school matters mainly when one is seeking a prestigious residency or fellowship or going into research. Most patients pay no attention to the name of the medical school on their doctor’s diploma.
Going off of that list alone, it looks like U of Colorado is not only a better medical school–but also cheaper. Harvard is farther down the list than U of C and cost approx $15,000 more. However, even if it is father down the list and more expensive, it seems it would be more prestigious to go to Harvard. I really think it would also matter what speciality you plan on going into. Let’s say you want to go into Oncology. While U of C might be better overall, maybe Harvard has a better oncology program. You also want to think about that as well.
Of course, it will depend also on how much money is available for tuition and how eager the student is to stay near family, what medical specialty, if any, interests him, and what school is best for that specialty.
However, for the sake of objectivity, I recommend that everyone interested in this question check out what the results of the survey are based on and what is meant by "primary care ranking" and also check out some of the other pages for which links are given. All may not be as it seems at first glance. Maybe I am misreading it, but in the following link I found something that seems to indicate that what is being measured is how many graduates go into the field of primary care, not how good the school is at training them for it.
http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-medical-schools/2009/04/22/medical-school-rankings-methodology.html?s_cid=related-links:TOP
It says:
"Primary-Care Rate (.30 in the primary-care medical school model only) The percentage of M.D. or D.O. school graduates entering primary-care residencies in the fields of family practice, pediatrics, and internal medicine was averaged over 2006, 2007, and 2008."
Besides that, in the "a~z" listings of the survey, the page for Harvard Medical School is ranked as No.15 for "primary care" and No.1 for research, while the University of Colorado at Denver is ranked 4 for "primary care" and No. 29 for research. So if you want a school that turns out a large proportion of primary care physicians (which I presume means family doctors)–an admirable job–then the U of Col. may be for you, but if you would like to get into medical research, maybe you had better go to Harvard.
Pick whichever school will do the most to help you reach your particular goal, and it may not even be U of Col or Harvard, but some other.