How do you decide which medical schools to apply to? What if you could create your own personal medical school ranking system to help you identify what medical schools are the right ones for you to apply to?
Use the following checklist as a guide to set up your own ranking system:
1. Public or Private Medical School?
You may have a strong preference to attend a public university. That’s reasonable because many public universities are less expensive than private school.
However, you want to make sure that public school that you’re applying to will accept you as an applicant. Many public schools will not accept out-of-state applicants. And if you are accepted to a public school, you may have to pay hefty out of state tuition fees.
2. Research oriented or clinically oriented?
Are you clinically motivated, or would you rather spend time doing medical research as a medical scientist? Choose one of these two categories.
3. Geographic preference
Choose a geographical location that you will prefer to live in while you’re a med student. Do you need to stay close to home? Is there some part of the country where you’re happier? This is a major determinant of ranking for you and you’ll want to add it to your decision making process.
Pick the medical school that is right for YOU
These are the major pieces that will help you determine your own personal ranking system for which medical schools you would like to attend. Take each medical school in the United States and run it through the filter in order to establish your own top 10 or top 20 medical schools.
Your own list will be a much more accurate and much more satisfying list of schools to consider than simply picking the top 20 schools from US News rankings.