Here’s Who Topped This Year’s ‘Best Medical Schools’ Rankings

For a third year, the “Best Medical Schools” rankings from U.S. News & World Report were released with top institutions sorted into tiers rather than by individual placement.

For research and primary care, respective lists of “Tier 1” schools, representing the 85th to 99th percentile, largely resembled last year’s crop of high performers.

Notably, five schools moved into the top group for primary care: Dartmouth College (Geisel) in Hanover, New Hampshire; the University of California San Diego; the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha; the University of Wisconsin — Madison; and William Carey University College of Osteopathic Medicine in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

Two schools — the University of Colorado in Aurora and the University of Florida in Gainesville — achieved the same for research. Last year, all of these newcomers were ranked as “Tier 2” schools, representing the 50th to 84th percentile.

Like the last 2 years, institutions were placed using the tiered system, in which overall scores were calculated based on percentile performance compared with other schools, U.S. News noted. Additionally, neither peer assessment surveys nor residency assessment surveys were a part of the process.

The U.S. News medical school rankings were first released without ordinal placements in 2024 — as were the “Best Hospitals” rankings — after Harvard Medical School publicly stated they would no longer participate in the rankings, and a number of other institutions followed suit.

This year, U.S. News noted that it surveyed 203 accredited medical and osteopathic schools, with 102 qualifying for research rankings and 99 for primary care. Most schools qualified for both rankings. Schools that declined to participate or lacked sufficient data went unranked.

Indicators for research rankings included total research activity, total research activity per faculty member, total NIH research grants, and average NIH research grants per faculty member. Those for primary care included graduates practicing in primary care specialties and graduates entering primary care residencies.

“A school’s rank or tier should be one consideration — not the lone determinant — of where a student applies and chooses to attend school,” U.S. News said in releasing this year’s rankings. “Best Medical Schools assessed academic quality and outcomes factors that U.S. News believes are universally important to prospective students. But personal considerations involving location, environment, curriculum, and cost after financial aid are also very important.”

Below are this year’s “Tier 1” medical schools for research and primary care. The full lists of rankings are available here.

Tier 1 Medical Schools: Research

• Baylor College of Medicine, Houston
• Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland
• Emory University, Atlanta
• Mayo Clinic School of Medicine (Alix), Rochester, Minnesota
• Ohio State University, Columbus
• University of California Los Angeles (Geffen)
• University of California San Diego
• University of California San Francisco
• University of Colorado, Aurora
• University of Florida, Gainesville
• University of Pittsburgh
• University of Rochester, New York
• University of South Florida (Morsani), Tampa
• University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas
• Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee
• Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut

Tier 1 Medical Schools: Primary Care

• Dartmouth College (Geisel), Hanover, New Hampshire
• East Carolina University (Brody), Greenville, North Carolina
• Saint Louis University
• University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock
• University of California Davis
• University of California San Diego
• University of California San Francisco
• University of Hawaii — Manoa (Burns), Honolulu
• University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City
• University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
• University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha
• University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
• University of North Carolina — Chapel Hill
• University of Wisconsin — Madison
• Western University of Health Sciences, Pomona, California
• William Carey University College of Osteopathic Medicine, Hattiesburg, Mississippi