Increasing Transparency for Medical School Primary Care Rankings-Moving From a Beauty Contest to a Talent Show.

The U.S. News & World Report (US News) annually ranks educational institutions on several criteria that affect many readers’ views of their institutional reputations.1 One critic of the US News rankings recently declared the medical school rankings a “beauty contest.”2 We agree and set out several years ago to persuade US News to shift the source of its data and diversify the foci of its medical school rankings to reflect a broader range of social mission metrics. We focused this effort on US News’ “Best Medical Schools: Primary Care” ranking because of the ongoing erosion of the primary care physician workforce and because, for some schools, it is a specific social mission. The new overall Best Medical Schools for Primary Care rankings were modified in 2021 such that 30% of the score is now based on graduates practicing primary care after their residency training rather than those entering primary care training. Initial residency comprises 10% of the score, which still overestimates primary care, but this measure has been reduced from its previous weighting of 30%. The remaining score (60%) is still largely based on reputation, which is assessed by (1) surveys of medical school deans, internal medicine chairs, or admissions directors (15%); (2) survey of primary care residency directors (15%); (3) student selectivity (median Medical College Admission Test score, 9.75%; median undergraduate grade point average, 4.5%; acceptance rate, 0.75%); and (4) faculty to student ratio (15%).