UW Medical School Bows Out Of US News Rankings

SEATTLE — The University of Washington School of Medicine will stop providing data for U.S. News & World Report's annual rankings, starting next year. School officials announced the change Thursday, following in the footsteps of other institutions like Harvard Medical School and Stanford Medical School.

Dr. Timothy Dellit, UW Medicine's interim CEO, said that UW has historically performed well in the rankings, but leadership does not agree with the methodology used to evaluate school quality.

"The U.S. News ranking process does not align with our goals of creating an inclusive learning environment and developing a diverse and culturally humble workforce," Dellit said Thursday. "The emphasis on prestige and reputation without any objective evaluation of the quality of education is discordant with our vision for the future of medicine. Similarly, the sole focus on standardized scores and grades does not reflect our holistic admission process and the importance of diverse life experiences. Instead, this emphasis perpetuates inherent bias."

Dellit said they provided data to the publication for this year but will end its participation starting in 2024. U.S. News' 2023 Best Medical Schools report ranked UW first in the nation for primary care and ninth-best in the research category.

"We appreciate and recognize that we have done well in the U.S. News primary-care and research school rankings, which reflected our high proportion of medical school graduates going into primary care and our success in federal research funding, respectively," Dellit said. "However, we believe that together with other medical schools, we can help to define more meaningful metrics that will reflect the impact of our medical school graduates in serving our communities and advancing scientific discovery."

He added that UW plans to work with other schools to develop "new and better measures that are valid, meaningful, and reflect our values." While the university is ending its participation in the medical school rankings, Dellit said UW Medicine will continue to provide data for U.S. News' Best Hospitals report, which relies on a separate methodology.