Business School and Medical School Top Rankings

Harvard’s business and medical schools are top in the nation once again, according to rankings published by U.S. News and World Report.

The medical school dominated the “research” category—with a overall score of 100, versus the second-place school, Johns Hopkins, at 81.

Jules L. Dienstag, Dean for Medical Education, said that she was proud but took the rankings with a grain of salt.

“While we are heartened by this news, we do not believe that such ranking systems capture the full scope of the student experience,” she said. “Like all our peers, we are constantly striving to improve and augment educational and research opportunities in order to better fulfill our mission.”

The medical school came in 15th in primary care.

The business school was able to take sole ownership of the top spot after tying with Stanford last year.

“It is great that Harvard was ranked so highly in the survey, as any time your school gets positive reinforcement it’s a good thing,” said M. Scott Daubin, co-president of the Harvard Business School Student Association.

Patrick S. Chun, the other co-president of the association, said that the school is taking steps to stay relevant in the modern world.

“It’s ironic that industry pundits look more negatively toward business schools while applications increase,” he said.

Students at Harvard College said that the tougher job market is bolstering interest in attending graduate schools.

“There has been an increase in applicants to medical schools, and an increase in Harvard students switching their concentrations to pre-med, hoping to avoid Wall Street,” said Christine W. Li ’10, president of the Harvard Premedical Society.

Nimi P. Katragadda ’10, co-president of the Harvard Undergraduate Women in Business, said she has noticed a similar bump in enthusiasm for business school.

Harvard Law School was ranked second in the nation, behind Yale, and the school of education was ranked sixth.

U.S. News’ ranking methodology uses peer assessments, standardized test scores, acceptance rates, and other metrics to assess the schools. The magazine presents data from over 1500 academic institutions.