If you have been around colleges of pharmacy or pre-pharmacy programs you have undoubtedly heard people talk about their “Top 10” or “Top 25” school. Almost every time this is referencing the U.S. News and World Report Best Pharmacy Programs list. Almost every aspiring pharmacy student hopes to get into a “good” pharmacy school. Later applicants for residency programs hope their school was “good enough” to help impress interview committees.
This hope comes with a problem, however. I am pretty sure those rankings don’t actually mean anything.
The Methodology
US News tells us exactly how they get their rankings. When the rankings are generated, a survey is sent to the current (at the time) deans of the Colleges of Pharmacy on the list. In the fall of 2015, a marking research company, Ipsos Public Affairs, sent out the most recently published survey. The survey asked the deans to rate the other colleges on a scale of 1 to 5 with one meaning “marginal” and five meaning “outstanding”. The scores were then averaged giving each pharmacy school a score out of 5. These are the scores used to determine the rankings. Schools with the same average score tie in rank.
The Problem
The problem with these average scores is that as far as I can tell they aren’t actually published. We are given the rank for each school but have no indication what score was required to achieve that rank. Additionally, only 40% of deans responded which means that this ranking is based on the opinion of about 50 people.
Does it matter that we don’t know what the average scores are for each pharmacy school? I think it does. Let’s look at an attempt to try to back calculate these scores. The following chart assumes that the #1 school received all 5’s, and that none of the possible scores among the ranked schools were skipped. This probably overestimates the scores of the individual schools but it gives an idea of the maximum scores for each ranked school and the minimum separation between the top school and the last ranked schools.
If our assumptions are accurate, the top 10 schools are within less than a tenth of a point of each other, the top 25 schools are within two tenths of a point of each other, and the lowest ranked schools (those that tied for 98th) scored an average of 4.5 which is 90% of the highest possible score. US News does state that schools with scores less than 2.0 are listed as Rank Not Published, so it is possible that the low ranked schools scored just above that mark and the difference between schools are much greater. However, they also acknowledge that schools may be given a “Rank Not Published” rating for editorial reasons, and I suspect ending at a top 100 list in a list with only 125 schools is an editorial reason.
The Implications
What I think we should notice about the possibility that these scores are so close is what that would do to how we view these schools. If an applying pharmacy student knew that a school scored a 4.5/5, would they view that differently than they would knowing that a school was ranked 98th? I think many would. I also think that this difference might influence which schools students preferred or sent applications. So, what do we tell our pre-pharmacy students when they ask what the best schools are?
Should we be looking at NAPLEX pass rates, first time pass rates, or something else? Ideally a better ranking system that looked opinions of RPD’s and Deans, NAPLEX pass rates, number of clinical faculty per student, number of available rotations, graduation rate, and more would improve our awareness of the quality of each school’s education. Without a better system we should encourage students to be very careful paying much attention to these rankings, especially if going to a “better school” will result in a greater amount of debt at the end.
There are many good pharmacy schools that are training excellent residency candidates and future pharmacists. There are also schools that are not providing a good value for the amount of tuition they charge. Students should know what they want their school to provide and be aware of what that education will cost them. They can then pick a school which meets their needs at a value they are comfortable with paying off in 4–6 years.
By the way, if you are looking at a program in Social Work, Clinical Psychology, Occupational Therapy, Speech-Language Pathology, Nurse Midwifery, Physical Therapy, Nurse Anesthesia, Public Health, Health Care Management, Physician Assistant, Rehabilitation Counselor Education, or Veterinary Medicine those schools’ ranks are calculated in the same way.
