How’s it going, everyone? Welcome back to the channel. My name is Junluka, aka Dr. Calcaño, and I am a final year medical resident in family medicine. So I’m actually really, really excited about this video because it’s been a while since I checked the rankings. But before I get ahead of myself, what we’re doing today is going over the top 50-ranked medical schools in the entire world. These are some of the most competitive schools to get into, along with their rankings and how they compare to each other. This time of year, so it’s currently about February, many pre-meds are going through the process of applying to medical school, and I get a lot of questions from pre-meds this time of year. Which University should I go to?
Should I choose this medical school over the other one? Do rankings matter? Does the fact that this school is ranked slightly lower in certain categories affect? Whether or not I should go there, I wanted to do today’s video number one to go over the updated rankings and number two to give my thoughts as a current resident physician on how rankings impact your decision to attend a certain school. Now, for today’s video, I’m actually partnering with a company called MotivateMD. Some of you have heard about them before. They are a medical school and a residency program. An application prep company that helps with interviews, essay writing, and application planning. You guys know I hardly do any sponsors here on the channel, but I don’t do them unless I look to them first.
These guys have great reviews. We’ll talk more about them later, but we’ll get to today’s video. So I’m not going to waste anyone’s time. We’ll go right to the top 50. Please go ahead and like the video and leave me a comment. If you could guess what the top one is, most people wouldn’t guess what number one is. It’s always up in the air, contentious. We’ll get into it as well. Starting with number 50, we have LMU in Munich. Then, at 49, the University of Manchester in the UK. Kyoto University in Japan is 48. Then we have Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the University of Amsterdam, and Seoul National University in South Korea. Roy is 44, Yonce is 43, and I’m very sorry in advance if I’m butchering some of these names.
I’m going to try my best. 42, we have KU. 41, we have Boston. 40 We have Northwestern in the United States as well. Then we have a two-way tie at 38 between the University of Sydney in Australia and Fudan University in China. 37 Chinese University of Hong Kong. 36, we have McMaster University, which is actually where I went. If I were putting this list together, I would put it up much higher. But we’ll get back to that in a little bit, too. 35 We have the University of Heidelberg. 34 We have the University of British Columbia, which is McMaster. It’s like they’re our rivals when it comes to these ranking systems. We’re always right behind, right ahead of each other. 32 Another two-way tie we have is the Washington University in St.
Louis, as well as the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 31, we have the New York University. Then at 30, the University of Tokyo. At 29, I am at Monash University in Australia. Two-way tie at 27. My German is not the best. Still, Charité and its, anyway, French-accented unsity in Berli,,n,,, then we have also 27 the;, University of Califo,r,nia, San Diego,,, on the other side of tha,t,, we have the University, of Chicago at 25,,, and then Peking U, ni,versity at 24,,, the Universit,y o,f Edinburgh in the UK at 23. Duke University is at 22, the University of Michigan is at 19, and20, and then the University of Melbourne, back in Australia, is at 20. The University of Hong Kong is 19. University of Washington, 18. Another two-way tie at 16 between the University of Singapore and the Karolinska Institute in Sweden.
Then, at 15, we have the University of California, Los Angeles. We haveBhua University in China. Then, at 13, we have King’s College London. A few famous YouTubers actually came from King’s College. We have Karma Medic. We have Kenji Medical. There are a few of them from there. And then Columbia is 12. University of California, Berkeley makes 11. And then I will pause before our top 10. So, two things I want to say before we get into the top 10: the top 10 is what many people ask me, like, how did these ranking systems work? And why did you choose to go with the Times Higher Education when it comes to ranking the medical schools?
It’s really only two companies that do it every year and have been trusted by people to compare the different school standings. On the one hand, you have the Times Higher Education Survey. And on the other hand, you have the QS university rankings, which come out every year. The only reason we’ve chosen to go with the Times Higher Education today is that they already have their 2024 rankings. QS still only has its 2023 rankings. As for the list itself, each of these schools has been ranked in terms of research quality, industry reputation, international outlook, research environment, and teaching. Then, together, they put it all together, yielding an overall score for each University.
Now, when it comes to the top 10 medical schools in the world, it’sit’sreally important to know that only three countries are represented. They’re either in Canada, the United States, or the United Kingdom. So, starting at 10, the University of Pennsylvania. Number nine for that Canadian representation. We have the University of Toronto. So, as much as it kills me to say, thank you, guys, for putting us on that list— number eight. We have Yale University, number seven. We have UCL in the United Kingdom, number six. We have Johns Hopkins at five. We have Stanford at four. It’s the Imperial College London, number three. We have the University of Cambridge. Two is Harvard University. Sorry, guys. And number one this year goes to the University of Oxford Medical School in the United Kingdom.
So, let’s say you’re shooting for one of these. These top universities, or let’s say you’re just trying to get into medical school. The reason I partnered with MotivateMD today is that I’ve concluded that, as I now approach opening my own office in July, we’ll be working a bit of rural merge as well. My schedule is just unbelievably busy— even to do videos like this takes so much time out of my day. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time right now to do one-on-one coaching for people trying to get into medical school. So I look for companies that can provide awesome services to students looking to get in.
People who don’t have any experience with the application process itself, because, as many of you know, there is a trick to the application process itself, and the more times you go through it, the higher your chance of success tends to be, overall, when you compare across different years. Now, one of the things I like most about MotivateMD is that they offer custom packages with a 100% satisfaction guarantee. You could choose to work with them just for your personal statement, your application as a whole, or for interview prep. You could actually call Becca, who’s awesome—she’s been great at communicating with me. Her cell phone number is listed in the link below. Go ahead and reach out and give them a call.
They’ll set up a meeting with you, and might ask exactly what you’re looking for. And that’s great to be able to offer. Or a package specifically for whatever you’re interested in, at an affordable, competitive rate. Now, the important part of all this is that when you are getting help with your application, it has to be custom-advised. Go ahead and use MotivateMD if you’re interested or find someone else, but make sure that the advice is tailored specifically to your application. They’ve officially just launched their services for Canadian students, which is such a small market, and it’s great that they’re offering that too. So, thanks, guys, for sponsoring the video now.
For the final part of this video, I want to talk about all of this ranking stuff. In my opinion, as a doctor, someone who’s made it to the end of this training process right now, I think the short answer to all of this is that no, like, I really don’t think that this ranking stuff should really impact your decision at all in terms of where you’re going to go. In most cases, I’ll also touch on the exceptions. Someone put it best in the comments section of the last video I did on the Canadian school rankings: to a certain extent, the best medical school for you is the one you can actually get into. It’s become this joke in popular culture that medical school is so difficult to get into.
But it’s based on reality when you look at Canadian medical schools and their acceptance rates, even McMaster, at 30, what, six in the world or something like that. That? Well, let’s take a brief look. When you pull up the McMaster admission stats, you see that the class of 2025 received 5,605 applications. The average GPA was 3.91, and the overall acceptance rate was 3.6%. You can pull up U of T’s admissions stats, and you’ll see a similar story: 4,263 applications, average GPA 3.93, overall acceptance very, very low. Now, just for the fun of it, I will put Harvard and Oxford up on the screen as well, with their admission stats and calculated acceptance rates, but just know that for all of these universities on here, especially the top 50, it is statistically almost impossible to get in.
So your goal as an applicant is to apply as broadly as possible to structure your applications and personal statements. Practice a lot on your interviews, too, and on your tactics for giving a proper interview. And try to get into as many different schools as possible. Then you get to pick which of those you actually want to. Based on a few of these different factors. Now, this is where the exception comes in. Suppose you know you are a big researcher and that you are going to devote much of your career to the academic side, and to primary research as an MD. That’s when you should put a little more attention into the school’s reputation in the global sector, especially if you’re going through a medical training program in Canada.
United States: Keep in mind that the residency matching process will be the most important part. And residency is going to be actually where you build those skills for the rest of your career. Thankfully, my residency program was amazing, and it really prepared me well. And it didn’t matter too much which school I went to, even though I really liked my school. But being here in this residency, there was a lot of rural exposure, procedural exposure, emergent, high-acuity cases, and then office stuff. And properly managing the office is the biggest part of this. I suggest looking into the different schools and how they match in terms of residency, as well.
But a lot of that is going to come down to you and being able to study for your exams. If you are an American student, being able to get a great score on the USMLE Step 2, and if you’re a Canadian student, being able to pick your electives, choose, and match properly. But it all comes down to what you’re doing, and not really so much as to where you’re going. But anyway, everyone, that’s the video for today. What do you think about all of this? Do rankings matter? Are you looking to attend a top-ranked school? And if so, why is that exactly? Or would you rather go to an in-state school where you’re going to save a lot of money on tuition, set yourself up for your future career, and put that money towards opening your practice eventually, or whatever it is you’re doing? Anyway, if you want to hear anything else from me, put it in the comment section below. We’ll make more stuff about this in the future. Everyone has a great day. We’ll see you on the next one.
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