2020 rankings for US PharmD programs, research, and overall quality

Area of Science:

• Pharmacy education and academic program evaluation.
• Higher education quality assessment and ranking methodologies.

Background:

• Current US News and World Report (USNWR) rankings for graduate health programs, including medicine and nursing, use weighted metrics.
• USNWR pharmacy school rankings rely solely on a peer perception survey, lacking comprehensive quality assessment.
• Medical schools are ranked separately based on research or primary care focus.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a straightforward and transparent framework for ranking US pharmacy schools.
• To create separate rankings for overall quality, program (education) quality, and research quality.
• To utilize readily available academic data for ranking development.

Main Methods:

• Collected 2020 data for three education quality and four research quality metrics.
• Standardized and ranked each metric, then summed for separate education and research scores.
• Combined education and research scores with equal weights (50:50) for overall quality rank.
• Performed sensitivity analysis to assess the impact of varying education and research weightings.

Main Results:

• Generated distinct rankings for education, research, and overall quality (50:50 and 60:40 weightings).
• Sensitivity analysis revealed significant rank changes when weightings were disproportionately applied.
• Mid-ranked schools were most affected by weighting shifts, with some improving and others worsening in rank.

Conclusions:

• Separate education and research rankings effectively highlight diverse pharmacy school strengths.
• The proposed model is reproducible, uses easily obtainable data, and supports annual rankings.
• Rankings can assist PharmD and PhD applicants in school selection and institutions in benchmarking.