According to U.S. News & World Report, Student Doc and Schools 101, Harvard University's medical school, located in Boston, Massachusetts, ranked number one in research. The school doesn't rank well in primary care. With such a distinguished medical program, Harvard's admissions process is competitive. The 2010 class earned an average of 12.48 and 12.36 out of 15 points on the physical and biological science portions of their Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT), and entered with a mean GPA of 3.8 out of 4. Other Ivy League medical schools that consistently land in the top 10 include Yale and Columbia University.
The medical school at the University of California, San Francisco, or UCSF, is also well-ranked. It is consistently the top ranking public medical school. Since it is a public school, residents will get a cheaper tuition rate than is available at many private schools. In 2011, U.S. News & World Report ranked the school number four in the country for research and number five for primary care. Student Doc only ranked it in the top 10 for primary care, and Schools 101 ranked it number six in research and number three in primary care. The 2010 entering class earned an average of 12 out of 15 on both their physical and biological science portions of the MCAT, and earned a mean GPA of 3.71 out of 4. Other public medical schools that consistently rank in the top 20 include University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, University of California, Los Angeles, University of California, San Diego and University of Colorado at Denver.
Vanderbilt University, located in Nashville, Tennessee, is one of the few highly ranked medical programs in the southern United States. U.S. News & World Report ranks it number 15 in primary care in 2010. (Neither Student Doc nor Schools 101 rank past the top 10 medical schools.) In that same year, the medical school's entering class earned an average overall score of 11.3 out of 15 on their MCAT, and entered with a mean GPA of 3.8 out of 4. Other schools that rank in the top 20 in the southern states are Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, Emory University in Atlanta, and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which also ranks among the most affordable medical schools.
The University of Massachusetts Worcester's medical school is not the highest-ranking medical school, but it gets mention for its cheap tuition rates. In-state residents only paid $8,352 in 2010 for their medical school tuition. In that same year, U.S. News & World Report ranked it number 47 out of the top 100 medical schools in the country in research. In 2010, the medical school's entering class earned an average GPA of 3.65 out of 4, and an average MCAT of 10.69 out of 15. Other schools with tuition rates under $13,000 in the top 50, according to U.S. News & World Report, include University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, and the University of California campuses in San Diego, San Francisco, Davis and Los Angeles.