Boston's Harvard University is ranked as the No. 1 medical school in the country, though three other Ivy League schools make the top 10. At No. 3 is the University of Pennsylvania, with Yale University tied for sixth place and Columbia University ranked 10th. Tuition at Harvard is $40,000 per year, while Columbia charges $43,000. Penn and Yale are priced in between.
The University of California at San Francisco is the highest-ranked state school, finishing fifth. The University of Washington Seattle is the only other state school to make the top 10, part of the tie for sixth place. Other highly regarded state schools are the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of Michigan, finishing 11th and 12th respectively. The University of California at San Diego is tied for 15th. Attending any of the California state schools is free to California residents, while out-of-state students pay a standard tuition of a little more than $12,000.
Johns Hopkins University of Baltimore is the second-highest rated medical school. Washington University in St. Louis tied for third place with Penn, while Duke University and Stanford University finish the four-way tie for sixth place. Johns Hopkins has the lowest tuition of these private schools, at $38,000 per year, while Washington University is the highest at $45,000.
The University of Chicago and the University of Pittsburgh share 13th place, while Vanderbilt University shares 15th place with UC San Diego. Rounding out the top 20, from 17 on, are Baylor University, Cornell University, Northwestern University and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.
Only one medical school outside the United States makes the top 10. Sweden's Karolinka Institute is ranked ninth in the world, though three British schools make the top 20---the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge and University College London. Other prestigious overseas medical schools include the Netherlands' University of Leiden, Switzerland's University of Zurich, Japan's Kyoto University and Germany's University of Munich.
The University of Washington Seattle may have finished sixth in research, but it finished first in instructing primary care. UNC Chapel Hill came in second, while Penn had to settle for 12th, Harvard 15th, and Johns Hopkins 37th.