Penn State withdraws from U.S. News law school rankings
- Thread starter BobPSU92
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Some research funding numbers , non-medical . But remind us we suck .
Serious question - what does research funding have to do with the quality of medical school education? How do regular students benefit? The University of Washington is #2 in the country in total research dollars (behind Harvard) but is far from a top 30 ranked school.
The danger of looking at USNews rankings. UDub is a better school than quite a few that USNews ranks higher.
Uh, if you think you are talking about Hershey MEDICAL? No. Not in the top 50 (dropped from 57 to 64 over the last 10 years) - and well below average among the Big Ten Med Centers.
Nebraska Medical recently moved ahead of Penn State in research funding.
Michigan, Minnesota, Northwestern, Wisconsin, Maryland, Iowa, Ohio State, Rutgers all ranked ahead of PSU - as will new Big Ten Universities UCLA and USC.
Indiana (the state) has an unusual set up - medical education/research at several locations - including Bloomington (home of IU "main") and West Lafayette (on the Purdue campus). IU Medical has significantly larger research funding than PSU Hershey.
Illinois' primary medical location is UI-Chicago, which ranks well above PSU.
Penn State does rank ahead of Michigan State - but that is it in the Big Ten (placing PSU Medical at 15th out of 16, depending on how you count the Indiana situation - though MSU is rising)
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Right. But it has more research dollars than MIT, Columbia, Princeton, Penn, UCLA, etc. Does that make it better?
Depends. Partially, and the answers are different depending on whether we are talking about at a graduate v. undergrad level. To be simplistic, more funded research tends to draw better professors and better students (at least those who wish to engage in research). The downside to that is that a lot of those professors never teach, spending all of their time in research, though they are engaged in indirect instruction by directing students in their labs.
Well, Princeton doesn't have a medical school and MIT doesn't have its own.
Turning back to the original discussion, which was PSU Law, if you drill down to funded research in the legal field PSU's amount is less than it was ten years ago. What does that say? Probably nothing. The amounts are paltry and they bounce all over the place.
I won't read through all these, but why does PSU have two law schools? I once heard the new law school building on campus isn't being fully utilized. I would unload Dickinson and keep a single on UP campus law school - maybe someone already suggested that.
Basically, the first two years of med school are basic sciences to prepare for clinical work. So in that regard I would say no to minimal difference at the schools in the upper third, which is about 50 programs. The class work is largely the same. Then you rotate through clinical services in the affiliated hospital for years 3 and 4. Depending on the strength of those hospitals there is some difference. More money allows you to hire well known researchers and prominent practitioners. You get a stronger faculty. Probably the highest stress in research is obtaining funding. If that problem is solved, it becomes very attractive to go to that university.
If you want to be a physician researcher, MD/PhD, it does matter which program you attend. Your CV, and pedigree are taken into considering when grant writing to NIH.
The more highly regarded schools tend to place more grads into the competitive residencies like orthopedics, plastic surgery, etc.
I agree with Art as it all depends on what your end game is as to which school is the most attractive.
Maybe someone can help me out here - why did PSU think it was imperative to have a law school at University Park? There are plenty of law schools in PA in Philly, Pittsburgh and the Harrisburg area (Carlisle). Was it so that the overall stature of the university would be enhanced? Some people have opined that law schools are cash cows for the university, sort of like MBA programs. They don't require a huge investment in property, plant and equipment.
It is noteworthy that several other PA colleges/universities looked at starting law schools in the 1990's and early 2000's, but they decided not to.
Keeping the one in UP and getting rid of Carlisle makes zero sense. The only logical answer is to keep Carlisle as the primary law school - it’s older, has an established and active alumni base, and is closer and more accessible to about a half dozen employment markets - and merge the UP one out of existence.
I have, with all due respect, a better question: why did PSU, cash considerations aside, think that the Commonwealth, the nation needed another law school? Spankie!!!!
This wasn't about needs. It was about wants. Penn State did not need a law school but those in power wanted one and made it happen.
As an aside, when i started law school in the early 70's there were 336,000 lawyers on the USA. Today there are 1.3 million, a 400% increase.
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Seems to me that the law schools in Philly were there to serve the Philly area; the law schools in Pittsburgh were there to serve the Pittsburgh area; and Dickinson was there to serve the state capital and the rest of PA. I got the impression that grads of Dickinson were well prepared to be lawyers in PA. Penn law was for those who wanted to work for the big corps, be federal judges or clerks for appellate and supreme court justices.
As someone once said to me "as you grow older, your toys become more expensive." To that I would add, "particularly if theiy're paid for with other people's money."
I discovered this bit of information just recently and find it astonishing. Among all law schools in Pennsylvania, Duquesne produced the most judges seated on the Superior Court, Commonwealth Court, and Courts of Common Pleas. Duquesne has 1 of the 7 on the State Supreme Court although Justice Baer who passed away last September was from Duquesne . Pitt has 2. Penn State/Dickinson has none.
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As long as we can burn the Katz Building down to the ground, I’m all for it. It’s been a while since we’ve gotten to do something like that at PSU. I miss it.
There were two alumni as recently as 2016 in Michael Eakin and Correale Stevens. There’s a vacancy with Max Baer’s (Duquesne) recent death, though, so who knows what the background of the interim Justice will be.
FWIW, there aren’t any Penn or Villanova alumni on the Supreme Court bench, either.
Whatever he was going to call you, maybe he did it behind your back.
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