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Rising Above the Rankings Systems
As dental educators, one constant has been our unwavering commitment to quality programmatic outcomes, institutional excellence and the success and future-ready preparedness of our graduating oral health professionals. It is exactly because of this commitment that we have questioned the value of dental school rankings time and again.
Ranking of dental schools, as with rankings of other health professions education and graduate programs by third-party systems, has been a longstanding issue that ADEA, our Member Institutions and sister organizations have spoken out against for years. These rankings are typically arbitrary in the weighting of the various criteria and rankings. The topic recently made the news on Jan. 18, 2023 in The New York Times article Harvard Medical School Joins Boycott of U.S. News Rankings and again on Jan. 24, 2023 in The Washington Post article Major medical schools join widening revolt against U.S. News rankings. So ADEA has been at the forefront of this issue for many years.
Yet, despite our firm position and consensus as a dental education community on the subject, an increasing number of dental schools have shared their rankings in student recruiting materials and public and alumni communications, many from different sources.
We must all recognize that the practice of promoting these rankings is a disservice to the dental education community. We know that variations in the mission of each school raises difficulties in creating a valid and meaningful method that would distinguish schools for the purpose of such a ranking system.
Dental school rankings are counterproductive and pose a reputational risk to schools and to our current and future alumni. Any ranking of dental schools has the potential to disenfranchise students who choose to attend a school that may be ranked lower than another.
In 2022, the ADEA House of Delegates approved the ADEA Policy on Dental School Rankings, which explicitly states: “It is recognized that the use of rankings to stratify dental schools and suggest variations in quality among dental schools and in quality of their respective graduates has the potential of causing long-term reputational risk to the profession of dentistry, the member ADEA schools as well as current and future alumni of these programs. Dental schools should be discouraged from using such rankings in student recruitment materials, public communications and alumni publications.”
We must hold ourselves and our institutions accountable in our efforts to uphold this important ADEA policy.
We are less than two weeks away from Believe I’mPossible―the 2023 ADEA Annual Session & Exhibition in Portland, OR, and we’re looking ahead to another exciting year of face-to-face connections and collaborations that will help us to advance the vital work of this organization. As we celebrate 100 years of excellence and leadership in dental education in ADEA’s Centennial year, let’s be the example and continue to take a stand on this issue.
I appreciate your time and attention to this matter, and I am thankful for the many efforts to date by ADEA member leaders and institutions who continue to discourage the use of dental school rankings. We are an even stronger community when we are united around practices that help us to protect and promote our institutions, students, fellow educators and alumni today and into the future.
I look forward to seeing everyone soon in Portland!
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