Overall methodology

For the list, U.S. News surveyed 203 accredited medical and osteopathic schools between late 2025 and early 2026. Overall, 102 schools qualified for the list's research rankings, and 99 qualified for the primary care rankings. Most schools qualified for both rankings. Schools that declined to participate in the list or had insufficient data were labeled as unranked. 

U.S. News sorted the medical schools into four tiers based on their relative overall scores in each category:

• Tier 1: 85th to 99th percentile (highest performing schools)
• Tier 2: 50th to 84th percentile
• Tier 3: 15th to 49th percentile
• Tier 4: 1st to 14th percentile

According to U.S. News, tiers 1 and 4 are narrower than tiers 2 and 3 to highlight statistical outliers at the top and bottom of the data. Schools within the same tier are listed in alphabetical order to emphasize their comparability. 

Methodology for research rankings

For the research ratings, U.S. News assessed each school's performance based on the following indicators:

• Research activity, which includes total federal research activity, total federal research activity per faculty member, total NIH grants at the school and its affiliated hospitals, and average NIH research grants per faculty (60% of score)
• Student selectivity, which includes median MCAT score, median undergraduate GPA, and acceptance rate (20% of score)
• Faculty resources, which includes the ratio of full-time faculty to full-time students in 2025 (20% of score)

Methodology for primary care rankings

For the primary care ratings, U.S. News assessed each school's performance based on the following indicators:

• Primary care production, which includes medical school graduates practicing in primary care specialties and graduates entering primary care residencies (60% of score)
• Student selectivity, which includes median MCAT score, median undergraduate GPA, and acceptance rate (30% of score)
• Faculty resources, which includes the ratio of full-time faculty to full-time students in 2025 (10% of score)

Tier 1 medical schools for primary care

According to U.S. News, the tier 1 medical schools for primary care are: 

• Dartmouth College (Geisel)
• East Carolina University (Brody)
• Saint Louis University
• University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
• University of California, Davis
• University of California, San Diego
• University of California, San Francisco
• University of Hawaii, Manoa (Burns)
• University of Kansas Medical Center
• University of Minnesota
• University of Nebraska Medical Center
• University of New Mexico
• University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
• University of Wisconsin, Madison
• Western University of Health Sciences
• William Carey University College of Osteopathic Medicine