Best Medical Schools In New York

As a totally unbiased poster with no conflict at interests as all (I’m certainly not a Columbia student or anything like that), I’d definitely say that Columbia is the best school .

Best overall med school in NYC?

I don’t want to troll or anything. I just curious what people think is the best overall medical school in New York City. It seems like each school has its individual strong points (e.g. cornell = global health, nyu = bellevue, columbia = surgery, etc), but overall which medical school has the best experiences for its students?

CUSEguy88

Full Member

i mean if you want to go by rankings (the most objective way to approach this). it’s Columbia.

Drrrrrr. Celty

Osteo Dullahan

Joined Nov 10, 2009 Messages 16,347 Reaction score 6,163

I don’t want to troll or anything. I just curious what people think is the best overall medical school in New York City. It seems like each school has its individual strong points (e.g. cornell = global health, nyu = bellevue, columbia = surgery, etc), but overall which medical school has the best experiences for its students?

in NYC
you have.

Mt. sinai – i personally think this school is amazing.. the humMED program is famous for taking people who major in humanities so im guessing they have a lot of cultural aspects and a colorfully diverse class

NYU – i think its a big school.. has a undergrad establishment thats high up.. seems like a pretty good school same tier as mt.sinai

Columbia – top tier.. you go here and you’ll be prepared for medicine..

touro – osteopathic school.. eh.. probably in my mind one of the more crappy ones..

cornel – hmm.. its top tier.. and has a great match list.. a lot get into ortho and other competitive’s

my favorite personally.. is Mt. Sinai..
it overal seems like a better school..
however if i got columbia.. i’d go there.. just cuz.. its columbia..

YouNeverKnow22

Full Member

TTigers70

Full Member

There’s also new york medical college (not NYU), Stony Brook, SUNY Downstate, and Albert Einstein. Think that is all of the Allo schools in NYC but could be missing some. Not sure how they compare but have a friend at Einstein that loves it and matched into a competitive neurosurgery program last cycle.

DrYoda

Space Cowboy

Joined Jun 22, 2008 Messages 13,815 Reaction score 129

There’s also new york medical college (not NYU), Stony Brook, SUNY Downstate, and Albert Einstein. Think that is all of the Allo schools in NYC but could be missing some. Not sure how they compare but have a friend at Einstein that loves it and matched into a competitive neurosurgery program last cycle.

Stony Brook and NYMC aren’t in the city.

This is a hard one, NYC has lots of good schools, best will depend on what you want. Mt. Sinai wins for location that’s about all I know.

TaylorMDhopeful

Here comes trouble!

in NYC
you have.

Mt. sinai – i personally think this school is amazing.. the humMED program is famous for taking people who major in humanities so im guessing they have a lot of cultural aspects and a colorfully diverse class

NYU – i think its a big school.. has a undergrad establishment thats high up.. seems like a pretty good school same tier as mt.sinai

Columbia – top tier.. you go here and you’ll be prepared for medicine..

touro – osteopathic school.. eh.. probably in my mind one of the more crappy ones..

cornel – hmm.. its top tier.. and has a great match list.. a lot get into ortho and other competitive’s

my favorite personally.. is Mt. Sinai..
it overal seems like a better school..
however if i got columbia.. i’d go there.. just cuz.. its columbia..

Haha, as a lifelong NYer I have to say that there are two more prominent medical schools that you forgot about. Albert Einstein in the Bronx and SUNY Downstate in Brooklyn. If the question was only about Manhattan then those are the schools but NYC consists of all 5 boroughs.

As for the answer it depends on what you want. Prestige. Columbia, Cornell, Sinai and NYU to some extent. Research. same 4. Strong Clinical experience Downstate, Einstein are apparently the frontrunners but the location of NYC and all its affiliated hospital will give you great experience wherever you go. Global Experiences. Einstein, Cornell and Columbia tops. Dorms/living. Cornell, NYU, Einstein tops I think but you can live anywhere in the city as there are many very good options. Diversity. Downstate, Columbia, Einstein. Curriculum, professors etc. is student dependent, what they want in a school.

Bearie

Full Member

To clarify previous posts, there are 6 allopathic medical schools in the 5 boroughs of NYC: Columbia, Weil Cornell, NYU, and MSSM (Manhattan), SUNY Downstate (Brooklyn), and Einstein (Bronx).

All are good and the 4 in Manhattan are really top notch. I’d say Columbia is the best ranked, Cornell has the best location (Upper East Side), and both NYU and MSSM are a small notch below but both now also have nationally ranked affiliated hospitals and great programs. If you like living in NYC, you really can’t go wrong with any of them.

riverjib

Full Member

To clarify previous posts, there are 6 allopathic medical schools in the 5 boroughs of NYC: Columbia, Weil Cornell, NYU, and MSSM (Manhattan), SUNY Downstate (Brooklyn), and Einstein (Bronx).

All are good and the 4 in Manhattan are really top notch. I’d say Columbia is the best ranked, Cornell has the best location (Upper East Side), and both NYU and MSSM are a small notch below but both now also have nationally ranked affiliated hospitals and great programs. If you like living in NYC, you really can’t go wrong with any of them.

Considering med schools are officially not ranked, you can look up the yearly “rankings” by googling them. US News and World Report ranks them in terms of research and clinical prestige.

Downstate is always the underdog, even among locals. I’ve worked with many physicians from Sophie Davis, where they had their “choice” based on interviews and class rank of 6-8 medical schools. They all competed for Mt. Sinai or Stony Brook. Stony Brook seems to be the top pick (1-2 hours outside NYC) for state schools. If I had the choice between the two, I’d pick Downstate, but then again, I’m interested in critical care. Stony Brook is better for research.

Among the Manhattan schools, it’s silly to rank them. They’re all premiere institutions. As for Albert Einstein, it’s insanely competitive and great for research, but the focus seems to be on community health.

GoSpursGo

SDN Chief Administrator

Joined Sep 30, 2008 Messages 38,599 Reaction score 20,880

ezsanche

Full Member

I would say Columbia.

Columbia is my dream school and I would love to go there. Please accept me

mdeast

Full Member

Joined Jun 22, 2009 Messages 2,374 Reaction score 61

I interviewed at all the Manhattan schools and Einstein. I’d probably rank them (personally) in this order:

1. Columbia
2 (tie..maybe slight edge to Sinai). Mt. Sinai, Cornell
4. NYU
5. Einstein

w8ting2exhale

what a journey.

Haha, as a lifelong NYer I have to say that there are two more prominent medical schools that you forgot about. Albert Einstein in the Bronx and SUNY Downstate in Brooklyn. If the question was only about Manhattan then those are the schools but NYC consists of all 5 boroughs.

As for the answer it depends on what you want. Prestige. Columbia, Cornell, Sinai and NYU to some extent. Research. same 4. Strong Clinical experience Downstate, Einstein are apparently the frontrunners but the location of NYC and all its affiliated hospital will give you great experience wherever you go. Global Experiences. Einstein, Cornell and Columbia tops. Dorms/living. Cornell, NYU, Einstein tops I think but you can live anywhere in the city as there are many very good options. Diversity. Downstate, Columbia, Einstein. Curriculum, professors etc. is student dependent, what they want in a school.

This is a great assessment. My 2 personal NYC favorites are Columbia and Mount Sinai. Columbia because it’s awesome as I know from experience and Sinai because it has a lot going on and I really like the vibe there.

imdanumb1

Full Member

This is a great assessment. My 2 personal NYC favorites are Columbia and Mount Sinai. Columbia because it’s awesome as I know from experience and Sinai because it has a lot going on and I really like the vibe there.

mmmcdowe

Duke of minimal vowels

Joined Sep 13, 2008 Messages 9,899 Reaction score 1,899

As a totally unbiased poster with no conflict at interests as all (I’m certainly not a Columbia student or anything like that), I’d definitely say that Columbia is the best school .

I’ll try to talk about the schools in a columbiacentric manner, but unfortunately I only applied and interviewed at Cornell, Columbia, and NYU so I can’t speak directly about Mount Sinai or the others. I have heard lots of great things about Mount Sinai though, and my interactions with the students there have been positive. Lot’s of cross talk between them and Columbia, more so than even with Cornell (which is maybe counter-intuitive since there are a lot of academic and professional connections between our schools).

Location: Cornell, NYU, and Mount Sinai all have great locations, but they also have crappy logistics in terms of the subway routes (I’m not entirely sure if this is true for Sinai, but the other two aren’t even near a stop. That’s a HUUUUGE hassle in the life of a medical student and an interviewee if you aren’t taking a cab). Columbia is attached to the A line on an express stop, so even though we are a little farther away from the action we tend to have about the same transit time with less walking involved when going to places of interest in Manhattan. This is somewhat less true late at night, when the A runs local and adds another 15+ minutes to your traveling time.

Prestige (not reputation): Well, I don’t think anyone can truly argue that Columbia and Cornell are the most prestigious of the medical schools, being Ivy League schools and also top 20 USNWR schools, the two things most likely to be known by the layman. NYU and Mt Sinai are well respected here in NYC though, so the day to day wow factor will still be there if that is what you crave.

Academic/Profesisonal Reputation: Columbia-Cornell (NYP hospital system) are widely respected as top research and clinical schools (not USNWR rankings). Part of this is because, among the two of them, they gobble up many of the best hospital affiliates in the city, in terms of research impact, community outreach (Harlem Hospital and also a lot of world famous community clinics like the Young Men’s Clinic), and just sheer magnitude of clinical services. Bellevue is famous, yes, but I’m not sure how regarded it is by the medical community, with the notable exception of their ER. Mt. Sinai has a great hospital, and is like NYP in its ability to provide health care to both the richest and poorest of New Yorkers. I don’t know much about the others, but Albert Einstein is affiliated with Calvary Hospital, which has some unbelievable stories to tell. Other medical schools do send kids over for clerkships and such though, but I feel like Einstein gets a lot more of it.

Public Health: Columbia owns this as far as I’m concerned, especially if you are interested in getting an MPH. Bellevue gets points too. Cornell and Columbia have fabulous international programs and opportunities, many of which you can do regardless of which school you are in. I can’t speak for the other schools, but Columbia has amazing affiliations with programs like Harlem Hospital, the Young Men’s Clinic, the Door, etc that you can do your first year clerkships in (shadowing plus a little extra basically).

Cost: Definitely not Columbia/Cornell, though there are scholarships. Interestingly enough, older non-trads get amazing financial aid from Columbia, and the need based isn’t bad for the rest of us either. It’s just that you have to have quite a bit of need to fill out that 30K+ a year tab. However, in general NYC isn’t the cheapest place to begin with unless you are living at home.

Student body: Most of the students I’ve met from other schools have been great. I haven’t met a lot of Cornell kids, but that might because there are less of them or because of their grading system.

I’d also consider things like P/F and ranking of your pre-clinical years. Also, just the format (Columbia’s is 1.5 instead of 2, etc). Research is great and all, but quite honestly unless you are getting a PhD I wouldn’t worry too much about it. ALL of the schools here have butt loads of research. It really doesn’t matter that much if they have 100 million or 200 million dollars in research funding, because you are only going to be getting like 10K of that if you are lucky in the end anyways.

Medical Schools in New York: How to Get In (2023)

Which are the best medical schools in New York? Learn admissions statistics, New York medical school rankings, and strategies to get into your top-choice program

Part 1: Introduction

Part 2: List of medical schools in New York: 2023 rankings and admissions statistics

Part 3: New York medical school profiles

Part 3: New York medical school admissions strategies

Appendix A: New York medical schools by degree type

Appendix B: New York medical schools by institution type

Appendix C: New York medical schools by region

Part 1: Introduction

Getting into medical schools in New York is no easy feat. Given its cultural cachet, large population, and many excellent schools, it’s no surprise that New York is one of the most popular places to pursue a medical education. Despite being the fourth-most populous state in the country, New York has the largest number of medical schools of any state (18), beating out the 16 medical schools in California, 15 medical schools in Texas, and 10 medical schools in Florida.

With 18 different programs come 18 different missions to help you develop into the physician you want to be. For example, the Zucker School of Medicine has developed a formal Humanities in Medicine Program, where students are encouraged to partake in humanities experiences (e.g., arts, literature, history) to help broaden their perspectives to truly understand the impact that illness can have on patients’ lives.

In this guide, we’ll discuss unique approaches to help your application stand out from thousands of others when applying to New York medical schools. But first, let’s start with an introduction of all the programs and important admissions statistics so you can see what you’re up against.

Part 2: List of medical schools in New York: 2023 rankings and admissions statistics

To make the research easier on your end, we’ve curated the most relevant information about each New York medical school to help you understand the admissions landscape throughout the state. If you would like to view stats for schools outside New York, you can also peruse the average GPA and MCAT score for every medical school.

No matter the type of applicant you are, it’s important to note the trends underlying medical school admissions in New York. After analyzing the data from the 18 programs in New York, we noticed the following:

• New York medical schools boast high rankings from U.S. News (Research). In the 2023 rankings, two are in the top 5, four are in the top 20, six are in the top 50, and eleven are in the top 100.
• Tuition and fees at New York medical schools are steep; the majority of tuition costs hover around $60,000. Of note: many programs in New York are private and therefore charge in-state and out-of-state students the same amount.
• The majority of schools, particularly private schools, are out-of-state friendly. (Note: In-state vs. out-of-state interview rates were not found for four schools.)

Numbers in parentheses reflect each medical school’s national ranking, whereas numbers outside parentheses reflect each New York medical school’s relative rank. Relative rankings help us to answer the question, “Which are the ‘best’ medicals school in New York?”

(Note: We strongly advise you to sign up for MSAR for the most up-to-date and comprehensive data on individual MD programs and to sign up for Choose DO for DO program data.)

New York Medical Schools	U.S. News Ranking	Location	Degree	Year Est.	Annual Tuition and Fees	Avg. GPA	Avg. MCAT	Interview Rate	First-Year Class Size
NYU Grossman School of Medicne	1 (2)	New York	MD	1841	$3,950 IS $3,950 OOS	3.96	522	7.2% IS 9.1% OOS	108 (14.8% IS)
Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons	2 (3)	New York	MD	1767	$69,363 IS $69,363 OOS	3.93	521	8.4% IS 11.7% OOS	138 (21.7% IS)
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai	3 (11)	New York	MD	1963	$60,405 IS $60,405 OOS	3.86	519	9.7% IS 7.8% OOS	120 (31.7% IS)
Weill Cornell Medical College	4 (14)	New York	MD	1898	$66,954 IS $66,954 OOS	3.93	520	8.4% IS 10.6% OOS	106 (21.7% IS)
University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry	5 (37)	Rochester	MD	1921	$66,285 IS $66,285 OOS	3.86	517	11.2% IS 10.6% OOS	104 (30.8% IS)
Albert Einstein College of Medicine	5 (37)	New York	MD	1953	$60,098 IS $60,098 OOS	3.82	516	24.1% IS 8.3% OOS	183 (53.0% IS)
Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University*	7 (53)	Stony Brook	MD	1971	$47,774 IS $69,264 OOS	3.86	517	21.1% IS 11.4% OOS	136 (69.1% IS)
Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell	8 (64)	Hempstead	MD	2008	$54,525 IS $54,525 OOS	3.84	519	21.7% IS 11.7% OOS	99 (50.5% IS)
Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo*	9 (74)	Buffalo	MD	1846	$46,722 IS $68,212 OOS	3.72	511	20.8% IS 3.2% OOS	184 (88.0% IS)
SUNY Upstate Medical University Alan and Marlene Norton College of Medicine*	10 (87)	Syracuse	MD	1950	$45,213 IS $66,703 OOS	3.79	514	23.2% IS 8.5% OOS	171 (71.3% IS)
New York Medical College	11 (93)	Valhalla	MD	1860	$60,602 IS $60,602 OOS	3.7	514	15.5% IS 3.4% OOS	211 (52.6% IS)
Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine Elmira Campus	12 (95–124)	Elmira	DO	2020	$39,900 IS $39,900 OOS	3.5	503	NA	145 (100% IS)
Albany Medical College	13 (UR)	Albany	MD	1839	$57,723 IS $57,723 OOS	3.73	510	11.7% IS 4.1% OOS	143 (33.6% IS)
CUNY School of Medicine*	13 (UR)	New York	BS/MD	2015	$41,912 IS $69,572 OOS	NA	NA	NA	71 (100% IS)
New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine	13 (UR)	Long Island	DO	1977	$62,066 IS $62,066 OOS	3.62	506	NA	393 (52.9% IS)
NYU Long Island School of Medicine	13 (UR)	Mineola	MD	2018	$3,450 IS $3,450 OOS	3.83	516	17.9% IS 9.4% OOS	24 (62.5% IS)
SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University College of Medicine*	13 (UR)	Brooklyn	MD	1860	$44,376 IS $65,866 OOS	3.73	513	32.1% IS 8.9% OOS	199 (87.4% IS)
Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine (Middletown Campus / Harlem Campus)	13 (UR)	New York	DO	2007	$59,150 IS $59,150 OOS	3.48 / 3.47	502.68 / 506.75	NA	225 (40.4% IS)

*Public medical schools in New York | UR: Unranked | IS: In-state | OOS: Out-of-state | NA: Not available