Ranking Practice Variability in the Medical Student Performance Evaluation

The Medical Student Performance Evaluation (MSPE) is an assessment of a student’s performance during medical school. There is great variability in the composition and format of the MSPE from school to school. We sought to appraise the variability in ranking systems in MSPE among US medical schools. We reviewed MSPE documents from 125 (95%) US allopathic medical schools over the course of two academic years, 2012-2013 and 2014-2015. We recorded whether the medical school had a ranking system, the type of ranking system used, the size and description of student categories, and the location of the ranking statement and category legend. Seventy-four percent (74%) of medical schools provide comparative performance (ranks) for their students. Of these, the vast majority (87%) group their students into categories or quantiles, but there is wide variation in the number and size of these groups. The most common descriptors for the top, second, third, and lowest groups were “outstanding”, “excellent”, “very good”, and “good”. We found the student’s rank and description of ranking system in variable locations in the MSPE. There is extensive variation among ranking systems within MSPEs. Program directors (PDs) may find it tedious to locate and translate a student’s rank and may have difficulty making inter-school comparisons.