This is Florida’s highest-rated medical school, according to U.S. News

The University of South Florida’s medical school received top marks in Florida in U.S. News & World Report’s newest annual school ratings, elevating it above its Sunshine State peers.

USF’s Morsani College of Medicine was the only Florida school to make it into the second-highest tier in both categories of the national magazine’s annual medical school rankings.

Of the 102 schools U.S. News evaluated, USF was the only Florida school to reach Tier 2 (putting it in the top half of evaluated schools) in the primary care category. It was one of three Florida schools in Tier 2 for the research category, along with the University of Florida and the University of Miami.

In a change from previous years, U.S. News did not rank schools numerically, choosing instead to group them into four tiers based on how well they performed under their evaluation criteria.

The decision not to rank schools owed to the fact that many top medical schools declined to submit information to U.S. News for consideration, including many previously high-ranked schools such as Harvard University, John Hopkins University and the University of Pennsylvania.

“With limited availability of current, publicly available data from many medical schools, U.S. News chose to develop a comparative ranking of schools that completed the U.S. News statistical survey,” a spokesperson for the magazine said via email.

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In the primary care category, schools were rated based on the portion of recent graduates working in a primary care specialty or who are studying family practice, pediatrics or internal medicine, along with the selectivity of the schools’ student bodies, faculty resources and independent assessments of the schools.

In the research category, schools were rated based on the amount of federal research activity occurring at the school, along with the selectivity of the schools’ student bodies, faculty resources and independent assessments of the schools.

View the complete medical school ratings here.

Here's how Florida medical schools rated in the two categories:

Primary Care

Tier 1: None

Tier 2: University of South Florida

Tier 3: Florida Atlantic University, Florida International University, University of Florida, University of Miami

Tier 4: Nova Southeastern University, University of Central Florida

Research

Tier 1: None

Tier 2: University of Florida, University of Miami, University of South Florida

Tier 3: Florida Atlantic University, Florida International University, University of Central Florida

Tier 4: Nova Southeastern University

Andrew Marra is a reporter at The Palm Beach Post. Reach him at amarra@pbpost.com.