Methodology
This page documents where every rendered field comes from, how current it is, and the boundaries we hold. It is the trust anchor for the whole directory.
Our authority is transparency, not credentials. We do not claim medical or admissions expertise. What makes this reference trustworthy is that every data point is traceable to an official public source and carries an “as of” date, and that we say plainly when a field is unknown.
Field-by-field sourcing
| Field | Primary source | Update cadence |
|---|---|---|
| Name, city, state, type | Wikipedia list + official school sites | On directory review |
| Degree type (MD / DO) | Accreditor (LCME / COCA) and school | On directory review |
| Accreditation status | LCME directory (MD) / COCA list (DO), official | Each accreditor release |
| Control (public / private) | U.S. Dept of Education College Scorecard; Wikipedia fallback | Each Scorecard release |
| Founded year | Wikidata (CC0) | On directory review |
| Parent university | Wikidata (CC0) | On directory review |
| IPEDS UnitID | Wikidata / College Scorecard | Each Scorecard release |
| Tuition (standalone only) | College Scorecard (institution level) | Each Scorecard release |
| Enrollment (standalone only) | College Scorecard (institution level) | Each Scorecard release |
| Official website, application portal | Wikidata / official school site | On directory review |
| Logo (where displayed) | Wikimedia Commons, license-verified | On directory review |
The data firewall
This directory is built only from public-domain and freely licensed sources: the U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard and IPEDS (public domain), the official LCME and COCA accreditation lists, directory-level facts from AAMC and AACOM, Wikidata (CC0), and official school sites. We do not scrape or republish AAMC MSAR admissions statistics (median MCAT, GPA, acceptance rates) — that is a licensed paid product. Where those figures are relevant, we link out to the MSAR instead.
Firewall-honest tuition
Federal cost data is reported at the institution level. For a medical school that is a unit of a larger university, that figure reflects the parent institution, not the medical program. Presenting it as the school's tuition would be misleading, so we do not. A tuition figure appears only for a standalone institution where the medical school is the reporting entity, and it is dated. Of 228 schools, 27 currently meet that bar; the rest show no tuition and link to the official financial aid page.
No rankings
We do not publish, reproduce, or paraphrase medical school rankings. Rankings such as those from US News are copyrighted; where readers may expect them, we note their existence and link out rather than reproducing them. Nothing on this site is a “best” endorsement.
Accreditation currency
Accreditation status is sourced only to the LCME (MD) or COCA (DO) official lists, with the snapshot date shown on each school page. When a school cannot be confidently matched to a current accredited program — for example, a school still in development — we mark it for verification rather than guess a status. 12 schools are currently in that state.
Original descriptions
School descriptions are written by us from free-to-use facts (name, location, type, accreditor, founding). We do not copy Wikipedia prose, which is licensed CC BY-SA. Facts are free to use; we attribute their sources on each page and on the attribution page.
Corrections
If a field is wrong or out of date, tell us at hello@medschoolindex.orgwith the source, and we will correct it. Because these are decisions that affect real applicants, accuracy is treated as a duty.
Data as of 2026-07-07. Machine-readable version: /api/schools.json · /llms.txt