A novel approach to ranking physician assistant programs.

Purpose: US News & World Report (US News) is the only known media publication that ranks physician assistant (PA) educational programs. In 2007 US News ranked only 73 schools based on a subjective survey of PA school faculty and administration. This study presents a new approach to the ranking of graduate PA programs.

Methods: The 73 PA schools included in the 2007 US News ranking were ranked based on each school's current Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant (ARC-PA) accreditation length, student-to-faculty ratio, percentage of faculty with doctoral degrees, and the most recent 5-year average Physician Assistant National Certifying Examination (PANCE) pass rates.

Results: The top three ranked schools were, in order, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, Oregon Health & Science University, and the University of Iowa. There was a weak-positive relationship between the standardized rankings and scores and rankings by US News (r = 0.40, r = 0.41, respectively).

Conclusions: This novel approach to ranking of PA programs provides a basis for improving the methods of future rankings.