<p>Whew. Since I’m an engineering major, for a second, I was like “How in the WORLD are Northwestern and Brown better than UT Austin?”. But then I realized you were talking about medical school and not engineering.</p>
<p>So I guess, it depends more on how your school is for a particular department than the overall “name” or presitge. For example, UT Austin might not be much for medical school or biomedical-related stuff. But I’d say that if you had an electrical/chemical/mechanical engineering student from a public-Ivy school like UT Austin or UW Wisconsin (both ranked in the top 10), that’s better than having an engineering degree from Harvard (because Harvard isn’t really known for engineering).</p>
<p>I truly believe that when the term “top school” comes up, it has very little to do with the overall “name” and more to do with how known a school is for a particular department.</p>