The classic rad onc rankings discussion.... After following this thread for a couple years, I'd like to add some thoughts:
1. SDN rankings are based largely on medical students' opinions that have interviewed or rotated at these institutions.
2. Once a program is deemed a "top" program it gets perpetually regurgitated as a top program, which makes up and coming programs difficult to break into the top tier (i.e. UCSD, which would be in my top 10).
3. Rankings that are often left out of this discussion are the U.S. News Best Hospitals for Cancer, which have validated methods of ranking cancer hospitals. The 2013-14 top ten list is as follows:
1. MDACC
2. MSKCC
3. Mayo Clinic
4. Johns Hopkins
5. Dana Farber/Brigham and Womens (Harvard)
6. Mass General (Harvard)
7. UCSF
8. U of Washington
9. Cleveland Clinic
10. Stanford
The classic rebuttal is well... just because you have a great cancer hospital, doesn't mean your rad onc department is equally as great. This is absolutely true! However, the quality of radiation oncology training will be largely influenced by the caliber of surgeons and med oncs that surround you, and every one of these programs have outstanding radiation oncology departments.
There are programs whose US News rankings are much much lower than their rad onc departments should be ranked (ie. Yale (29), Michigan (24), Wash U (21), Duke (18), U Chicago and even Penn (13)) Most of these programs are deemed top 10 programs. But I think the US News rankings are helpful in placing an unbiased value to many of these places that may or may not be valuable to future applicants.