Okay just a quick disclaimer that this is my own subjective opinion.
Right, the first number ONE thing you need to know before even thinking about choosing a medical school is:
DO. NOT. COMPLETELY BASE YOUR CHOICE. ON ANY LEAGUE TABLE.
You MUST remember that, for other subjects, league tables are useful because they show how 'good' a course is in that subject is at a particular university, because this can vary and influence your employment prospects from university to university, but for medicine this is different as ALL MEDICAL COURSES IN THE UK ARE REGULATED BY THE GMC. Only a few universities in the UK offer medicine because only a few universities are good enough to be able to offer it to the expected standard. Therefore, there is no 'bad' medicine course. If you look closely at popular league tables such as The Guardian's, the criteria include '% Satisfied with course', '% Satisfied with teaching', '% Satisfied with feedback', 'Career after 6 months'. Let's break this down, so that I can show you why, except in a few extreme cases, league tables are less than useful when applying to medical school.
Under The Guardian's '% Satisfied with course' column for Medicine in 2014, out of 31 universities, only 4 fall below 80% (Manchester, Liverpool, Kings' College and St George's), one of which is in the 'top 20'
Under The Guardian's '% Satisfied with teaching' column for Medicine in 2014, the lowest figure out of 31 universities is 79% (Kings' College), and 21 out of the 31 universities scored 90% or over, including some in the 'bottom 5'.
As you can see, these criteria show that there is very little to choose between the universities in terms of student satisfaction.
However, '% Satisfied with feedback' is an interesting column, as out of 31 universities, the highest score is only 85% (joint Oxford and Keele), but all universities in the table (except Kings' College with an interestingly low 18%) have a score above 40%.
It is worth remembering that Oxford and Keele are two of the smallest medical schools in terms of students in the UK, so if I were to make a hypothesis concerning their high scores I'd say that due to the low student numbers (and the tutorial system at Oxford), faculty members can devote more time to feedback and discussion. That might not be the case at all, it's only my theory.
I hope that, so far, the data I've shown you has displayed the futility of league tables in most cases, and if not, let's take another look at Kings' College. In the three categories I have just mentioned (which I would consider the most important), Kings' College scores disastrously low, below any of their peers. However, Kings' is not at the bottom of the league table. The two universities below it score higher, much higher, in all three categories. The things that have boosted Kings' are its score in the remaining categories: 'Student to staff ratio', 'Spend per student' and 'Average entry tariff'. This means that Kings' (along with other universities that have lower student satisfaction scores), are pushed higher in the table depending on the amount of students they take in vs staff they employ (this ratio does not necessarily reflect class sizes, which is why it is not necessarily helpful), the amount of money spent on each student (it is not specified as to what this money goes towards) and the average UCAS score each university expects of the students they take in (which, of course, does NOT reflect the quality of the teaching).
In short, league tables are to be used WITH CAUTION. To make better, informed choices, speak to current students, visit an open day, read some of my articles on different medical schools, use the Student Room... there are HUNDREDS of other resources open to you.
Hope this helps!
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