Quartile Ranking System for Medical Student Performance Evaluation (MSPE)

UMass Chan Medical School employes a quartile system to rank students for the MSPE. A student's quartile placement is determined/calculated using three key components: (1) Clerkship Weight, (2) Students' Clerkship Final Numeric Scores as compared to their rotation cohort's performance, and (3) Students' Overall Performance (Final Composite Score) as compared to their graduation class.

1. Clerkship Weight:
   Each clerkship is assigned a weight (w) summing 2 components: the base weight (b) and the duration weight (e). 
   
            Base weight, which includes the first rotation week: 0.3500/clerkship
            Duration weight for additional weeks beyond first: 0.1625/additional week
   
   The table below outlines the weights assigned to current clerkships as of May 2025*:
   
   

   CLERKSHIP	Duration (weeks) (a)	Base Weight (b)	Weight per Additional Week (c)	# of Additional Weeks (d) = (a)-1	Duration Weight (e) = (c)*(d)	Total Weight (w) = (b)+(e)	Eligible for Graduation Year Starting
   Family Medicine, Neurology, Ob/Gyn, Pediatrics, Psychiatry	5	0.3500	0.1625	4	0.6500	1.000	2026
   Surgery	8	0.3500	0.1625	7	1.1375	1.4875	2026
   Internal Medicine	9	0.3500	0.1625	8	1.3000	1.6500	2026
   Radiology	1	0.3500	0.1625	0	0.0000	0.3500	2027
   Population Health	2	0.3500	0.1625	1	0.1625	0.5125	2027

   *Radiology and PCHC completed on or before AY24-25 will NOT be included in quartile calculation

2. Clerkship Final Numeric Scores Relative to Rotation Cohort:
   • Inclusion/Exclusion: Any and all eligible and available clerkship final numeric scores as of the calculation deadline are accounted for in the MSPE calculation. Overall numeric scores from finalized incompletes are excluded prior to, but included beginning in, AY25-26. Clerkship grades not finalized by this deadline (e.g., from rotations completed in late 4th year) and their associated rotations are excluded completely from the calculation. Letter grades are not used for quartile calculation.
   • Rotation Cohort Definition: Each student's final numeric clerkship score is benchmarked against the performance of their rotation cohort, defined as the academic year group with whom the student completed the majority of the clerkship. When performance data for teh relevant cohort are unavailable (e.g., for roations completed in early 4th year), the clerkship final score is ranked against a composit group consisting of the student's subcohort from the preceeding academic year.
   • Standardized Percentile Score Calculation: Each included final numeric score is converted into a standardized percentile score within the corresponding rotation cohort. If a student has multiple final numeric scores for the same clerkship, each is individually converted to a respective percentile score, and the average of these percentiles is used as the final percentile score for that clerkship.
3. Final Composite Score: 
   The Final Composite Score is computed by averaging the student's percentile scores across all applicable clerkships calculated in Section 2, weighted by the respective clerkship weights described in Section 1.
   
   
4. Quartile Assignment: 
   Students are placed into quartiles based on their Final Composite Score, relative to their graduation class.