Students applying to top medical and law programs need not worry about Wake Forest’s drop in the U.S. News National Universities rankings last week, according to information obtained by the Old Gold & Black.

Anxiety has been high among some members of the student body, especially seniors who are looking for a job or applying to postgraduate programs, about Wake Forest’s fall from the top 30 to a No. 47 overall ranking by U.S. News. 

The Old Gold & Black reached out to the top three medical schools as ranked by U.S. News, the top three law schools by the same ranking —Yale, Stanford and the University of Chicago — and also Harvard Law School. It also reached out to several graduate schools on Wake Forest’s list of common postgraduate institutions. Each of the four institutions that responded to the Old Gold & Black confirmed that the U.S. News rankings have nothing to do with admissions decisions.

Medical schools such as the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Harvard Medical School all indicated that they do not consider the ranking of an applicant’s undergraduate institution in admissions decisions. Both Harvard and JHU no longer participate in U.S. News rankings themselves.

“We have never paid attention to these rankings,” Paul T. White, assistant dean for admissions at JHU School of Medicine, told the Old Gold & Black. “We look at the individual applicant using a holistic review process, not their school’s rank.”

As for law schools, Admissions Specialist Megan Fernandez at Stanford Law School confirmed that SLS does not use U.S. News rankings when making admissions decisions. 

Harvard and Yale Law Schools did not respond to the Old Gold & Black’s request for comment; however, both law schools made the decision last year to withdraw from the U.S. News and World Report’s Best Law School rankings. The University of Chicago’s Law School said it had “no statement” for this article.