Every school is unique in its own right.  Knowing what makes schools different is a good way to figure out what school is best for you, and a great strategy for articulating in an interview what your own interest is in attending that school. I had a great deal of difficulty finding out what each school is proud of. Yes, I did all the typical preparation; I was on the school's website, read recent press releases, and knew the school's access sites for clinical rotations.  These days, every school boasts research opportunities, clinical examination training, computer enhanced evidence based medicine learning, and extra-curricular support.  The school has a small class size for attention and support, or a large class size for variety and social opportunity, it's in a city for experience with a diverse patient population, or it's outside the city for a more defined campus and scholastic environment. None of these reasons differentiate one school from the 125 other accredited US medical schools

Check out the National Institute of Health Research funding website (http://report.nih.gov/award/trends/FindOrg.cfm) to look up the school.  This gives a detailed ranking of funding given by NIH (arguably the most prolific and respected funding organization and consequently a reliable indicator of the institution's research legitimacy), as well as to what specific area the institution was awarded the most funding for. In 2007, Tufts School of Medicine was awarded 39 grants, of its 158 total research grants, in the field of biochemistry; you just learned insight into what makes Tufts tick.

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