When U.S. News and World Report ranks the nation's colleges every year, it makes comparisons based on everything from the quality of professors to the caliber of athletic fields.

On this campus, students are often curious about how other schools measure up to Harvard in each of the categories.

But the magazine has consistently stayed out of one complicated component of the academic institutions--their health care programs.

How does Harvard's University Health Services (UHS) match up with other schools' health services? Are Harvard students receiving the best medical care, or can the University improve its health services by learning from its counterparts at other schools?

A look into the health services at UHS and its counterparts at Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton University reveals that the students at these schools generally receive the same level of care.

While appointments may be obtained faster at one school, or doctors may be friendlier at another, the systems share the same basic structure.

Primary care appointments in each school are handled by a mixture of nurse practitioners and physicans, and appointments with specialists almost always require a referral after a primary care visit.

One aspect of UHS that does distinguish it from most other systems is the sheer volume of its work. While health services on other college campuses usually treat only students, UHS also cares for faculty, staff and retirees--comprising about half of its workload.

But the large scale and broad scope of Harvard's program is a blessing in disguise for the students, according to Dr. David S. Rosenthal, director of UHS.

"It works to the benefit of the students because it allows us to have more services available for the students," Rosenthal says.

In comparison to the services offered by most smaller schools, Rosenthal says, "We're pretty rich when it comes to health care."

However, students at other schools can obtain those same services from specialists. Instead of having specialists from affiliated teaching hospitals come to the university, as done at Yale and Harvard, many colleges send students to nearby hospitals--where they may be seen sooner than the students waiting for care on campus.

Rapid Access?

One of the most common complaints among college students about campus health care is that they have to wait too long to be treated in a non-emergency situation. In the last few years, both Harvard and Princeton have changed their appointment systems to alleviate such problems.

Three years ago, UHS replaced its walk-in clinic, in which students waited--sometimes for hours--to see the next available doctor, with its present policy of arranging same-day "rapid access" appointments.