<p>Personally, I think that BW loses a lot of credibility with some of the rankings it publishes, particularly in how it measures HBS. I mean, come on, seriously, HBS is not the #5 business-school in the country. According to BW, Chicago is ranked #2, but I think we would all have to concede that only a minority of people are going to turn down HBS for Chicago. Don’t get me wrong - Chicago is a fine school. But to say that it really is 3 places higher than HBS? I think that’s a stretch. I think it’s safe to say that there are more people at Chicago who would rather be going to HBS, but didn’t get in, than there are people at HBS who would rather be going to Chicago, but didn’t get in. </p>
<p>I would also point to the example of Northwestern-Kellogg. Again, don’t get me wrong, Kellogg is a great business school. But as you may have noticed from BW’s historical rankings, Kellogg has beaten both HBS and Stanford in each and every single year since there has been a ranking. Kellogg is good, but I don’t think it’s THAT good, to the extent that it deserves a complete 9-in-a-row sweep over both HBS and Stanford. Kellogg is a good school and you could make a case that maybe Kellogg might beat Stanford and HBS in certain years, but to say that it has beaten both of those schools in every single ranking since the ranking existed - I think that’s pushing it. Again, I would point out that there are probably more students at Kellogg who would rather be at HBS or Stanford than there are students at HBS or Stanford who would rather be at Kellogg. At best, you could say that the numbers are equal. But certainly, it’s not like Kellogg is really so much better than HBS and Stanford as to warrant a complete sweep.</p>