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Rankings: Controversy and Magazine Sales

The rankings sell magazines, provide data, corrupt our youth (or at least their education), and provide me with material for blog posts. Probably all the above is true, but the bit about corrupting our youth is exaggerated. There are much more powerful forces corrupting them than the rankings.

In the past, the following posts discussed the rankings controversy:

Now the noise level has increased, again, because The Economist-related Economist Intelligence Unit has published its "Which MBA" rankings sans Harvard and Wharton, who refused to provide information necessary for the EIU to rank them.

A few articles and posts have discussed this latest development:

My take on the controversy: While claiming that their refusal is motivated by the onerous time demands of these surveys, the misleading nature of the surveys, and loyalty to motherhood, God, and country, Harvard and Wharton are in a no-win position with these surveys. They can't build their brand through them, as can other lower-ranked schools which get great publicity from them. If HBS and Wharton are in the top 3, big deal. Yawn. If they go down in the rankings, that's news. Buzz. And it damages their brand. Rankings are a no-win for Harvard and Wharton.

Oh yes, the IEU's rankings:

  1. IESE
  2. Kellogg
  3. Tuck
  4. Stanford
  5. IMD

As with all rankings, you should understand the EIU's methodology before attempting to use the data, in this case based on student surveys and salary statistics. One useful aspect of the EIU's resource is that it makes it very easy to compare schools using different criteria.

Posted on Friday, October 7, 2005 at 11:29AM by Registered CommenterLinda Abraham in | Comments1 Comment | References7 References

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Reader Comments (1)

And now Business week has begun the countdown to the 2005 rankings, which will be announced on a live chat on October 13th! It's amusing that Business Week is hyping up the rankings as if it's an awards show like the Emmy's...having said that, I do think that rankings are useful because if an applicant has determined two schools to be equal in all factors except for rank, why not go for the one that will open more doors and has a better reputation?
October 8, 2005 | Unregistered Commentersandman

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