????異常情況是統計數據分析常見的問題，而Poets&Quants的系統可以減少任何單一排名中出現的異常。正是這些奇怪的異常情況導致《美國新聞與世界報道》和《彭博商業周刊》的排名出現了較大的分歧。例如，在《商業周刊》的排名中，維克森林大學（Wake Forest University）商學院排在第11位，但《美國新聞與世界報道》卻將其排在第34位。而《美國新聞與世界報道》將加州大學伯克利分校排在了第2位，《商業周刊》卻把它排在了第15位。

????其他學院在兩個排名中的差異更加顯著。以東北大學（Northeastern University）達莫爾麥金商學院（D’Amore-McKim School of Business）為例。它在《美國新聞與世界報道》的排名中排在第72位，但《商業周刊》卻將其排在第19位，相差了53個名次。而著名的麻省理工學院（MIT）斯隆商學院（Sloan School of Management）在《美國新聞與世界報道》中與另外兩所學院并列第二，僅次于沃頓商學院。但在《商業周刊》今年的排名中，斯隆商學院竟然未能上榜。去年，麻省理工學院從前10名下滑至第19位，主要原因是斯隆商學院的商業專業本科學生少于125人，僅占本科生總人數的2%。而其他學院都有數千名商業專業本科生。《商業周刊》給出的解釋是：“如果潛在雇主希望雇傭大量商業專業學生，而斯隆商學院的學生人數過少，就不值得去那里舉行校園招聘。”

????為什么兩個排名會出現如此顯著的差異？罪魁禍首是不同的排名方法。《美國新聞與世界報道》的結果以雜志對商學院院長和資深教學人員的調查結果為依據，許多人會根據課程的聲譽進行投票，而不是課程質量。受訪者被要求從1（無價值）到5（優秀）對他們熟悉的所有課程質量進行評分。

????《商業周刊》的方法則更加復雜，也更具包容性。它的排名以對學生、雇主和學院的調查結果為依據。僅學生調查部分就包括44個問題，分別涉及教學質量、師資力量、學院設施、職業服務等。922位受訪雇主中，有301人完成了公司招聘人員調查，回復率為32.6%。此外，《商業周刊》還根據學院和學生提供的數據，嘗試對學院的學術質量進行評估，采用的要素包括最新一屆學生的SAT平均分，以及師生比例等。

????兩種評分系統均有各自的缺點。《美國新聞與世界報道》被指責其排名就是一場“人氣大賽”，因為它只是根據幾百人的意見就得出了最終的排名結果。而《商業周刊》調查的學生知道他們的回答將被用于學院排名，因此，最終得到的可能也只是一片叫好聲。

????Poets&Quants將《商業周刊》的排名、《美國新聞與世界報道》的本科商業課程排名，以及《美國新聞與世界報道》的美國大學排名進行了公平地對比，并將三個排名與一種計分系統相結合，得出了每所學院的基礎指數。以下是10大本科商業課程。

????The Poets&Quants system tends to diminish anomalies in any one ranking, a common problem with statistical analysis. Those odd effects lead to some fairly divergent results between the U.S. News and Bloomberg BusinessWeek rankings. While Wake Forest University’s business school is ranked No. 11 by BusinessWeek, for example, U.S. News puts it at No. 34. And while U.S. News gives UC-Berkeley’s business school a highly impressive No. 2 ranking, BusinessWeek ranks the same school at No. 15.

????There are even more dramatic differences among other schools. Consider Northeastern University’s D’Amore-McKim School of Business. U.S. News has it at No. 72;BusinessWeek gave it 19th place. That’s a difference of 53 places. Then, there is MIT’s prestigious Sloan School of Management. U.S. News has it in a three-way tie for second place, behind only Wharton. Shockingly, however, the school failed to make this year’s BusinessWeek ranking at all. The year before, MIT fell out of the top 10 to 19th place largely because Sloan has fewer than 125 undergraduate business majors, about 2% of its undergraduate student body. Other schools have thousands of students studying business. “For a potential employer looking specifically to hire a large number of business majors, this isn’t enough students to make a campus visit worthwhile,” explained the publication.

????Why are such dramatic differences so common among the two ranking systems? The inconsistencies can be chalked up to significantly different ranking methodologies. U.S. News’ results are entirely based on the magazine’s survey of business school deans and senior faculty, many of whom vote on the basis of a program’s reputation, not its true quality. They are asked to rate the quality of all programs they were familiar with on a scale from 1 (marginal) to 5 (distinguished).

????The BusinessWeek methodology is much more complicated and inclusive. It is based on surveys of students, employers, and schools. The student portion of the survey alone includes 44 questions about teaching quality, access to faculty, school facilities, career services, and more. The corporate recruiter survey was completed by 301 of the 922 surveyed employers, a response rate of 32.6%. An attempt to size up a school’s academic quality, using such factors as average SAT scores for the latest entering class and the ratio of faculty to students, is also used based on both school- and student-provided data.

????Both systems have their flaws. U.S. News has been accused of conducting a popularity contest with its ranking because it is simply based on the opinions of a few hundred people. By surveying students who know their answers will be used to rank their schools, BusinessWeek risks getting little more than cheerleader responses.

????Poets&Quants weighed three rankings equally—the BusinessWeek list, the U.S. News ranking of undergraduate business programs, and the U.S. News list of nationally ranked universities, combining these lists with a scoring system that resulted in an underlying index number for each school. Below are the top 10 programs.