????從收到的申請(qǐng)人數(shù)量和質(zhì)量，到來校招聘的雇主數(shù)量和質(zhì)量，這些一年一度或兩年一度的排行榜影響著一所商學(xué)院的方方面面。它們甚至?xí)绊懡處熣衅腹ぷ鳌Ｃ髂崽K達(dá)大學(xué)(University of Minnesota)卡爾森管理學(xué)院(Carlson School of Management)院長(zhǎng)斯里拉塔?查希爾講過這樣一個(gè)故事：一位年輕且極具潛力的中國(guó)學(xué)者決定不加入卡爾森管理學(xué)院，原因是她的母親懇求她接受一所排名更高的商學(xué)院的聘書，盡管她的專業(yè)（管理信息系統(tǒng)）是卡爾森管理學(xué)院的優(yōu)勢(shì)學(xué)科之一。

????“幾乎所有學(xué)校都對(duì)排行榜既愛又恨，”印第安納大學(xué)(Indiana University)凱利商學(xué)院( Kelley School.)院長(zhǎng)艾達(dá)琳?克斯納坦言。“當(dāng)這些排行榜對(duì)你有利的時(shí)候，你就滿心歡喜，對(duì)你不利時(shí)你就會(huì)垂頭喪氣。很長(zhǎng)時(shí)間以來，我們一直認(rèn)為，好的表現(xiàn)注定會(huì)帶來好名次。但現(xiàn)在，我們終于意識(shí)到了一個(gè)事實(shí)：我們需要關(guān)注排行榜本身。”

????一方面，商學(xué)院非常依賴排行榜，將它作為一個(gè)與同類院校進(jìn)行比較的標(biāo)尺，學(xué)生的第三方向?qū)В约耙环N營(yíng)銷工具。另一方面，排行榜的泛濫導(dǎo)致廣泛的疲勞，嚴(yán)重消耗了時(shí)間和資源，排名急轉(zhuǎn)直下甚至可能會(huì)引發(fā)一場(chǎng)公關(guān)災(zāi)難。太多的申請(qǐng)人僅僅關(guān)注表面名次，他們所不知道的是，任何排名或許只是某位對(duì)商業(yè)教育不甚了解的記者所做的主觀判斷的結(jié)果。

????馬爾科姆?格拉德威爾在《紐約客》(New Yorker )一篇談?wù)摳咝Ｅ判邪竦闹亓考?jí)文章中回憶過一段軼事：密歇根州最高法院前首席法官托馬斯?布倫南給大約100名律師散發(fā)了一份非正式調(diào)查表。從哈佛、賓州州立大學(xué)(Penn State )到約翰?馬歇爾法學(xué)院(John Marshall)，他要求這些律師列舉十大法學(xué)院榜單。律師們最終把賓州州立大學(xué)排在了各自榜單的中間位置。問題是，賓州州立大學(xué)那時(shí)根本沒有設(shè)立法學(xué)院。格拉德威爾最后總結(jié)說：“聲譽(yù)評(píng)級(jí)只不過是從一所高校廣泛且易于觀察的身份特征中簡(jiǎn)單推論而來的結(jié)果。這些特征包括它的歷史，媒體形象和建筑風(fēng)采等等。所以說，這些評(píng)級(jí)帶有根深蒂固的偏見。”

????各類排行榜進(jìn)一步延續(xù)了這些假設(shè)。我們不妨就以《商業(yè)周刊》的在職MBA排行榜為例：這份雜志邀請(qǐng)各大商學(xué)院EMBA項(xiàng)目主管列舉他們眼中的“最佳”項(xiàng)目，并按照從1到10的順序排出名次——在最終發(fā)布的排行榜中，他們的評(píng)估意見占35%的權(quán)重。毫無疑問，這些主管紛紛引用各類排行榜作為評(píng)估同類院校的依據(jù)，由此創(chuàng)造了一個(gè)自我實(shí)現(xiàn)的預(yù)言。

????塔克商學(xué)院負(fù)責(zé)戰(zhàn)略措施的副院長(zhǎng)彭妮?帕克特稱其為“選美比賽”。“人們往往投票支持自己所在院校，他們的個(gè)人喜好并不一定建立在對(duì)學(xué)校的真正了解之上，”她說。“當(dāng)你被要求從200所候選院校中挑出所在領(lǐng)域的十大院校時(shí)，你會(huì)怎么做？你那樣做有什么依據(jù)？”

????These annual or biennial lists affect everything from the number and quality of applications a business school receives to the quantity and quality of employers who recruit there. They even have an influence on faculty recruitment. Srilata Zaheer, dean of the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management, tells the story of a young and highly promising Chinese scholar who decided not to join the Carlson faculty because her mother implored her to take an offer from a higher ranked school--even though her discipline--management information systems--is a major strength at Carlson.

????"Nearly all schools have a love-hate relationship with rankings," concedes Idalene "Idie" Kesner, dean of Indiana University's Kelley School. "You love them when they go in your direction, and you are frustrated when they don't. For a long time, we said that if you do good things, the rankings will follow. We have woken up to the fact that we need to focus on the rankings in and of themselves."

????On the one hand, B-schools rely on rankings as a benchmark against their peers, a third-party guide for students, and a marketing tool. On the other, a proliferation of rankings has created widespread fatigue, a serious time and resource drain, and a potential PR disaster when numbers take a nosedive. Too many applicants take them at face value, not understanding that the results of any ranking might be based on little more than the subjective judgments of a journalist, with little, if any, understanding of business education.

????In his pivotal New Yorker piece on rankings, Malcolm Gladwell recalls an anecdote in which Thomas Brennan, a former chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, sent out an informal survey to roughly 100 lawyers. He asked them to rank a list of 10 law schools, ranging from Harvard and Penn State to John Marshall. The attorneys positioned Penn State in the middle of the pack. The problem? Penn State didn't have a law school at the time. "Reputational ratings are simply inferences from broad, readily observable features of an institution's identity, such as its history, its prominence in the media, or the elegance of its architecture. They are prejudices," Gladwell concludes.

????These assumptions are perpetuated through rankings. Take, for instance, BusinessWeek's Executive MBA ranking: EMBA program directors are asked to identify the "best" programs and rank them from 1 to 10 -- this assessment amounts to 35% of the final ranking. Directors no doubt reference the rankings to assess their peers, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

????Penny Paquette, Tuck's assistant dean for strategic initiatives, calls it a "beauty contest." "People vote for themselves, they have personal preferences that are not necessarily based on true knowledge of the school," she says. "When you're asked to pick the top 10 schools in this field out of a list of 200, how do you do that and on what basis do you do that?"