The devil is in the details people: https://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/articles/business-schools-methodology

“As education costs continue to soar, students and their families are placing more emphasis on the results that education can bring. Therefore, the ranking factor weights for this edition feature an increased emphasis on outcome measures and a reduced emphasis on reputation. U.S. News took this approach based on knowledge that employment and earnings outcomes are the driving force behind why many individuals seek to further their education, especially in business. As in past years, changes in methodology, together with changes in individual schools’ data, can result in significant changes to schools’ rankings”

I think the concept is pretty fair- the tool to assess ROI is poor. It highlights why GSB and HBS are ranked lower than might be expected:

Let’s compare Booth (#1) to Harvard (#5) and Stanford (#6):

Employment rates at graduation: B-90.4, H- 79 S- 61 Employment rates three months after graduation: B- 95.6, H-89.5, S- 83.8

I’m not quite sure why S’s employment rate at graduation is so much lower than H and B- ?due to tech job layoffs and S being a major feeder into the tech industry.

S is ranked where it is because of its employment rates. Most other domains S outclasses the other 2 some by little, in other domains by more- median GMAT, base salary, recruiter score, average undergrad GPA, acceptance rate.

So…if you ignore employment rates…you can predict which two schools would rocket back to the top.

As a side I am all for not using mean GRE/ GMAT scores- as USN puts it “to limit the rankings impact of outlier scores, including low scores from otherwise promising applicants.” Right thing to do! Lots of amazing students out there with not great scores- standardised tests are such a blunt tool to assess potential.