This paper has its origin in the new evaluation system that was introduced by the Swedish National Agency for Higher Education (HSV) (from 2013 The Swedish Higher Education Authority) in 2011. In this new evaluation system the focus is on the results (in the form of bachelor and master theses) compared to the earlier systems that focused on processes, number of professors, published articles etc. The result of the evaluation of the subject of business administration, that was carried out in 2011, were to a certain extent surprising. At the bachelor level only three universities (Stockholm School of Economics, Jönköping International Business School and Kristianstad University) received the highest grade “very high quality”. The central question of this paper is how it was possible for a small university like Kristianstad University (HKR) to succeed in this new way of measuring quality in education. Was it pure luck or is it possible to explain this excellent result? The first part of the paper is a discussion that provides possible explanations like emphasis on quality and generic skills as well as the advantages of a small university with less distance between lecturers and students, and also fewer students compared to the big universities. In the second part of the paper we focus on the concept of “refinement”. The students that are admitted to the programme at HKR have considerably lower grades that the students admitted to the big universities. A survey of the bachelor theses that were sent to the evaluation from HKR showed some interesting results. The male students who had the lowest grades when admitted to the programme produced the best bachelor theses according to the evaluation.