Baylor Receives Highest-ever U.S. News Ranking

Baylor received national recognition for the substantial progress the University has made over the past five years as reflected in this year's U.S.News & World Report rankings, with Baylor jumping six places to 75th, its highest overall ranking ever among national doctoral-granting universities. The magazine evaluated more than 1,400 accredited four-year schools.

Universities in the state of Texas also led the Big 12 Conference among U.S. News' "Best National Universities," with the University of Texas at Austin ranked at No. 44, Texas A&M University at No. 62 and Baylor at No. 75. Seven other Big 12 schools were ranked from 79th to 124th. Oklahoma State and Texas Tech were ranked in the third tier by U.S. News.

"We know that parents and prospective students pay attention to these rankings, and we are pleased that the numbers do reflect all the positive progress that is happening here at Baylor at the halfway point of 2012," said Baylor President John M. Lilley. "But our success is truly measured by our ability to recruit great students, retain them and provide them with an outstanding Christian education and excellent facilities, so that when they graduate from Baylor, they are ethical and capable scholars and practitioners who contribute to their academic disciplines and professional fields and serve society."

U.S. News also gave high marks to Baylor's business and engineering undergraduate programs.

Baylor's Hankamer School of Business climbed two spots in this year's undergraduate business program rankings to No. 58, while Baylor entrepreneurship maintained 14th place among the nation's best entrepreneurship programs.

Baylor's engineering program held steady at No. 20 in the "Best Undergraduate Engineering Programs" category, which is confined to undergraduate engineering courses without doctoral programs.

Baylor improved in several areas, including acceptance rate (43 percent), top 10 percent (40 percent), SAT/ACT scores, percentage of faculty with terminal degree (80 percent), percentage of classes less than 20 (39 percent), actual six-year graduate rate (73 percent) and average alumni giving rate (34 percent), which is second among Texas universities behind only Rice at 36 percent and tops in the Big 12.

"All of these improvements help Baylor further its mission and enhance the quality of the education our students receive," Lilley said.