NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP) — Colleges and universities historically affiliated with Southern Baptist state conventions featured prominently, once again, in a popular annual ranking of schools.
U.S. News and World Report magazine's “Best Colleges 2006” issue listed 24 of the 53 members of the Association of Southern Baptist Colleges and Schools in the top halves of their respective categories, according to the group's director, Bob Agee.
Baylor University in Texas was tied for 78th out of 248 schools in the category of “best national universities.” Those, according to the magazine, were schools that offer comprehensive undergraduate, master's and doctoral programs.
The magazine also ranked liberal-arts colleges nationally as well as categories it called “comprehensive colleges” and “master's universities.” Comprehensive colleges are schools that focus on undergraduate education but grant fewer than half of their degrees in traditional liberal-arts disciplines, and master's universities are schools that offer a wide array of undergraduate and master's programs, but grant few or no doctoral degrees.
Most of the ASBCS-affiliated schools fell into the latter two categories, which were further subdivided by region.
In the South, among the top half of schools in the master's university categories were Samford University in Alabama (ranked third), Mercer University in Georgia (ninth), Belmont University in Tennessee (15th), Mississippi College (25th), Carson-Newman College in Tennessee (32nd), Union University in Tennessee (38th), Campbell University and Gardner-Webb University in North Carolina (tied for 62nd) and Cumberland College in Kentucky (64th).
In the West, among the top-half master's universities were three Texas schools: Hardin-Simmons University (ranked 42nd), University of Mary Hardin Baylor (43rd) and Houston Baptist University (57th).
For Southern comprehensive colleges, seven ASBCS schools made the top half of the rankings. Ouachita Baptist University in Arkansas came in at fifth, Shorter College in Georgia was 14th, Louisiana College was 33rd, Mars Hill College in North Carolina was 38th, Bluefield College in Virginia was 44th, Anderson College in South Carolina was 45th, and Blue Mountain College in Mississippi was 50th.
In the Midwest region, Judson College in Illinois was ranked the 51st-best comprehensive college.
In the West region, Oklahoma Baptist University (ranked second), East Texas Baptist University (11th), and Howard Payne University in Texas (13th) were ranked in the top half.
Agee said it was a record year for his group's affiliated colleges in the listing. “The number of ASBCS member schools ranked in the top tier was the highest in the history of the rankings,” he said.
The rankings are based on a number of factors, including student-to-faculty ratio, selectivity of admissions, retention of freshman students, and four-year graduation rates. Schools are also sub-ranked in those categories
Agee said ASBCS schools, overall, compared well with their peer institutions in graduation and retention rates.
However, he added, “The area where most ASBCS schools were weakest is in the area of financial resources and alumni giving.”
Other schools that were founded by Baptists but no longer are affiliated with the association also fared well in the rankings. Wake Forest University in North Carolina was the 27th-best national university, while Virginia's University of Richmond was ranked at No. 34 among the nation's liberal-arts colleges.