'Rankly, my dear ...

It was an up and down year for Baylor in the 2005 edition of America's Best Colleges, compiled by U.S.News & World Report. Two of Baylor's academic programs ranked in the top 20 nationally, but overall the University dropped six places from last year, from 78 to 84.
Of the top 248 national doctoral-granting universities, Baylor is bunched with 12 other institutions, all with only a two-point differential between 78th and 84th place. Baylor tied for fourth among Big 12 schools included in the rankings and is fifth among the 16 Texas universities listed. Baylor tied for the 84th spot with Iowa State University, another Big 12 school. 
Baylor's engineering program climbed to 14th in the nation, which it shared with five other schools. That is up five places over last year and up 12 places from 2001. The ranking is for undergraduate engineering courses without doctoral programs. It is ranked highest of the four Texas schools included in the survey, which is confined to 145 programs accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology. 
Ranked at 10th best in the nation is the Hankamer School of Business' entrepreneurship program, tying with New York University (Stern). HSB's undergraduate business program tied with 11 other schools at 77th place among the 375 undergraduate business programs accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business included in the survey. 
Other Texas schools highly placed in the rankings include Rice University (17th), University of Texas-Austin (tied for 46th), Texas A&M University (tied for 62nd) and SMU (tied for 71st). Texas Christian University is tied for 98th place. 
The U.S. News rankings can be found at www.USNews.com.