Baker University was once again the top-ranked Kansas college in the Midwest Regional category of U.S. News & World Report’s Best Colleges

According to U.S. News and World Report, a regional university is defined as an institution that provides a full range of undergraduate majors and master’s programs; however, they offer few, if any, doctoral programs.

“We traditionally are first in Kansas,” Rand Ziegler, vice president for institutional and faculty development, said. “Almost every time this comes out, we’re the highest-ranked school in this category in Kansas.”

The top-ranked universities in the Midwest category include Creighton, Butler, Drake and Xavier.

“I don’t think it’s that big of a deal to be beaten out by schools like Creighton and Drake that are so much bigger and have so many more resources than us,” Ziegler said. “What I would be most worried about is how many schools that are smaller like us that are ahead of us. There’s certainly not 61 exactly like us ahead of us.”

Although Baker University ranks above Kansas schools such as Pittsburg State, Washburn, Southwestern College, Emporia State and Newman, it is No. 62 overall out of a total of 108 schools that are ranked in this category. This is down from Baker’s No. 33 ranking last year.

Each of the schools are ranked according to a formula that weighs the following considerations: peer assessment, average freshman retention rate, 2012 graduation rate, percentage of classes less than 20 students and more than 50 students, student-faculty ratio, SAT/ACT 25th-75th percentile, freshmen in top 25 percent of high school class, acceptance rate and average alumni-giving rate.

This year, Baker ranked lower than in previous years in the following categories: rank, total score, peer rate, freshmen in top 25 percent of high school class and alumni-giving rate.

Faculty Senate President Marc Carter said although Baker went down in rank, he still takes pride in being the top-ranked Kansas school.

“I think we’re competing against some universities that have deeper pockets than we do, so I think that might be part of the problem (of being ranked lower this year),” he said.