In its 2005 index of best colleges released this week, U.S. News and World Report ranks BYU-Hawaii in the top tier of best comprehensive colleges in the Western United States for the sixth consecutive year.
Over the past several years, BYU-Hawaii has climbed the U.S. News rankings from the third tier to the second tier, and then to the top tier where it has been sixth for the last two years.
"It means a lot to us to receive a consistently high assessment from a reputable third party like U.S. News," said Keith Roberts, vice president of academics. "It shows that year in and year out, we're doing many things well. We now officially have a reputation, and that reputation continues to grow."
An important effect of BYU-Hawaii's growing reputation is that "it gives us credibility with everybody," Roberts said, including students, their parents, prospective faculty and academic peers.
Compared to the schools that are fourth and fifth in the ranking, BYU-Hawaii is close in most of the significant variables and even surpasses them in a couple.
For example, BYU-Hawaii was rated first for the most international students with an international percentage of 47 - almost four times that of the second-ranked school.
BYU-Hawaii was also rated first for the lowest "acceptance rate," having admitted only 17 percent of those who applied for the 2003-04 school year, and seventh in campus diversity of domestic students.
A university statistic that could be improved upon, according to Roberts, is its graduation rate.
"The statistic is calculated with data reflecting the entry class of six years ago; so when you implement a change, it takes six years for it to show up in the U.S. News report," he explained. "By virtue of who is in their freshman, sophomore and junior years, we know that our retention numbers are going to improve."
The Western region's top six in the 2005 ranking are the same universities as in last year's ranking. However, while each school increased their scores relative to the top-ranked Linfield College, BYU-Hawaii showed the most improvement.
"All the other schools are getting better at the same time, so we must continue to improve to stay where we are," Roberts said. "But we're going to because we have everything in place to do it.
"It is much more satisfying work to keep the respect we already have than it is to earn that respect," he added. "But in some ways it is also harder because we can become complacent and rest on our laurels. We're very comfortable where we are right now and we're comfortable that we're going to stay in the top tier."