Three Oklahoma colleges in U.S. News and World Report college guide

OKLAHOMA CITY-Two Oklahoma universities have been ranked among the top 10 liberal arts universities in the West, a new listing shows.<br><br>According to the U.S. News College Guide, Oklahoma Baptist University

Sunday, September 3rd 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY-Two Oklahoma universities have been ranked among the top 10 liberal arts universities in the West, a new listing shows.

According to the U.S. News College Guide, Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee is ranked third and Oklahoma Christian University is ranked 10th.

The guide, published Friday by U.S. News and World Report, ranked Oklahoma City University 25th among regional universities in the West, which a larger ranking category than for the regional liberal arts colleges.

The guide also listed Phillips University in Enid in its listings, but that school closed two years ago because of financial problems. Phillips was listed as a fourth-tier university in the West regional universities category.

U.S. News bases its rankings on academic reputation, graduation and retention rates, faculty resources, financial resources, class sizes and alumni donations.

OBU has been included in the regional top 10 rankings for nine years in a row. The rankings included Oklahoma Christian for the second time.

"It's hard to measure the importance of the rankings," said John Barner, vice president of institutional development at Oklahoma City University. "But it's one thing students look at in a whole list of things.

"The college selection process is much more complicated than that, and students are much more sophisticated than that."