TCU descended back to its 2014 ranking as No. 82 on the U.S. News 2016 selection of Best National Universities.

Dropping from the previous rank of 76, the university is ranked behind fellow private Texan schools Baylor University (72) and Southern Methodist University (61).

Universities are placed in their given spot mainly due to the proportion of first-year students who return to campus for sophomore year and eventually graduate, class size, faculty salary and student selectivity.

Current TCU students said that the ranking was not a factor of why they chose the university. Alex Bauer, senior accounting major, stated that it was not the rank at all that made him decide to commit to TCU, but instead that he liked how he did not feel as if he was a number, but an actual student.

“You can walk around campus and have familiar faces and you can’t get that with every school,” Bauer said.

Freshman criminal justice major Kelly Eke said that she chose TCU because of the feeling she had when she stepped on the campus for the first time.

“Eighty-two is not bad,” Eke said. “I am very proud of our school.”

When asked why TCU is still ranked highly, director of freshman admissions Heath Einstein explained that TCU continues to attract good students.

“TCU focuses on bringing in high quality students, making each class stronger than the last,” Einstein said.