Penn State stayed at the No. 44 overall standing in U.S. News & World Report's latest annual ranking of the nation's universities, published Friday.

Princeton University topped the list, with Harvard and Yale tied for No. 2.

Among Big Ten universities, two of the others ranked higher than Penn State. U.S. News ranked the University of Michigan No. 25 and the University of Illinois No. 41.

"Penn State is pleased once again to be included as one of the top universities in the nation," Penn State President Graham Spanier said in an e-mail.

Penn State has been ranked No. 44 in the top 50 national universities for the past two years. In 1997, the university was No. 45. A national university is defined by U.S. News & World Report as one who offers a range of undergraduate majors as well as doctoral and master's degrees and emphasizes research. There are 228 national universities, according to the U.S. News Web site.

"The fact that Penn State was ranked 44th has nothing to do with why I came here. Penn State has a very good biology program," Julie Barsic (freshman-biology) said.

Individually, many of the university's programs were rated high. The College of Engineering ranks No. 15 overall. Both the materials and nuclear departments are No. 5. Out of the top graduate engineering programs, Penn State is No. 17.

The Smeal College of Business Administration was ranked No. 19 out of 338 other business schools. The graduate program is No. 34.

Other Big Ten universities were ranked higher in undergraduate business programs. Michigan is ranked No. 2 with Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Purdue University and the University of Minnesota's business schools were tied for No. 13.

Overall ranking is based on 16 measures of academic excellence, according to the Web site. These measures include an overall score, reputation score, freshman retention rate and student-to-faculty ratio. The universities are then ranked by their total weighted score from all the requirements.

"The U.S. News ranking uses a weighted system that tends to favor private universities and thus it is typically the case that the most expensive private schools will occupy the top 25 spots. So we have been pleased from year to year to be included in the top 50, the group that includes the major public universities in America," Spanier said in the e-mail.

Rankings didn't have much impact on some of the freshman this year. Laura Perrins (freshman-premedicine) chose Penn State over other colleges because of a high recognition factor.

"I chose Penn State because it is such a well-known school," she said.

Within the top 50 national universities, Penn State has one the largest student-to-faculty ratios (18 to 1) with seven schools with a same or higher ratio.

All the university's information, plus more, can be found on the U.S. News Web site (www.usnews.com).