 The Princeton Review ranked Texas Tech among the 125 best colleges in the Western United States in its 2015 edition. The 2016 U.S. News & World Report rankings listed the university at 168th nationally and 91st amongst public schools. The 2013 Shanghai Jiao Tong Rankings placed Texas Tech University at 401 worldwide, which tied it with fellow Big 12 schools, Oklahoma and Kansas State, among others. In 2010, the Wall Street Journal ranked the university 18th in its ranking of graduate desirability for job recruiters. Three of the University's undergraduate programs are ranked by PayScale as in the top 20 nationally in mid-career salary: Art, Physical and Life Sciences, and Education. In its 2015 edition, U.S. News & World Report noted the university has a "selective" admissions policy. As a state public university, Texas Tech is subject to Texas House Bill 588, which guarantees Texas high school seniors in the top 10 % of their graduating class admission to any public Texas university. In 2012, 20.3 % of incoming freshmen were admitted in this manner. About half of incoming freshmen finished in the top quarter of their graduating classes. In 2016, the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education listed Texas Tech among 115 most prominent research schools, commonly known as "Carnegie Tier One".
