Affordable Colleges Online (ACO) ranked WSU 12th in the nation for its online psychology program last week.

WSU was the highest-ranked Pac-12 school on the list, joined by Oregon State University as the only other Pac-12 school to represented, according to the ACO ranking.

Other schools around Washington also made ACO’s list, including Central Washington University and Spokane Falls Community College.

The ranking was based on a score out of 100, considering graduation rates, tuition and fees, financial aid, the number of programs and student-to-teacher ratios. WSU scored a 97.45 overall.

The WSU’s online program offers five degree programs for psychology, all of which are undergraduate.

“Our program is set apart from every other program,” the program’s director, Lee Daffin Jr. said.

The main thing that sets the online psychology program apart from others is the commitment that WSU has to making sure students that want to move on to graduate programs become ready to do so, Daffin said.

The program will also offer two new research paths that involve hypothesis testing and literature review, according to the press release. Online students also have the option to become a teaching assistant and teach courses for two weeks out of the semester, Daffin said.

“A lot of the students want to pursue educational fields, so we give them the opportunity to experience this before they move on to graduate school,” he said.

To become a teaching assistant, students must go through a three-week training program that teaches them how to manage the online course, deal with students and run a discussion board. After the semester, teaching assistants are given written feedback, something that is unique compared to other programs at similar schools, Daffin said.

This is not the first time WSU’s online psychology major has achieved a high ranking. The program was once ranked third in the nation, according to a 2013 WSU news release.

WSU’s online bachelor degree programs rank at a tie for 15th place between four other schools, according to U.S. News and Report.

This is an improvement from WSU’s previous ranking of 34th in 2015, according to a Jan. 12 WSU news release.

During the fall 2016 semester, WSU’s online school enrolled 2,000 undergraduates and 1,000 graduate students, according to the news release.

As for the future of the program, Daffin is looking to increase the amount of research options and further assess the knowledge students gain from the course.

“We are also looking to develop an internship program so they can get even more real-life opportunities,” he said.

The application deadline for WSU’s online school fall 2017 semester is July 21.