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Aug. 24, 2015 – Allegheny College has been named for the third consecutive year to the Top 25 in the Best Liberal Arts Colleges category of Washington Monthly’s college rankings, released today. Also listed among the top 25 are Bryn Mawr, Carleton, Swarthmore, Reed, Macalester, Williams, Oberlin and Amherst.

The Washington Monthly rankings are unique in that they recognize not only what colleges do for their students but what colleges are doing for the country. The rankings rate top liberal arts colleges in the nation based on three broad categories: social mobility (recruiting and graduating low-income students), research (producing cutting-edge scholarship and PhDs) and service (encouraging students to give something back to society).

“The Washington Monthly ranking reflects the values at the core of the Allegheny experience,” said James H. Mullen Jr., president of Allegheny College. “Allegheny has been known since its founding in 1815 as a college where students can get an education of the highest quality that is still affordable, where they can work alongside faculty members on important research, and where students and graduates believe in giving back. Our college community illustrates every day how deeply embedded in Allegheny’s culture is an ethic of service and civic engagement.”

The Top 25 ranking is the latest in a string of such accolades for Allegheny.

• The Princeton Review features Allegheny in the 2016 edition of its annual college guide “The Best 380 Colleges.” In addition, Allegheny was one of only 24 schools to receive a score of 99, the highest possible score, in the guidebook’s Green Honor Roll, which celebrates the most environmentally friendly colleges in the nation.

• Allegheny is one of 200 schools that the Princeton Review profiles in “Colleges That Pay You Back: The 200 Best Value Colleges and What It Takes to Get In – 2015 Edition,” which bases its ratings on data points such as academics, cost, financial aid, student debt, graduation rates, alumni salaries and job satisfaction.

• The Sierra Club, the nation’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, has again listed Allegheny College among the top colleges and universities in the nation for green initiatives, institutions that the Sierra Club calls “America’s coolest schools.” Allegheny jumped dramatically in the rankings this year, from #110 last year to #66 this year.

• Allegheny is among the 40 schools profiled in Loren Pope’s “Colleges That Change Lives.”

• Allegheny College’s Environmental Science/Studies Department ranks No. 2 in the country, according to EnvironmentalScience.org, a website dedicated to environmental science education and careers.

• The Peace Corps recognizes Allegheny College as No. 8 among small schools in the number of its alumni serving as Peace Corps volunteers.

In addition, the college’s new Allegheny Gateway has created an innovative learning model that provides a central location for study and collaboration in which students can access the resources they need to thrive at Allegheny and in their lives after college.