Allegheny College

Details of Distinction

Athletics

580 Allegheny
All-Americans

Allegheny Gators Logo

Founding Member

NCAA

1905

Gator Athletics

23

Division III Teams

37

Academic All-Americans

Accolades

No. 1

Undergraduate Research

What It Means

The Council on Undergraduate Research in January 2016 presented its inaugural award for Undergraduate Research Accomplishment to Allegheny College. The award recognizes Allegheny for its “exemplary programs providing high-quality research experiences to undergraduates.” This recognition requires campuses to have depth and breadth in their undergraduate research initiatives, as well as evidence of sustained innovation. The council noted Allegheny’s well-designed and developmentally appropriate undergraduate research experience. “Allegheny’s holistic and sustained student development approach prepares Allegheny students for both graduate study and post-baccalaureate employment,” according to the council.

“Allegheny College’s well-designed and developmentally appropriate undergraduate research experience is supported by deliberate scaffolding beginning during a student’s first year, continuing throughout the sophomore and junior years, and culminating in a required capstone research project.”

Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR)

1 of 40

Colleges That Change Lives

What It Means

Colleges That Change Lives was researched and written by retired New York Times education editor, journalist, and longtime student advocate Loren Pope. Selections were solely based on his independent judgment and recognized expertise. CTCL, Inc. works with the chosen schools to support the advancement of a student-centered college search process. CTCL hosts well-attended information sessions nationwide in coordination with CTCL school college fairs.

The Company We’re In

  • Denison University
  • Earlham College
  • Goucher College
  • Hampshire College
  • Hiram College
  • Lawrence University
  • Rhodes College
  • St. Olaf College
  • Whitman College

“Today Allegheny shuns the ethos of prestige places and delivers an education at least on par with—and perhaps better than—those places.”

little-man collegestahtchangelives-book

Extraordinary Outcomes

Over 90% of our recent graduating class were either employed or in a graduate/ professional program after graduation. The remaining students were in long-term compensated programs like Teach for America or the Peace Corp or were seeking employment.

For three years in a row, Allegheny has ranked in the top 20% of all colleges and universities in the nation for salaries for early- and mid-career graduates (according to payscale.com).

Allegheny is featured in The Princeton Review’s “The Best Value Colleges: 200 Schools with Exceptional ROI for Your Tuition Investment,” based on our academic rigor, affordability, and career outcomes for graduates.

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Top 20

Best Undergraduate Teaching

What It Means

In spring 2019, U.S. News & World Report asked top academics to name the schools that they think have faculty with an unusually strong commitment to undergraduate teaching. College presidents, provosts, and admissions deans were asked to nominate up to 15 schools in their Best Colleges ranking category with strength in undergraduate teaching.

The Company We’re In

  1. Amherst College
  2. Berea College
  3. Bryn Mawr College
  4. Carleton College
  5. Colorado College
  6. Grinnell College
  7. Williams College

39 of 214

Best Liberal Arts Colleges

What It Means

Washington Monthly’s 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 the top colleges based on three broad categories: Social Mobility (recruiting and graduating low-income students), Research (producing cutting-edge scholarship and Ph.D.s), and Service (encouraging students to give something back to their country). The rankings also factor in an analysis of which schools combine higher than expected graduation rates with affordable prices.

The Company We’re In

  • Amherst College
  • Bates College
  • Bryn Mawr College
  • Carleton College
  • Davidson College
  • Haverford College
  • Macalester College
  • Oberlin College
  • Swarthmore College
  • Williams College

Student Population

population map
1,800 students from 47 states + AE, DC, and PR and 70 countries
population-maps

370

High schools presented

3.47

Mean G.P.A.

65%

Graduated in the top 25% of their class; 33% in the top 10%

53%

Participated in service organizations in high school

47%

Served in a leadership capacity

55%

From outside Pennsylvania

26%

Identify as students of color

100%

Live on campus

Service

81%

of Allegheny students surveyed reported participating in some type of service while at the College.

National Assessment of Service and Community Engagement

Allegheny Service Network Impact Areas

  • Conservation & Environmental Sustainability
  • Allegheny & Meadville Relationship
  • Underserved Youth
  • Homelessness
  • Solidarity & Advocacy for Senior Citizens
  • Local Foods & Hunger
  • Health & Prevention
  • Women’s Issues & Empowerment

$12,500

The Franklin H. & Ruth L. Wells Foundation supported a community health needs assessment in collaboration with the Meadville Medical Center and Titusville Area Hospital. Allegheny students helped to assess our community’s health concerns, disparities, affordability of, and access to care.

$1.5 m

Part of Allegheny’s Howard Hughes Medical Institute grant to build a Global Health Studies program has been used to provide opportunities for students to engage in health-related study-away research and service experiences both abroad and domestically.

$542,380

The Corporation for National and Community Service awarded Allegheny a grant for the Lake Effect Leaders program, supporting graduates of Allegheny and other institutions who serve as VISTAs, working with regional non-profits to battle poverty and enhance educational prospects for children.

#9

Peace Corps 2019 Top Colleges

The annual Peace Corps list recognizes the colleges and universities in the U.S. that produce the most Peace Corps volunteers. Twelve alumni from Allegheny College are currently serving overseas.

Research

Research Seminar Series

ACRoSS is an interdisciplinary forum for the presentation of summer research projects to an audience of students, faculty, and administrators.

110

The average audience size for the ten weeks of 2019 ACRoSS presentations

100+

Number of students who conducted research with faculty during summer 2019.

  • 59
  • 49
  • 53
  • 59
  • 38
  • 43
  • 2014
  • 2015
  • 2016
  • 2017
  • 2018
  • 2019

Numbers of Student Presenters

2018 Presenting Departments

  • Art & Technology
  • Biochemistry
  • Biology
  • Chemistry
  • Communication Arts
  • Economics
  • Education Studies
  • English
  • Environmental Science
  • Global Health Studies
  • History
  • Mathematics
  • Music
  • Neuroscience
  • Philosophy
  • Political Science
  • Psychology
  • Religious Studies
  • Studio Art
  • Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies

108

Students conducted research with faculty in the past year, not including independent student and Senior Comp theses.

Allegheny graduates Emily Smith ’19 and Lauren Ottaviani ’18 received prestigious Fulbright Awards in 2019. Smith is scheduled to travel to Brazil in February 2020 after receiving a Fulbright to serve as an English teaching assistant at a Brazilian university. Ottaviani received a Fulbright to teach English at the University of Antwerp in Belgium starting in the spring of 2020. In 2019, Ottaviani was in Great Britain attending Durham University, where she was pursuing a master’s degree in English literature.

Elisia Wright ’21 and Assistant Professor of Computer Science Janyl Jumadinova presented their collaborative work on “Underwater Robotic Smart-Sensing System for Water Quality Testing” at the 23rd Annual Posters on the Hill event in Washington, D.C. in spring 2019. Only 60 students from over 350 submissions were selected to present their work at this event sponsored by the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR). They also presented the preliminary results of their research project at the 32nd International Conference of the Florida Artificial Intelligence Research Society in May 2019.

Candaisy Crawford ’19 and Assistant Professor of Political Science Andrew Bloeser presented their study (co-authored with Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science Tarah Williams), “We Just Don’t Want to See It: The Desire for Authoritarianism and the Diffusion of Responsibility,” at the 2019 Midwest Political Science Association Meeting. The study uses a dataset collected by the Center for Political Participation. The study highlights the erosion of democratic attitudes in the American public and the preference for “strongman” leaders.

Kaylah Pinkney ‘19 received a Boren Scholarship, and moved to Nanjing, China, in the fall of 2019, studying the Mandarin language and the practices of traditional Chinese medicine at Nanjing University. Pinkney graduated with the Class of 2019, receiving a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience with a Chinese Language minor.

Three Allegheny students in 2019 were awarded highly competitive Gilman International Scholarships to study overseas. Yadira Sanchez-Esparza ’22 studied with the Council on International Educational Exchange Liberal Arts Program at three different universities in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Sydney Francis ’21 studied in Jordan, and Marisol Santa Cruz ’20 spent part of the summer of 2019 in India, studying India’s experiments with globalization across its 5,000-year history.

Anna Meyer ’20 was one of 15 undergraduate students in the United States to be awarded a 2019 Research Fellowship from the Endocrine Society. This fellowship will allow her to continue her research project entitled “Characterizing the role of CREBRF and its metabolic-risk variant in glucocorticoid action”. Her project seeks to address gaps in knowledge regarding a novel obesity-risk gene (CREBRF) and its role in the modulation of the glucocorticoid action among broader influences on systemic metabolic homeostasis. Her fellowship included a poster presentation at ENDO 2020, the Society’s Annual Meeting & Expo being held in San Francisco in March 2020, and membership in the society.

Outcomes

“As a nervous H.S. senior, I wasn’t even certain that I would get accepted to a school of Allegheny’s caliber. Four years later I graduated summa cum laude with a full scholarship to the U. of Michigan’s MFA program. Presently, I am pursuing a Doctor of Philosophy degree at Kent State. Not only did Allegheny’s gamble on a statistically lukewarm applicant pay off, but the money I invested in my Allegheny education has paid for itself three times over.”

—Allie Brooks ’07

Recent graduates are attending:

  • Carnegie Mellon University
  • Case Western Reserve University
  • Columbia University
  • Cornell University
  • Georgetown University
  • Johns Hopkins University
  • Pennsylvania State University
  • Syracuse University
  • University of Chicago
  • University of Pittsburgh
  • University of Southern California
  • University of Texas at Austin
  • Vanderbilt University
  • Wake Forest University
  • Washington University

Recent graduates are working at:

  • American Conservatory Theater
  • AmeriCorps VISTA
  • CHF International
  • Cleveland Clinic
  • Coca-Cola Enterprises
  • Deloitte Consulting
  • French Ministry of Education
  • Mylan Pharmaceuticals
  • National Hellenic Museum
  • PNC Financial
  • Teach for America
  • The Nature Conservancy
  • Tioga Environmental Consulting
  • U.S. Department of Homeland Security
  • UPMC
  • SpaceX

begin their career immediately (46% employed by graduation; 95% within six months).

directly go on to graduate school and are accepted at rates twice the national average (80-100%).

earn positions in competitive, compensated service organizations, including Teach for America and the Peace Corps.

Allegheny ranks among the top 5% of all schools in the country for the percentage of graduates who go on to earn a Ph.D. Allegheny is in the top 4% in the sciences and top 2% in chemistry.

America's Top Colleges

Forbes places Allegheny among America’s top colleges in rankings prepared by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity. Forbes’ annual rankings focus on quality of teaching, graduation rates, low levels of debt and graduates’ career prospects.

forbes-logo

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Alden and Statement

by Timothy Alden

Founded 1815

32nd Oldest College in the Nation

Learn More About Our History

Allegheny’s undergraduate residential education prepares young adults for successful, meaningful lives by promoting students’ intellectual, moral, and social development and encouraging personal and civic responsibility. Allegheny’s faculty and staff combine high academic standards and a commitment to the exchange of knowledge with a supportive approach to learning.

Graduates are equipped to think critically and creatively, write clearly, speak persuasively, and meet challenges in a diverse, interconnected world.