Alden and Statement

by Timothy Alden

Founded 1815

32nd Oldest College in the Nation

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.

Accolades

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)

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.”

93.4% of the graduating class of 2018 were either employed or in a graduate/ professional program within eight months of graduation.

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.

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

Amherst College
Berea College
Bryn Mawr College
Carleton College
Colorado College
Grinnell College
Williams College

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

1,800 students from

47 states + AE, DC, and PR and

70 countries

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

28%

Identify as minority or international

100%

Live on campus

Research

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.

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.

Athletics

550 Allegheny All-Americans

Founding Member

1905

1983

2018-2019 in athletics:

56

All-NCAC Selections

15

First Team All-NCAC Selections

4

NCAC Atheletes of the Year

1

Individual National Champion

1

CoSIDA Academic All-American

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:

Recent graduates are working at:

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.

Service

81%

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

National Assessment of Service and Community Engagement

$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.

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.

NSSE

In the National Survey of Student Engagement

a survey specially designed for students to provide information about their undergraduate experience, our students give high marks to their Allegheny experience.

A snapshot of the 2015 NSSE survey results shows that:

95%

of Allegheny seniors rate their overall college experience as “excellent” or “good”

94%

of Allegheny seniors report that their ability to think critically and analytically improved “very much” or “quite a bit” at Allegheny

92%

of Allegheny seniors report that their ability to write clearly and effectively improved “very much” or “quite a bit” at Allegheny

Those results translate to employability:

The ability to think critically and the ability to write clearly and effectively are among the skills most prized by employers and graduate schools.

In addition, Allegheny ranks higher than the group of baccalaureate liberal arts colleges participating in NSEE in numerous areas:

Quality of interactions between freshmen and their academic advisors
Institutional emphasis on spending significant time studying and on academic work
Discussion of course topics and ideas with faculty members outside of class
Opportunities to work with faculty members on research projects
Culminating senior experience (at Allegheny that’s the Senior Project)
Percentage of students who participate in “high-impact” learning opportunities such as internships and learning communities

NSSE results aren’t used simply to tell us where we are in terms of the quality of our undergraduate program. We use the results to better understand our students’ experience and to fine-tune our programs to make sure that all of our students receive an education that prepares them for meaningful careers.

Next Steps

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Allegheny College

Details of Distinction

Founded 1815

32nd Oldest College in the Nation

No. 1

Undergraduate Research

What It Means

1 of 40

Colleges That Change Lives

What It Means

The Company We’re In

Extraordinary Outcomes

Top 20

Best Undergraduate Teaching

What It Means

The Company We’re In

39 of 214

Best Liberal Arts Colleges

What It Means

The Company We’re In

370

3.47

65%

53%

47%

55%

28%

100%

Research Seminar Series

110

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

100+

Numbers of Student Presenters

2018 Presenting Departments

108

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

550 Allegheny All-Americans

Founding Member

1905

1983

2018-2019 in athletics:

56

All-NCAC Selections

15

First Team All-NCAC Selections

4

NCAC Atheletes of the Year

1

Individual National Champion

1

CoSIDA Academic All-American

Recent graduates are attending:

Recent graduates are working at:

America's Top Colleges

81%

Allegheny Service Network Impact Areas

$12,500

$1.5 m

$542,380

Peace Corps 2019 Top Colleges

In the National Survey of Student Engagement

95%

94%

92%

Those results translate to employability:

Apply Now

Visit Campus

Make a Gift