Northwestern has moved up the Peace Corps’ top-25 list of medium-sized schools, ranking 11th with 29 alumni currently serving, up from 12th place last year.
Since the Peace Corps’ inception in 1961, 867 NU alumni have volunteered, putting NU in the top 25 since the ranking began nine years ago, said Christine Torres, public affairs specialist for the Chicago Regional Peace Corps Office.
“The kind of Peace Corps volunteer in general that we would be looking for has strong academics as well as the emphasis Northwestern puts on international awareness and community service,” she said. “We see a lot of strong applicants from Northwestern.”
NU currently ranks third in the state for the number of volunteers in the field, following the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with 44 volunteers and the University of Chicago with 35 volunteers. George Washington University has the most alumni involved
