Graduate Schools

We are scholars and lifelong learners. At Knox, our rigorous, broad-based curriculum, combined with one of the country's most active undergraduate research programs, prepares our students with the skills they need to excel at the post-secondary level.

As a result, Knox ranks in the nation's top 3% for proportion of graduates who go on to earn a Ph.D. Some 65% of our alumni go on to graduate school within five years. More than 20% of the members of the Class of '07 are already pursuing graduate degrees.

Knox students headed to graduate school can get a valuable head start. The College maintains a cooperative agreement with the George Washington University and Rush University* to allow early admission to their medical schools for selected Knox sophomores. Business majors benefit from direct admission partnerships with the Simon Graduate School of Business.

Among our recent graduates:

• Joel Christensen '06 is entering his third and final year of law school at Washington University in St. Louis, and was recently named Editor-in-Chief of the Washington University Journal of Law & Policy.
• Alex Keefe '06 won two Illinois Associated Press Awards for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism. Both stories were produced when Keefe worked as a reporter/anchor at Augustana Public Radio. Keefe is currently attending the Medill School at Northwestern University.
• Pete McAvoy '05 received his master's in urban planning from the University Illinois. For his master's project, he built a computer program that evaluates the environmental sustainability of various farm designs.
• Sue Massey '05 graduated from Duke University School of Law with her JD and a Master of Law in international and comparative law. She works for the Treasury Department in Washington, D.C.
• Michele Darrow '09 is pursuing a Ph.D. in biochemistry at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. For her first research rotation, she worked in a lab that created transgenic mice whose eyes glow green.
• Catherine Ray '08 is attending medical school at Rush Medical College. She recently assisted in two studies in the pediatric neurology department to evaluate sleep disorders in children with chronic diseases, and generalizing a gene mutation known to cause febrile seizures.
• BJ Hollars '07 edited the recently-published the anthology You Must Be This Tall To Ride: Contemporary Writers Take You Inside the Story. He is a graduate student in the writing program at the University of Alabama.

*The pre-medical program with Rush University is available to students entering Knox through the fall of 2012. Students entering after the fall of 2012 are not eligible.