Getting To Know: Worcester Polytechnic Institute (MA)-Again
Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) was the first school that I visited on my recent Worcester college tour. WPI has long operated under the motto of “Theory and Practice.” This school is also unique among the more technically focused schools in being test-optional. Notable WPI alumni include Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway and the founder of the FIRST Robotics Competition and Robert Goddard, considered the Father of Rocketry.
Worcester Polytechnic Institute has grown since I last visited.
I went to campus in the fall of 2014 when there were just over 4,200 undergraduates. Today there are nearly 5,500. Women represent 30 percent of the undergraduate population, high for a technologically focused school.
WPI is shopped against more selective universities as well as schools such as Lehigh and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute which have undergraduate student bodies of similar size. It will likely be considered versus Stevens Institute of Technology by New Jersey residents, although Stevens has a smaller undergraduate population.
Projects come early and often through your degree program.
WPI uses a distinctive calendar of four 7-week terms — two per semester. WPI freshmen may take a two-term Great Problems Seminar that is taught by more than one faculty member, and includes a group project with three or four students; a cross-disciplinary seven-week Interactive Qualifying Project (IQP), a team-based problem solving exercise with a real client, either off-campus or overseas; and a seven-week Major Qualifying Project (MQP) in the senior year. Most other engineering programs have only a senior design project. You learn more than just business, science or engineering.
WPI requires every undergraduate to have an arts/humanities minor. This requires completion of five courses plus a culminating Inquiry Seminar or Practicum, structured around a chosen depth area (e.g., music, history, philosophy) and a breadth component in a different discipline. The minor can also be completed at select off-campus project centers. WPI has 50+ project centers across 31 countries on six continents. Global scholarships are available to students with unmet financial need.
That approach must be helping retention.
Most recently, the freshman retention rate broke 95 percent for the class that entered in 2024. Retention has been 92 percent or better each year since 2012. These students tend to stick around to finish. The four-year graduation rate has been at least 78 percent since the Class of 2016. Most recently it was 82 percent for the Class of 2025.
You get real chances to succeed. WPI’s grading system has no D’s or F’s.
Instead, there is a grade of No Record. Neither the grade of No Record nor the course where that grade was earned appear on a student’s transcript. Nor is a grade of No Record calculated within a student’s GPA. While WPI students will attempt 48 classes during their education, only 45 are required for graduation. In effect, a WPI student is allowed grades of No Record for three courses.
Career development is taken quite seriously.
Freshmen are invited and encouraged to attend career fairs on campus and apply for internships. They may also participate in informational interviews coached by upper-class students as well as faculty, employers and alumni. Career fairs are held during the fifth week of their term, after midterms but before students must seriously study for finals. Co-op is optional. Its possible to graduate from WPI in four and one-half years with three 14-week co-op experiences.
It’s a nice, well-maintained campus.
WPI’s newest buildings with sleeker facades were designed to blend well with the Federal-style classroom, laboratory and administration buildings that opened during the 19th century. Considering that WPI has an open campus in a city, the campus feels quite safe. Parking is easy to find, pushed to the edge of the campus; there’s no traffic at the center. I dropped a few campus photos below.
If you’re into Robotics this might be your school.
WPI was the first school in the US to offer a Bachelors degree in Robotics Engineering. It is now the third-most popular major at the school after Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science. I dropped photos of the Robotics lab below.
No college is perfect, including Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Here’s why:
The experience is quite expensive.
WPI has a total cost of attendance of nearly $85,000 for this academic year. But to be fair, the school tries to help the neediest applicants. Nearly 60 percent of the freshmen who arrived in 2024 received need-based scholarships that averaged over $36,000. Forty percent received merit based awards that averaged over $22,000. WPI also does a good job at limited student loan debt. 2-24 graduate who had to borrow owed, on average $22,500. The maximum that they could have borrowed through the Federal Student Loan Program was $27,000. Around 40 percent graduated with no debt at all.
Tough material is tougher to master in less time.
WPI students take three or four classes over seven weeks versus five or six at a college that runs on semesters. Unless you love math and science, you can really struggle, even when there’s a platoon of people to help. Not to mention that you have to get to know your teammates faster to complete the projects in the project-based classes.
The housing situation could be better.
Less than half of WPI students live on campus, including those who live in fraternity or sorority houses. Approximately 33% of men join fraternities and 36% of women join sororities. Worcester also has a local ordinance that prohibits more than three unrelated people from living together in the same dwelling, whether it be an apartment or a house. Fortunately, Worcester is an inexpensive place to live, especially for New England. It is quite possible to live off-campus and share an apartment or house for less than you would pay to live on campus.
WPI is more “Boston centered” than some might like.
Seventy percent of WPI’s undergraduate student body comes from five New England states. It’s not surprising that most of them would remain in the region after they graduate. Well over half of WPI’s alumni base is based in Massachusetts.
Conclusions
WPI offers the best undergraduate academic experiences for a business, science or engineering student in the United States. You might not turn down admission to MIT to come here. But after a semester at MIT you might wish that you did.
Report Card: Worcester Polytechnic Institute
- Four-Year/Six-Year Graduation Rates: A
- Freshman Retention: A
- Costs: B+
- Curriculum: A
- Community: B+
- Comforts: B+
- Connections: A (New England)/B (elsewhere)
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