Private · Worcester, MA
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Get to know the college, from admissions and cost to life on campus.
Overview
WPI built its identity around the WPI Plan, a project-based curriculum core to undergraduate education here for over half a century, sending students to 50+ global project centers across six continents to apply theory to real problems rather than just study them. Robert Goddard, the father of modern rocketry, is WPI's own 1908 graduate, and that pattern, technical training turned into genuinely new invention, still describes the place.
About Worcester Polytechnic Institute
- Type
- Private Research University
- Setting
- Urban
- Undergraduates
- 5,447
Admissions
- Early Decision/Early Action
- Yes
- Accepts Common App
- Yes
Cost
Tuition and aid
- Full cost of attendance
- $80,569per year
- Average family income
- $129,500
- Students with a school grant
- 95%
- Average school grant
- $26,795
- Average federal debt
- $27,000at graduation
- Need-blind
- —
- Meets full need
- —
- Merit scholarships
- Yes
- CSS Profile
- Required
- International aid
- Need-aware; limited need-based grants, $5k-$25k/yr, full need not guaranteed
Academics
- Majors offered
- 35
- Freshmen who return
- 94%
- Notable
- R1research designation, one of only 187 US institutions
Students
Campus life
- Setting
- Urban
- Location
- Worcester, MA
- Live on campus
- —
- Student organizations
- —
- Varsity sports
- —
WPI sits on a 95-acre hilltop that WPI's own materials say "doesn't look or feel like an urban university," even though Worcester is New England's second-largest city, with nine colleges' worth of college-town amenities right down the hill. WPI describes itself as medium-sized on purpose: large enough that students aren't all alike, small enough no one is just a number. Aggregate student reviews back up the project-based intensity, teams and deadlines are a constant, not an occasional group project, but describe that shared grind as what actually builds close friendships fast. The WPI Alliance and similar groups give the community real structure beyond academics, and Founders Day and Homecoming carry real weight here.
Summarized by Spike from what students write: WPI Community & Culture.
Outcomes
- Earnings 6 years in
- $93,116
- Graduate within 6 years
- 89%
- Average federal debt
- $27,000
- Graduates go into
- High Starting Salaries, Excellent Long-Term Career Opportunities, Leading Industries
Reviews
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Spike Rankings 2027
Where Worcester Polytechnic Institute ranks.
Ranked on federal data about graduation, earnings and cost. How Spike ranks colleges
Common questions
Questions about Worcester Polytechnic Institute
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