Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Worcester Polytechnic Institute is a private technological university in Worcester, Massachusetts, founded in 1865 by John Boynton and others to teach the mechanical arts and science together. It remains a compact technical institute rather than a comprehensive university. The main campus occupies a hillside in Worcester, New England's second-largest city, a manufacturing center that still shapes the school's applied focus.

Departments span engineering, the sciences, computer science, business, and a small arts and humanities program. Graduate research is concentrated in robotics, biomedical engineering, fire protection engineering, materials, and data science. The WPI Plan, introduced in 1970, organizes undergraduate work around projects; graduate students use laboratories in the Foisie Innovation Studio and departmental centers, including robotics and fire-protection facilities.

About 7,000 students are enrolled, with roughly 2,000 in graduate programs. International students are a large fraction of master's and doctoral enrollment. Faculty size is in the hundreds. The best-known alumnus is physicist and rocket pioneer Robert H. Goddard.

Graduate degrees are the M.S., M.Eng., M.B.A., and Ph.D. The institute's calendar uses seven-week terms rather than long semesters. Master's programs are often coursework plus a project; doctorates are research-intensive with a faculty adviser. Assistantships are the usual doctoral support. Worcester is a midsize industrial city with other colleges nearby; Boston is about an hour by train.

In the Grad School Navigator directory, Worcester Polytechnic Institute lists 65 graduate programs across 26 subjects: 43 master's programs and 21 doctoral programs, with the widest choice in biology, education and computer science.