<p>“As for the abroad destinations, don’t think London, Paris or Rome, think Thailand, Hong Kong or Nmibia.”</p>
<p>That isn’t true. London is actually the most popular abroad destination for the “abroad project”, and they do have locations in italy and france.</p>
<p>I was just wondering how conservative WPI is. I’m from the Northwest and tend to lean more liberal on some issues so I was just curious of how conservative the students are, or if it’s just kind of irrelevant?</p>
<p>WPI is quite ideologically diverse. I have a few friends who are objectivist, a few who are transhumanist, and a handful of Christians. But the vast majority of the student body is liberal. </p>
<p>As for the political bent of the administration, I’ll just throw out a few WPI policies: </p>
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<li> No Record Grading</li>
<li> Test Optional</li>
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<p>So yeah, overall I’d say that WPI is left of center.</p>
<p>Northeast/Boston Rt-128 Tech: Great opportunities. There are many top companies in the Boston area (or at least that have offices here). If you go to WPI and do fairly well (3.5+, maybe even 3.0+) you can reasonably count on a good engineering gig out of school.</p>
<p>Tech elsewhere: a WPI grad might have a hard time breaking in, as the school’s reputation is primarily regional. this particularly applies to silicon valley. There are a ton of cali schools that are closely tied into that scene: berkeley, stanford, cal poly, etc. if your goal is to join the hacker capital of the world you might want to consider a school with closer ties to the area.</p>
<p>Eng/Sci graduate programs: If you excel at WPI, the doors are definitely open here (excel = 3.8/3.9 +). First, most graduate engineering and science programs know what WPI is, which is good. Second, the school really allows you to focus on tech so you have a great background for these programs (as opposed to forcing you to take many non-engineering classes, which tech grad programs dont care about). Third, the MQP provides a good undergraduate research opportunity if you seek out the right kind of project. Big plus for grad programs.</p>
<p>Pre-law: Law schools only care about your GPA and your LSAT (for the most part), so you are fine here. In fact, you even get a boost because engineering majors can focus on patent law.</p>
<p>Pre-med: I have no idea…sorry</p>
<p>Business: This is WPI’s weakness, in my opinion. No major banks or consulting firms recruit on campus, so you are almost SOL for breaking into those fields. if you do manage to somehow get an interview, most interviewers will NOT know what WPI is, which will be kind of embarrassing (for example an investment banker in San Francisco). These are generally considered the “best” jobs for undergraduates and you will diminish your chances for them if you attend.</p>
<p>overall: most WPI graduates end up with a good paying job after graduation, a feat not accomplished by many schools. however, you must go in knowing that your degree will hold its most value in the northeast, and in the tech sector. one strategy is to kill your GPA and then get into a engineering grad program (ms or phd) with a much stronger national rep, and that is definitely possible for the top students at WPI.</p>
<p>Grad school admissions don’t depend that much at all on GPA. Basically, if you have a gpa of around 3.5, you can get into MIT, Stanford, Berkley. I know someone who got into MIT with a 3.3.</p>
<p>What Grad schools do care about is reasearch experience. If you show that you can do research (by doing REUs at prestigious centers, publishing papers, etc) you can go anywhere. However, I feel WPI is weak in research offerings for students. It is very rare for students other than seniors (working on MQP) to be working on research with professors, and just a MQP project wont get you into top programs. Also, even if research oppertunities are attained early in the college career, WPI researchers aren’t very renowned in their fields, so letters of reccomendation dont carry as much weight from them. If you really want to “kill your gpa and then get into a engineering grad program with a stronger national rep”, you’d have much better odds of accomplishing this goal at umass amherst. After I learned this, WPI went from the upper part of my list to below Umass :P.</p>
<p>However, if you are interested in having an awesome time studying engineering while surrounded by interesting people, and professors that really do care about teaching, and you don’t care too much about grad shcool oppertunities or about WPI’s “regional” reputation, I can reccomend few schools that are better in this respect</p>
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<p>Just by SATs, the top quarter of WPI students are roughly as academically strong as the bottom quarter of Harvard students, so it is a little bit unfortunate that the latter has a hugely greater chance of getting recruited by an IB. </p>
<p>I’d also point out that WPI’s peer schools: RPI, RIT, Northeastern, state flagships, also don’t get any attention from investment banks. </p>
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<p>Don’t most students outside of top schools (i.e. Stanford, MIT, Caltech, etc.) do REUs off-campus because there isn’t a professor who’s exactly right at their own school? I would be surprised if UMass Amherst really had professors who were more at the top of their field or had better research opportunities.</p>
<p>You can tell how strong research is by a school’s grad school rankings, as these are tied directly to the research output of a department. Lets compare the grad school rankings of umass and wpi in EE and CS, two very popular tech fields:</p>
<p>Umass: CS: ranked 20th in the nation (10th for AI)
Electrical Eng. : 29th in the nation
Wpi: CS: Ranked 101st in the nation
Electrical Eng: 90th in the nation</p>
<p>those are just two examples. In engineering, Umass beats WPI across the board though. All Umass eng programs are within the top 50 (I think chem E is also in the top 30) whereas all WPI programs are I think only in the top 90 (I thin EE is their best department)</p>
<p>Clearly Umass has better reasearch output, professors more on top of their fields, and more cutting edge research oppertunities. </p>
<p>I also probably need to clarify that by research oppertnunities I don’t mean REUs-I mean working for a professor during the school year. Yes, its true that most students at top schools do their REU’s off campus, but thats because REUs typically only admit 10-20 students. In order to get into most good REU’s, some reasearch experience at your home institution (working with a prof) is usually required.</p>
<p>thats a good analysis SpacePope; I am mostly speaking from my experiences. The friends and classmates I knew from WPI that had great GPAs were able to secure PhD spots at great places. this could be a correlation vs causation issue though. </p>
<p>UMass is definitely worth considering over WPI at sticker price (no scholly), I will cede that much for sure!</p>
<p>I think another factor is WPI’s small campus feel. There are great opportunities to get to know the faculty members which may not be available at umass due to larger class sizes and more students. Those close relationships can also lead to great LORs, and I think the faculty do tend to “go to bat” for students that excel.</p>
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<p>i agree, but i-banking and consulting are both prestige-whoring industries, so thats how it works. when rich clients and corporations have their money being tossed around they want to see global/national brands , not regional engineering schools. </p>
<p>if these industries are your goal and you have the SAT to be in the top quarter of WPI, i would shoot for perhaps NYU Stern. I believe their avg SAT is in the 1400’s, and they have very solid connections to the finance world. it has a great business opportunities/difficulty of admission ratio.</p>
<p>@SpacePope I believe that you have made a few mistakes in your analysis. I will point out my arguments.</p>
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<p>First of all, I don’t see the correlation between graduate rankings and the quality of undergraduate opportunities. I have seen undergrad rankings for engineering (yes, by US News, the same source you get your engineering rankings from) and UMass, NEU, and Tufts are ranked below WPI, although not by very much (by 5-10 rankings out of 50). Anyways, I believe that rankings are not very relevant and these rankings are solely based upon peer review, which is by others who are less likely to know about WPI than UMass because of size and are more likely to rank it lower as a result.</p>
<p>Other schools such as Tufts and Brandeis also have lower graduate rankings but it would be hard to argue that they are weaker than UMass because they are more selective. Stronger students are attending these universities not because it is cheaper but because they have something useful to offer to many stuents. I am not bashing state universities since the programs are often very good values but I have a tough time accepting the argument that UMass is much stronger than WPI. I would add that price is also an important factor and I agree with BostonEng that UMass is a great alternative woth considering if you are not awarded a scholarship.</p>
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<p>I would disagree with your citation that WPI is weak in its research opportunity for students. At least at the undergraduate level, I don’t know of many students who are interested in research and were unable to secure positions (and I have spoken to a few upperclassmen regarding this topic). A survey I read showed that WPI had the highest student-faculty interaction at the undergrad level out of a sample of 33 doctoral-intensive universities. I would be extremely surprised to see UMass Amherst or a similar average state school at the top of this list. This is certainly meaningful and much of this interaction is professors mentoring students with research projects. Many other top-rate universities have a senior capstone or honors thesis and the MQP is analogous to this. I would not say that students who do senior theses at UCLA (just an example) don’t do other research before thier thesis. Similarly, it is absured to claim that interested students are discouraged from doing research before the MQP.</p>
<p>Furthermore, there are tremendous opportunities for leadership. Students run many recitation sessions as peer learning assistants, which is at large universities where grad students are assigned as Teaching Assistants. Additionally, at universities with high ranked graduate programs (except for MIT, Stanford, Harvard, et. al), graduate programs are doing most of the heavy lifting and undergraduates largely are doing fairly minor research. There are also often fairly rigid prerequisites at other schools which do little more than to waste students’ time.</p>
<p>Finally, I see that a large number of research papers here are coauthored by undergrads, definitely large than state schools. So even if the “output” is less, there are probably more undergraduate publishing. Many undergrads do research during the year as well (see student-faculty interaction) and a LOT students do corporate sponsored research for businesses at well (research does not have to be with a professor). Finally, the companiies who interview here are strong and many students are placed into top corporate programs (Edison Leadership Program at GE, Extreme Blue at IBM) which are feeders into top management and into top research programs.</p>
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<p>This is not true and most of the top faculty are teaching undergrad students here with many adjunct faculty teaching grad courses. This is not common at many other universities, where top faculty generally only teach graduate level courses. Secondly, there are fewer graduate students here so more of the research is done by undergrads. Most faculty here are doing active research and many junior faculty have won NSF CAREER Awards for research and some senior faculty have been elected as fellows of the most prestigious professional organizations (AAAI, IEEE, ASME, etc.). </p>
<p>Also, I don’t think the “research prestige” of the professor who writes your recommendation is nearly as important as your contribution to a project (they are evaluating YOUR capabilities, not the professor’s capabilities; the professors were hired because they are qualified). The rankings are based largely upon the breadth of research areas available not the quality of faculty. Rankings naturally favor large departments.</p>
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The average accepted student GPA at two of the very top graduate programs in CS are 3.7 and 3.8 (at UIUC and CMU respectively). At UCSB Physics, a top Physics grad school, the average GPA is around 3.9. Graduate schools definitely care about the student GPA, even if they don’t admit it. Unless you get groundbreaking patents or invent a novel device on your own, don’t expect to get into MIT grad school with a 3.0. Medical schools and law schools care much more about GPA and the interdisciplinary project (IQP) provides additional useful and unique real-world opportunties for students and help students to successfully be admitted to top professional schools (MD/JD) and companies. </p>
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<p>Most people who are interested in research and grad schols and who have an adequate GPA (3.5) get into top 10-20 graduate programs. The regional reputation is not necessarily a bad thing. This helps students to get internships at local companies (and some of the best companies, think iRobot, Airvana) respect WPI very much. I don’t think that UMass or Northeastern have stronger “global” or “national” reputations than WPI. </p>
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<p>UMass may be a better option than WPI for you. WPI has its minuses as well. The city is very boring. The majors here are limited and if you are undecided, a school like Tufts or UMass would be better. The students are nerdy. The male/female ratio is poor. There is less social and economic diversity. The humanities classes are largely taught by adjunct faculty who don’t publish but the classes are still enjoyable and students are not majoring in humanities and are unlikely to want to publish in philosophy.</p>
<p>However, I feel that this is more than made up by the writing-intensive project-based curriculum which emphasizes engineering as a human discipline and the strong undergrad focus and research opportunities available here, and also the very strong job and internship placement rates and starting salaries. For engineering and cs, WPI is a strong choice. For science majors (physics, geology), you might want to go with a university with a larger department so that you can research condensed matter physics, particle physics, nuclear engineering or other fields that aren’t available here.</p>
<p>Also another response to spacepope</p>
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<p>No I would agree with Al6200 on this one. Most people do REU’s because the research area is not available in thier own university. For example, if you want to do research in magnets, there is no better place than the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Florida State University (not an especially “prestigious” university). Certainly there is high demand for students doing REUs in MIT and Caltech because they offer a broad range of research and are very prestigious. I don’t think many people face extreme difficulty getting into REU’s at thier own schol. And very successful people from top schools such as Stanford and other normal schools have come to our REU’s, such as one at the Center of Industral Mathematics and Statistics in our Mathematical Sciences department.</p>
<p>Also, you should keep in mind that “research opportunities” should only be one of many considerations you make while applying for college. If you put even a small effort, I doubt it is hard to get research opportunities anywhere. I emailed a few professors for unpaid research this summer and they are quite supportive and encouraging.</p>
<p>Btw, to counterargue the “GPA is irrelevant” statement (how do you know it doesn’t matter [because it does matter a lot], you aren’t even in college), a top student from UMass with a 3.98 GPA, prestigious national scholarship and extensive research goes to UWash. Now I dn’t believe it is impossible to get into MIT grad school with a 3.3 GPA… in fact, if you are an MIT ug, you automatically get in to thier M.Eng. program with a 4.0/5.0 GPA (which is a B - I can’t imaging getting a B average at any schol to be insanely difficult for a top student). The best way to get into MIT grad is probably to go to MIT undergrad. </p>
<p>I really doubt that the UMass (or WPI, RPI) name impresses grad schools outside of MA much more than any other good university. They know that UMass, like most other Universities including RPI, WPI, and Northeastern, admit a quite large proportion of applicants.</p>
<p>“in fact, if you are an MIT ug, you automatically get in to thier M.Eng. program with a 4.0/5.0 GPA (which is a B - I can’t imaging getting a B average at any schol to be insanely difficult for a top student).”</p>
<p>Just a note that I am currently in a grad program with an MIT ug student that was rejected from their grad program, I’ve heard it is actually harder to get into their program if you went there for undergrad b/c MIT enjoys boasting diversity from other colleges in its grad programs.</p>
<p>In addition, I am currently at a large well-known university that accepted a significant amount of WPI students vs. other universities this past year. I believe there’s at least 9 of us here that were accepted this past year…feels like Worcester away from Worcester! In one PhD program with the first year class of 10 students, 3 of them are WPI undergrads. So I don’t know–either we are all seen as smart/bright students, the grad school thinks pretty highly of WPI, or both.</p>
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i am sorry to hear that :P</p>
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<p>That’s not a minus if you’re a girl! :D</p>
<p>and the more girls that feel that way, the better the chances for my son, so GO GIRLS! LOL</p>
<p>I don’t see how your argument is a counterargument, Indiandude. Just because you know one person at Uwash (one of the best universities in the world for grad study in cs/many kinds of engineering) with a high GPA doesn’t mean that all people at Uwash and better schools need GPAs that high. Also, I didn’t say GPA doesn’t matter- it certainly does- just that if you do good research it will matter more. Your average 3.3 gpa student certainly won’t get in to a place like MIT for grad school, but if you do very good research (the person I know wrote multiple good articles while an undergrad) it is certainly a possibility. Of course you’'ll want a higher GPA-especialy within your major-but what I meant to say is that a good GPA with poor research will not get you in to a good grad school and a worse(but still decent) gpa with good research won’t keep you out. My source for this information is a professor who is a family freind that worked on the grad admissions board of CMU SCS. </p>
<p>however, I think I was being too harsh on WPI earlier. Certainly you can do research there, and just because the research projects at WPI aren’t as plentiful or famous as those at other schools, doesn’t mean they aren’t real research oppertunities that teach you how to be a researcher, and look good on a grad school application, and I wish you the best of luck in your summer endevors. I do believe that WPI is overall a better place to study engineering than umass, and I will seriously consider attending, especially if I get a good financial aid offer.</p>
<p>to me it would seem that the ranking is:</p>
<p>good research + good gpa (espicially in tech classes )<br>
good research + mediocre gpa
mediocre research + good gpa</p>
<p>the other thing to consider is the correlation between research and gpa. professors are more likely to take their best students from the various courses on their research teams. if the kid that gets a B vs the kid that gets an A+ asks to work with a given prof, the A+ student will probably win out.</p>
<p>of course, they would choose the kid that got the A+ with an overall 3.5 gpa over the B- student with an overall 3.7 gpa. basically, good grades = better connections with prof = more opportunities for research.</p>
<p>Hey guys, I sent my application in last week and had a few questions:</p>
<p>The Chemistry/Biochem Scholars program: How difficult is entrance to this program? Will any of the research help if I were applying for med/pharm school? Also, How strong is Biochem at WPI? If anyone in this could talk about it, that would help.</p>
<p>How does the quarter system work for grad school requirements? Would two quarter English classes be seen as a full year?</p>
<p>What is there to do in Worcester? I hear there’s a big concert place nearby. How’s the shopping?</p>
<p>Are the female/male rations outside of engineering less skewed? That 3:1 stat is kinda scaring me. Hate to sound shallow, but what are the women like?</p>
<p>Just how hard are college classes? Are they significantly harder than AP/IB classes?</p>
<p>How is merit aid? My family expected contribution is high but with three kids who all want to go to grad school, money is still an issue? Sorry to ask this, but what kind of merit aid can I expect with with
3.98 GPA UW
680CR 800M SAT (790 chem, 730 Math i)
almost all AP/IB courses in math/science/English/history when applicable
Math + Science courses include: IB Chem II SL, IB Bio HL, IB Phys II SL, AP Stats, AP Calc BC, IB Math HL
Alright ECs (lots of sports, internship, student gov, FIRST robotics, + some more)
Great recommendations + Very good essay</p>
<p>Thanks in advance. I think WPI is my first choice. I just hope it works out for money.</p>
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<p>If you have any other questions or you want me to elaborate more, just PM me (I dont check these boards too much).</p>