<p>Trip report: April 4, 2006</p>
<p>WPI (Worcester Polytechnic Institute) is located about an hour's drive west of Boston, in Worcester, MA (pronounced "Wuhs-ter"), easy to find. As a Polytechnic Institute, mainly a science and technology school, but with a surprisingly large number of humanities offerings. It's on a compact yet not crowded campus on about 80 acres, filled with brick or stone buildings in traditional architecture. Freshmen live on campus, mostly in doubles but there are some suite-style quads; afterwards many move off-campus to apartments or frat houses nearby (30% of the campus is Greek). Housing is said to be easy to find and no one complained about their situations. It has ~2800 undergrads, ~70% male/30% female. 13:1 student:faculty ratio; average class size is around 20. They participate in Division III sports, and have seemingly active student theatre, improv, and music scenes.</p>
<p>The school is on the quarter ("term") system (A, B, C, and D terms); students take 3 classes each term for 7 weeks each. Classes typically meet for 50 min. each weekday except Wed. which is a lab day. Grading is A, B, C, and no-record: there are 3 "extra courses" built into the 4-year schedule to cover up to 3 "NRs". The undergrad curriculum is project-based, with 3 projects required of all students: (1) "Sufficiency Project" -- 5 related classes chosen in an area of the student's humanities or art interests. One student we talked to did some theatre things, including building sets for a series of plays. (2) "IQP" (Interactive Qualifying Project) -- one entire term consisting of a sort of internship exploring the impact of science on society. Students often go off-campus to a US or international center (with housing provided) for this experience. We talked with students who had done their IQPs in Thailand, Washington DC, and Silicon Valley. Students receive the equivalent of 3 course credits for this (one term's-worth). It's typically done in the junior year, but sometimes as a sophomore. Some have prep work required (e.g. learning enough Thai to communicate at some level). (3) Senior project -- a project chosen with an advisor to explore or put into practice some aspect of the student's curriculum studies. This is typically the equivalent of 1 course over 3 terms, but could be the entire concentration of a term. (A recent student went to Antarctica for a term to test an underwater robotic device he'd developed. This is not typical.) There is a priority system for course registrations, but if students force themselves out of bed at 8am on registration day and do it online, they're unlikely to miss out on anything they want to get. 4 phys ed courses are required, and we were told the Bowling course is most often the class students are unable to register for. (!) There is a popular Mechanical Engineering course in building things, and full labs including welding, with certification. WPI offers a Fire Protection Engineering major, which features labs where they can blow up or burn things to experiment with extinguishing fires. The kids on our tour agreed this would be a fun elective. (The parents were a bit dubious.)</p>
<p>They are part of the "Colleges of Worcester Consortium" (WPI, Clark, Holy Cross, Assumption, Becker, and Worcester State) that share library collections and classes. Our tourguides said people absolutely did sign up for courses at other schools (especially in languages and the arts: the offerings at WPI are slim in those areas, but they encourage participation). There is a shuttle bus running around the consortium which is said to take about an hour to do the entire loop. Transportation into Boston is said to be easy, although not all that popular a weekend option, as students most often stay on campus.</p>
<p>WPI offers both EA I (11/15 deadline) and EA II (1/1 deadline) before their RD 2/1 deadline. If an applicant applies EA and is not admitted, typically they would be denied rather than deferred into the RD pool. Application requires SAT I or ACT, 4 years of math through pre-calc and 2 years of lab sciences, and recommendation from math or science teacher. </p>
<p>We saw a decent number of students wandering around campus, with lots of activity in the student center. The food in the main cafeteria was very good, all you can eat, lots of variety, and open from before 7am to 8pm non-stop. There is a second smaller cafeteria, and a more fast-food eatery that's open into later hours. The folks in the robotics labs were having a great time; WPI partners with a local school in FIRST Robotics and are very successful. The women who sat with us at lunch were very enthusiastic about their school. Many turned down other schools my S is looking at to attend. The entire campus is wireless.</p>
<p>My S was a little nervous about how you choose your project topics and was disappointed at how non-urban the area was, but they have his preferred major (Interactive Media and Game Design) and he felt comfortable there. He will apply.</p>