<p>They seem like different schools to me. Villanova and GW both look like liberal arts schools (to be fair I don't know all that much about them) - whilst WPI is an engineering/science school that tried to bill itself as "Liberal Science" (more on that later). </p>
<p>WPI is one school I've been accepted to and might attend, and I visited this last Wednesday so I can offer you some insight into what I thought of them: </p>
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<li> The city of Worcester itself is terrible. It seemed like it used to be a major industrial hub that failed to keep with the times and eventually had to shut down all of its factories. The streets are littered with abandoned warehouses, mills, and houses. If you've ever played the game Half Life 2 - Worcester is City 17.<br></li>
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<p>It seems like the only thing keeping Worcester from dying all together are the local colleges. </p>
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<li><p>WPI has a very nice campus. It reminded me a bit of Johns Hopkins, old architecture. </p></li>
<li><p>WPI is small, and the selection is poor outside of Engineering or Math. For example, they only offer Spanish and German as languages. I wouldn't advise you to go there unless you plan to be an engineer, a mathematician, or a physicist. </p></li>
<li><p>WPI seems to have an interesting history. In the 1970s the college was declining, along with the city of Worcester - and realized that it had to take a radically different approach to engineering education. They created a sort of blueprint for a "Liberal Sciences" approach to engineering, that would force students to study a broad variety of topics in the sciences and apply them to complex projects. </p></li>
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<p>Through their unique outlook, and the Project system (which is composed of a humanities project - usually a paper, a major project - usually a paper or research piece, and a final project that forces the student to combine everything) WPI stayed afloat and succeeded as an engineering school - even in a dying city. </p>
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<li><p>WPI talked a lot about graduate schools, and being a "liberal science" school. One Computer Engineering professor said that they send about 10% of their students straight to graduate school, and about 40% go into work for a few years and then go to graduate school. </p></li>
<li><p>They're very big on study-abroad. In fact, WPI sends more students overseas each year than any other university in the country. </p></li>
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<p>Good luck, and, visit if you can.</p>