Chris,
Both Sara and your wife are correct.
Your wife may remember Wentworth as the two year commuter school that it once was. I recall that Wentworth from my high school days in Boston 30 years ago, and then visited last fall with my son and found a different school altogether. I know you are looking at Interior Design and my son is looking for an arch school, but perhaps what he and I have discovered might be of help to you and your daughter.
->Let me insert here that although what I've written below may sound like a sales pitch it's really just what my son and I have learned about a small up and coming school that gets hardly any mention on this board. If anyone can add good or bad to this we are eager to learn more.<-
Currently my son has his acceptances in hand from the architecture programs at Cal Poly, UCBerkeley, UofOregon, Penn State, and a few others as well as being accepted with very generous scholarships to to arch at Rensselaer, Carnegie-Mellon and RWU, plus Wentworth. So he has good options, and has considered them carefully. His number one choice is WIT....
Honestly, I find it incredibly hard to pass up powerhouse west coast arch schools or the big $ scholarships at the likes of RPI and CMU. However, he looked carefully at all the schools, visited every one of them, stayed overnight at a couple and came up with Wentworth on top. Says it 'fits' him the best, he loved Boston, the abroad program in Germany appeals to him, and he is excited about the challenge of a MArch in 5yrs.
I feel it is his decision.
Back to Wentworth. I can tell you a little bit of how Wentworth has changed;
They've built several new dorms on campus, they even lease out one to either Simmons or Emmanuel, - I can't remember which.
They bought and remodeled neighboring buildings as well as upgraded the existing buildings.
The arch and ID programs are accredited in good standing. Profs I've checked on have good credentials, -the department head is a MIT PhD, and they are very approachable people.
My son spent part of two days at Wentworth last fall during which two different profs gave him personal department tours. They had him sit in on studio and classes as well as crits which he enjoyed more than the crits at any of the other schools. One prof who is a practicing architect had my son visit his Boston office studio. Both these guys later followed up with phone calls to my son whenever he e-mailed them questions. -Keep in mind this was before he even applied.
The kids on campus seemed happy and engaged and my son has connected to several on the WIT sponsored online informational chat sessions.
The stats of applying, accepted and enrolled student has been on an upward trend.
Once he applied and was accepted we were invited to a WIT Alumni reception out here on the west coast. My son met and spoke to a number of alumns including a current prof at UCSF and two recent grads working in SF as architects. He also spoke at length to WIT's president Zorica Pantic just before she gave a very nice presentation to the alumns on where Wentworth is headed, which included two big announcements; they just received accreditation from NAAB to start up an optional 5yr MArch program, and the start of new construction on campus, a Student Union -not having one has kept them off many 'rankings'.
-> They did make the '07 Princeton Review;
Wentworth Institute of Technology: News & Events >
Also, check out Pres. Pantic's profile here;
Wentworth Institute of Technology: President's Office
and curriculum vitae here;
http://www.wit.edu/President/docs/curriculumvitae.pdf
She's a dynamic person and leading Wentworth into the future.
Two points your daughter may find of interest;
The Co-op program places 100% in the students chosen field.
They have a significant outreach to female applicants, including a Women at Wentworth weekend for admitted girls each spring, and have some special 'women only' facilities on campus -but we did not get to see, so can't comment....
If you want more, feel free to PM me.
Good luck to your daughter.
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to visit.
