D accepted with 38k merit. She is very happy! We are (pleasantly) surprised at the merit amounts reported since we had heard WPI was not so generous.
7 Likes
RPI is a great school with amazing outcomes! Saying as an alumni with first year kid there now.
3 Likes
D26 also accepted with $38K a year presidential! I’m out of town and had to tell her to check after seeing these posts, lol. Super exciting, although she has all but crossed off WPI as an option because she likes another couple of her acceptances better.
Too bad because I really liked the school when we visited!
2 Likes
If anyone here has WPI questions, I’m happy to try to answer them. My son is a current senior (MechE/CivE double major) and has had a great experience. We are not from New England and were not very familiar with the school before he was accepted. If anyone else is in that same boat, I’d be happy to try to share what we know, just let me know!
5 Likes
Thanks for the offer! We are touring in 2 weeks, but know almost nothing about it except that it has a nice program that aligns with my son’s interests (project design/engineering). Anything we should definitely see when we tour? We asked to meet an engineering student outside of the tour and they declined.
It’s a really small campus, so you will see most of it on the tour. If you want something off campus, Worcester has a surprisingly nice Art museum very close to campus. There are a handful of off campus restaurants that you’ll hear recommended - The Fix is on one side, in sort of an old warehouse-y feeling building. It’s known for it’s burgers. The Boynton is off of a different side of campus, it’s got sort of your Americana - salads, regular mains etc. And there’s a Thai restaurant right on that street that’s pretty good too.
I can’t remember specifics of the on campus tour, but if you have questions after the fact I can try to help answer them. A few basics - yes, a lot of freshmen are in triples that used to be very large doubles. The school historically has only had housing for freshman, but last year they bought a hotel near campus, and now they have housing for sophomores as well.
The campus is fairly compact, so you won’t be walking forever. It’s got a good central green space and a few hills here and there, but it’s not exhausting to walk either. As you approach campus you will notice that many of the surrounding streets to the south have older looking large homes. A lot of those are off campus rentals - they turn each floor of the home into an apartment for 2-4 students.
You can’t see the things that I think make the school the most unique - the IQP (junior year project) or MQP (senior year project). If your tour guide is a junior or senior, ask them where their IQP was and how it went, if a sophomore, ask them where they’ve been assigned (assignment slots went out last month) and if they are excited.
FWIW, my son, a current senior, is a double major in Mechanical and Civil Engineering. For his IQP (junior year project) he spent a term in Thessaloniki, Greece. Your IQP generally does not tie to your major in any way. It’s really about learning to work with a team, to solve a problem, and deliver a product to a client. It’s very much project management, sometimes with engineering or programming or other STEM skills worked in, but not always. He and his cohort had an amazing time.
Now he’s working on his MQP (major qualifying project). For that it IS focused on major, so his has to meet the needs and expectations of two departments. He’s working with three other young men and their faculty chairs happen to be the heads of the two departments, because the project was something that hit both of those professor’s expertise areas.
The projects, and ability to work on projects, are really the best draw and it’s hard to “see” that.
For downsides - although it’s theoretically getting better, the food is not great. There’s one main cafeteria and it is just blah. There are other things they’ve set up that are much better, with more interesting and tasty options, but that are also not as easy on the meal plan (e.g. you can’t go there every meal freshman year, as all the meal plans require most meals at the basic cafeteria). The food is generally the biggest complaint about the school. Ask your tour guide how often they eat on campus and which places they like to go.
If any questions come up after the tour, please feel free to ping me. I’m sorry they aren’t offering a student outside of the tour. If your child has a club or sport or something that is interesting to them, I bet you could find the instagram page for that event at WPI and perhaps you could reach out to someone that way and ask if someone would meet up and chat if you offered to get them coffee or something.
ED2 and EA2 results will be released on Thu, Feb 12 @ 5pm ET as per IG post.
Really appreciate this! We will be touring just after the Bomb Cyclone later this week so hopefully all goes well. He was accepted a couple week ago (EA2), so we are really excited to see it. We’ll plan to eat in the cafeteria to get a sense of the “blah” but also look around off campus. I’ll ping you if we have more question! Thanks!
1 Like
My student is currently in his last week of training for a marathon in cape cod… next Sunday. So this bomb cyclone is not exactly good timing for the end of training. Sigh.
Have a great trip - usually the campus does a great job getting the sidewalks cleared, you’ll see most students probably won’t bother with boots.
If your kid is a skier there’s a pretty active ski club. New England mountains are certainly not CO mountains, but it’s still a solid group. (My kid does not ski, but I saw the user name and thought maybe…
This topic was automatically closed 180 days after the last reply. If you’d like to reply, please flag the thread for moderator attention.