by our College Data Analytics Team
College Factual analyzes over 2,000 colleges and universities in its annual rankings and ranks them in a variety of ways, including most diverse, best overall quality, best for non-traditional students, and much more.
Worcester Polytechnic Institute was awarded 429 badges in the 2024 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is other multi/interdisciplinary studies.
Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.
College Factual ranked WPI as #53 out of 2,217 colleges and universities in the country on its 2024 Best Colleges list. This puts it in the top 5% of all schools in the nation. This is an improvement over the previous year, when WPI held the #67 spot on the Best Overall Colleges list.
Out of the 63 colleges in Massachusetts, WPI is ranked at #5.
See all of the rankings for Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
If you're applying to Worcester Polytechnic Institute you'll face some tough competition, since the school's acceptance rate is only 60%. Definitely don't wait until the last minute to submit your application, since applying early may be in your favor.
The student to faculty ratio is often used to estimate how much interaction there is between professors and their students at a college or university. At Worcester Polytechnic Institute, this ratio is 14 to 1, which is on par with the national average of 15 to 1. That's not bad at all.
Another measure that is often used to estimate how much access students will have to their professors is how many faculty members are full-time. The idea here is that part-time faculty tend to spend less time on campus, so they may not be as available to students as full-timers.
The full-time faculty percentage at Worcester Polytechnic Institute is 88%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.
Worcester Polytechnic Institute has a freshmen retention rate of 94%. That's a good sign that full-time students like the school and their professors enough to want to stick around for another year. It's also a sign that the admissions team did a good job in choosing applicants who were a good fit for the school.
Students are considered to have graduated on time if they finish their studies within four years. At WPI the on-time graduation rate of first-time, full-time students is 82%. That is great when compared to the national average of 33.3%
Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 4,892 undergraduates at WPI with 4,709 being full-time and 183 being part-time.
| $0-30 K | $30K-48K | $48-75 | $75-110K | $110K + |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $31,779 | $33,976 | $33,999 | $40,094 | $46,023 |
The net price is calculated by adding tuition, room, board and other costs and subtracting financial aid.Note that the net price is typically less than the published for a school. For more information on the sticker price of WPI, see our tuition and fees and room and board pages.
It's not uncommon for college students to take out loans to pay for school. In fact, almost 66% of students nationwide depend at least partially on loans. At WPI, approximately 55% of students took out student loans averaging $14,559 a year. That adds up to $58,236 over four years for those students.
The student loan default rate at WPI is 1.1%. This is significantly lower than the national default rate of 10.1%, which is a good sign that you'll be able to pay back your student loans.
Get more details about paying for Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
See which majors at Worcester Polytechnic Institute make the most money.
Get more details about the location of Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
Contact details for WPI are given below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | 100 Institute Road, Worcester, MA 01609-2280 |
| Phone: | 508-831-5000 |
| Website: | https://www.wpi.edu/ |
| Facebook: | http://www.facebook.com/wpi.edu |
| Twitter: | http://www.twitter.com/wpi |
| Most Popular Majors | Bachelor’s Degrees | Average Salary of Graduates |
|---|---|---|
| Economics | 229 | NA |
| Mechanical Engineering | 229 | $68,074 |
| Computer Science | 183 | $86,601 |
| Biomedical Engineering | 101 | $57,498 |
| Robotics Engineering | 95 | $77,253 |
| Electrical Engineering | 95 | $74,310 |
| Chemical Engineering | 71 | $67,835 |
| Aerospace & Aeronautical Engineering | 59 | $72,303 |
| Civil Engineering | 39 | $67,056 |
| General Biology | 31 | $43,799 |
Online learning is becoming popular at even the oldest colleges and universities in the United States. Not only are online classes great for returning adults with busy schedules, they are also frequented by a growing number of traditional students.
In 2020-2021, 2,304 students took at least one online class at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. This is an increase from the 834 students who took online classes the previous year.
| Year | Took at Least One Online Class | Took All Classes Online |
|---|---|---|
| 2020-2021 | 2,304 | 873 |
| 2019-2020 | 834 | 661 |
| 2018-2019 | 998 | 683 |
| 2017-2018 | 1,089 | 653 |
| 2016-2017 | 1,014 | 540 |
Learn more about online learning at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
Footnotes
*The racial-ethnic minorities count is calculated by taking the total number of students and subtracting white students, international students, and students whose race/ethnicity was unknown. This number is then divided by the total number of students at the school to obtain the racial-ethnic minorities percentage.
References
More about our data sources and methodologies.