I had a great visit to UMass Lowell! Formerly the University of Lowell, the University of Massachusetts system scooped this campus up years ago. While the city of Lowell, a former mill town, is still a bit gritty, many of the campus buildings now seem really hip with the interior brick and exposed HVAC that is so iconic in old mill buildings. People pay a fortune to live in buildings like these in New York and Boston! 27 miles from Boston, UMass Lowell was once a commuter school but is definitely starting to make its mark. Students come from 50 states and 122 different countries, and 45% of the student body is first generation. We got some conflicting numbers from admissions, but it's safe to say that about half of the 11,000 undergraduate live on campus, and the other half is divided between true commuters living at home with their parents and students living off campus in apartments with friends. The all-in price of $30K in-state, $42K for the New England regional program, and $48K for out-of-state continues to draw students looking for a great educational value. UML has long been known for its strong engineering and nursing programs and great job placement. In the Saab Center, Raytheon does research which students are involved with, and one floor is entirely dedicated to nanotechnology. Robotics is big here: there's an academic minor and a club. And the biology building has a spider silk lab which both fascinates and disgusts me! There are co-ops available for engineering, science and business majors, and the university is looking to expand this co-op program in the future for other majors. Nursing students have opportunities for clinicals at Mass General, Children's and Brigham and Women's Hospitals in Boston as well as Lowell General, and the most recent NCLEX pass rate is 97%.

Some notable facts about admissions: a student can enter as an undeclared business or engineering major with up to 2 years to narrow things down. Transfers between colleges and programs is entirely doable except students cannot transfer into nursing once they have matriculated.The average admitted student has a 3.0 in high school but for mechanical and biomedical engineering or computer science, their most competitive majors, a 3.5 is more realistic. It's important to apply early action for scholarship consideration - in-state students can be awarded up to $15K, and out-of-state students up to $20K. It's clear why UML has been rated number one in New England for ROI!