Talk:List of colleges and universities in metropolitan Boston

Various list improvements
I changed a few of the (city/town) locations given to agree with the location given on the college Websites and/or the Wikipeidia page for the school. Helpful to have official location when searching other sources for information. Lavishluau (talk) 03:46, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Has anyone else heard of Hellenic College in Brookline? http://www.hchc.edu/

Boston Architectural Center

Hellenic College is now on the list. Boston Architectural Center is the former name of Boston Architectural College, which is already on the list. --Macrakis 19:46, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Should there be sections for two-year colleges and for graduate-only programs (including seminaries -- see Boston Theological Institute)? --Macrakis 19:46, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Springfield College now has a "Boston" campus (in the old Schraft's building – is that Somerville or Charlestown?) so should be added to the list. The Longy School of Music is now a part of Bard. - anon Sept 30, 2018 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.31.46.0 (talk) 03:02, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Brandeis University is oddly missing. It is inside 128/95 in Waltham. I have not yet made an edit. --Gannetbird (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 14:56, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Inclusion
If this list is to mean all colleges and universities in the Metropolitan Statistical Area of Boston, we must include all of them down to Providence, Rhode Island, and up to southern New Hampshire. I originally opted for a "Metro-Boston" approach, limiting the list to the City of Boston and adjacent cities and towns, or at least places connected via the T. Can we get some input and clarification on this? I added Brown University since someone else added Gordon College and no one objected, but I'm more than willing to start culling the list for colleges that are well outside the Red Line, Green Line, Blue and Orange Lines, &c. --Aepoutre (talk) 20:37, 22 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't think that colleges in Providence or Worcester should be included, as they are clearly discrete urban areas. I would limit the colleges included to those inside the 128, or perhaps the 495.  Antony-22 (talk) 04:42, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

I'd love to limit them, just to keep the template a reasonable size. I can limit them based on, say the "Greater Boston Area" phone book, which included everything inside the 128/I-95 loop, and to the west of US-1. The confusing bit is that, technically, Providence is part of the Boston MSA while Worcester is not. I can remove what I find here that I wouldn't consider close enough to Boston to be what I would consider MetroBoston, but I'm not sure anyone else would back me up. --Aepoutre (talk) 20:01, 24 October 2008 (UTC)


 * The Metropolitan Statistical Area is gigantic and contrived area, generated by a non-local organization. The MSA is not used as a colloquial basis for the Boston metropolitan area. Worcester MA and Providence RI are well beyond the bounds of the Massachusetts state route 128 highway, which is the region is generally considered the metropolitan Boston area.  Any institutions outside of the territory bounded by Massachusetts state route 128 are just not even close to being a neighboring municipality to the core municipalities: Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, Medford, Newton, Quincy, Somerville. Worcester institutions are listed on an entire state of Massachusetts list. -- Yellowdesk (talk) 22:26, 26 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Since people keep insisting that we include colleges ouside the 128, should we create a third section for those schools? Antony-22 (talk) 05:49, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure who exactly keeps insisting other than a few who think Worcester is Boston, but I admit that I may not be up to speed. I'd say that we're fine with a List of colleges and universities in Massachusetts apart from urban areas like Boston's Inner Core, which doesn't expand much beyond 128/1, and the Worcester area. To make separate inside/outside lists based on each interstate around the Hub, rather than specific urbanized areas, might be overdoing it just a bit. --Aepoutre (talk) 23:16, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

P.S. There is a Worcester Consortium for schools in that urban area. I'll check to see that template is included in the Mass. list --Aepoutre (talk) 23:21, 2 November 2008 (UTC) It is. --Aepoutre (talk) 03:11, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

From my talk page: College of the Holy Cross is located in Worcester, Massachusetts which is part of the greater Boston metropolitan area. Worcester is on the MBTA commuter rail to Boston with 12 daily trains. Many people live in Worcester and commute to Boston for work. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.66.24.80 (talk) 01:55, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
 * That statement is erroneous. While the "Greater Boston Area" might even include southern New Hampshire and Providence, Rhode Island, it has never included Worcester, Massachusetts, which has its own metropolitan area. It also has a Worcester Consortium for Worcester-area schools. Furthermore, if you see Talk:List of colleges and universities in metropolitan Boston, you'll notice that the template is limited to institutions in MetroBoston, inside the MA-128/US-1 loop. Including everything beyond that would make it unwieldy. Please understand, in case you come from any particular non-NPOV, that occlusion from the template is not a reflection on a college's quality or reputation. --Aepoutre (talk) 02:46, 27 November 2008 (UTC) --Aepoutre (talk) 03:11, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Theological schools
Some theological seminaries are part of larger institutions: e.g, Harvard Divinity School, BU School of Theology, Boston College School of Theology and Ministry (formerly the independent Weston Jesuit School of Theology). These are not being listed under "Bible colleges and theological seminaries" for this reason. I suggest that for the sake of clarity the header be changed: for example, to "Bible colleges and independent theological seminaries" or "Bible colleges and theological seminaries not listed above". Chonak (talk) 18:19, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The schools are part of universities. Neither this list nor the template should include every single school at every single university in addition to every single school that is not part of a university. For each attempt in the past to add a school or college that is part of a university, the change has been reverted for the sake of preventing it from becoming unwieldy, because Wikipedia is not a directory, and because such a school or college is already represented by the university to which it belongs -- one entry, not multiple entries, for a university. I agree with the logic used in the past, for the most part. If you want to write an article on the Weston Jesuit School of Theology from before it became part of Boston College, then I'd certainly welcome that. I think doing so would further the cause of establishing substantive Wikipedia coverage. I wouldn't say that adding every single college or school that is part of an American university does anything but make for a long list, and that's not very substantive. --Aepoutre (talk) 19:14, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I see there is already a link for the school of theology. Regardless, you are welcome to research the topic and add to the history, since its former independence would be of interest. I also see that BC has a navbox of its own for each of its constituent schools. --Aepoutre (talk) 19:19, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Move Longy to graduate schools?
Longy School of Music offers only graduate degrees; its undergrad program is a degree program through Emerson College. I suggest moving it to the list of "Seminaries and graduate schools". Chonak (talk) 23:24, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Done. I also undid my Radcliffe add. --Aepoutre (talk) 00:51, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

School of the MFA
The School of the Museum of Fine Arts may be a special case. All its degree programs, undergraduate and graduate, appear to be in partnership with Tufts and Northeastern. Does the School award degrees? Is it a college? It is recognized by the USDoE as an institution of higher education. Chonak (talk) 05:01, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Campuses
Yes, I disagree. Here's my rationale: if we list every campus for every school, this list is going to get a lot messier, even in terms of where to locate them -- some schools based outside Boston proper have campuses in the city and some have campuses outside the scope of this list, in Massachusetts and beyond. Just as we shouldn't list every single school that's part of a university, we shouldn't list every single campus because it too makes the list unwieldy. Wikipedia certianly doesn't need to list everything since it's an encyclopedia, not a college guide, travel guide, or directory. If readers want to know the details about each institution, we've provided them with a list of links to those articles. --King of the Arverni (talk) 21:38, 25 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Ugh, I'm sorry Antony-22, I didn't mean to revert your edit, though. I meant to remove that space at the bottom and just leave an edit summary that you'd notice. Stupid of me, except I did notice a little institutional addition when I went to undo my own revert. Judging by the edit summary, I might never have noticed that. A potentially misleading edit summary? Regardless, my opinion on the campus matter hasn't changed. --King of the Arverni (talk) 21:49, 25 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Sorry about the Babson thing, I just reverted back to the version before yours and I didn't realize that Wellesley is outside the 95. I do think that for schools such as Harvard and Tufts, where there is a significant academic presence in more than one city, both should be listed.  Otherwise it gives the impression that the university is solely in one city.  I agree that we need to keep the list from getting messy, but listing two cities after the name is the most unobstrusive way to do this.  I don't think that listing two cities in a few cases makes the article unwieldy at all.  Are there many more cases than these two?  There aren't any other obvious ones in the image in the article.  Antony-22 (talk) 23:37, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the delay, Antony! I've been distracted by other matters. Ah, thanks for explaining the Babson thing; no worries, then, I totally understand.
 * Getting back to the campus bit: you make a decent argument, and I see the merits, but I'm still not entirely convinced.
 * -- Perhaps I'm just being a stickler, but I'm not sure how we'd quantify what you've said, and, more importantly, verify the notion that some are "heavily involved in other cities" or even more so than others (other than vague ideas that Harvard is big and important).
 * -- BU has a Corporate Education Center or something near Chelmsford. I see a sign for it every time I drive Route 3. I don't know much about it, but I know of its existence. There's another Northeastern campus somewhere, too, if I recall. Perhaps when I was driving Route 2 or 16. Northeastern also has a clinical site in Quincy and Eastern Nazarene has some satellite campus in Swansea. Suffolk has a campus in Dubai or something. How do we classify those, and where's the line for "significant"? Significant for whom? And is it only significant for the universities you consider significant? So I guess some of it could be trying to establish good NPOV.
 * -- And is it is just a matter of square mileage? You can barely see Suffolk on the map, but Harvard has an arboretum in the city. I consider Suffolk and Emerson to be pretty well-known but they're smaller than, say Curry by square acreage. Likewise, it looks as though Tufts Medical isn't as prominent as Bentley. Just some thoughts.
 * -- I guess I'm saying that "more than one campus" would make it messy and the fairly subjective "significant" academic presence argument doesn't clearly draw the line anywhere.
 * -- It honestly makes most sense to me to keep the main campus and the single institution idea. I know Tufts' campus spreads all about Medford and Somerville, but their address is a Medford address. If people want to know more about the campus details, they can go to the article and read about the institution and its locations, which is why we've linked them. I don't think the list aims to be so comprehensive to list that much detail.
 * If we do decide to keep it at one-institution and one-campus, we can add visible disclaimers just that for the loop or hidden ones like that for the institutions. For now, though, let's keep this discussion going; I'd really like to hear more of your thoughts, Antony. --King of the Arverni (talk) 17:48, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Okay, here goes:

-- I do agree that there needs to be an objective, agreed-upon criterion for inclusion. I also agree that square footage is not a good criterion because many colleges own a lot of land that isn't currently used for academic purposes.

-- Harvard and Tufts really are the extreme cases that warrant inclusion - Harvard has four of its eleven schools in Boston, and Tufts has four of its eight schools in Boston. My thoughts are that a good criterion is whether there is at least one entire "school" there, being defined as a degree-granting major administrative division of the university.

-- The BU Corporate Education center isn't degree-granting. I don't see anything about a second major campus in the Northeastern article, and anything outside the 128 wouldn't pertain to this article. If there are any other cases of an entire degree-granding school being in another city, I'm sure someone would have brought it up already or will add it in the future.

-- I will agree that Tufts spilling over into Somerville doesn't warrant a mention, especially since it seems to be only a small portion of the campus.

Again, I don't think that double-barrelled locations for a few institutions will make the list unwieldy, and I do think that there's a clear enough difference between an entire school and the mentioned sattelite centers that there (hopefully) shouldn't be borderline cases.

Antony-22 (talk) 05:13, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

I just noticed your new table format for the list - I think that does make it more unwieldy to mention inline, but perhaps an asterisk directing to a sentence at the bottom, or just a sentence in the lead, would probably be the best way to go about this.

Antony-22 (talk) 05:18, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Hey, thanks for the comments! And I hope you like the table. You make some good points and I really like your very last suggestion. I think it would be a great idea to put a sentence in the lead. When I first implemented use of the table, I originally had a footnote, but it didn't feel right. I'll add a sentence now, I think. --King of the Arverni (talk) 18:45, 5 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I do like that solution. Yay for bold-revert-discuss!! Antony-22 (talk) 18:33, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Table Broken
The sort by Enrollment button improperly sorts the table. I'm new and have no idea how to work with tables, else I would fix it myself. Zklink (talk) 05:54, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Enrollment Data
There is a discrepancy of 5000 students between the table data and the Harvard report. Do the numbers include students in the non-degree granting Harvard Extension School? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 18.150.1.76 (talk) 01:51, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth, the Extension School does offer degree programs. --Chonak (talk) 13:00, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Bachelor vs. Baccalaureate
I see both categories are being used. Are they actually differentiated, or just being used interchangeably? I was told at my undergrad school that we were awarded a baccalaureate degree rather than a bachelor's because it required a thesis or original research rather than just four years of study. I don't know whether this is universal or just propaganda my school liked to push. Should we just change all of them to one term or the other? Triangular (talk) 01:49, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Gordon–Conwell Theological Seminary
Should Gordon-Conwell be removed? The main campus is in the suburbs outside of 128. Also, the Boston satellite campus is in Roxbury, but that is a neighborhood of Boston (I live here). All of the other institutions are listed as their city/town, not their neighborhood. Triangular (talk) 01:50, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

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Inscrutable
I came to Wikipedia to see an authoritative list of colleges in the Boston area. As usual I give up and must look elsewhere:

1. I count 45 entries in the table. The only quantity I see approaching it in your introductory text is 44. Either don't contradict yourself or don't publish.

2. For me, a mere man on the street, the data in column Classification are conflated. For some entries you state the degree level; for others you state what I take to mean merely the type of school. Take Boston University and Brandeis. All you say is that they are research. Meaning their certificates don't fall in the traditional associate-bachelors-masters-doctorate spectrum? Somehow, I doubt it.

Begging the ancillary Q: Which colleges grant doctorates?  You don't say. Does, say, research and special focus imply that? If so, say so explicitly in the explanatory text. Or, perhaps better, add a new column, Degree level, and for every school state that datum. Reserving the Classification column for your research and special focus values. For other schools, state general, or whatever term is appropriate.

3. In the text you name Episcopal Divinity School. Where is that institution in the table?

4a. Your sister list, the Wiki list of colleges in Mass., says Labouré College is in Boston. Your table, and the article on the college, say Milton. Sounds like you're right, but whichever is wrong, fix it/them.

4b. In the other table, Mass. College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences is out of αβ order. Fix those incompetents.

Yours for a more, er, educated America.

Jimlue (talk) 05:07, 5 February 2023 (UTC)