By Glyn Caddell, BSME · Author of Digital SAT Math Secrets · Tutoring since 2008 — Updated October 24, 2026
Seventeen Massachusetts schools offer ABET-accredited engineering degrees, and this page lists what they cost and the SAT scores of the students they admit.
One of them reports a Math range ten points under MIT’s and admits one applicant in four, after a required weekend on campus and a required pair of high school courses, a process covered below the table.
Scores are given by section and the table is sorted by Math, with the three schools that report no range listed last.
Table of Contents
- Massachusetts Engineering Colleges by SAT Math Score
- What Does It Take to Get Into Olin College of Engineering?
- Which Massachusetts Schools Have ABET-Accredited Engineering Programs?
- What If Your Score Is Below the Range You Want?
Massachusetts Engineering Colleges by SAT Math Score
The seventeen schools below are the ones in Massachusetts that hold an ABET-accredited bachelor’s degree in an engineering discipline. The fourteen that report scores are sorted by the midpoint of the SAT Math range, so the order can be checked from the table itself, and the three that do not are listed last in alphabetical order.
| College | SAT Reading & Writing | SAT Math | Cost of attendance | Undergraduates | Admit rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | 740 to 780 | 780 to 800 | $82,730 | 4,535 | 5% |
| Harvard University | 740 to 780 | 770 to 800 | $85,540 | 7,601 | 4% |
| Olin College of Engineering | 723 to 768 | 770 to 790 | $86,474 | 377 | 25% |
| Tufts University | 720 to 770 | 750 to 790 | $88,300 | 7,061 | 11% |
| Boston College | 710 to 760 | 730 to 780 | $89,493 | 10,085 | 16% |
| Northeastern University | 710 to 760 | 730 to 780 | $84,641 | 17,326 | 5% |
| Boston University | 690 to 750 | 730 to 780 | $86,285 | 18,248 | 11% |
| Smith College | 720 to 760 | 700 to 780 | $86,030 | 2,544 | 21% |
| University of Massachusetts Amherst | 650 to 730 | 660 to 770 | $34,549 | 23,671 | 60% |
| University of Massachusetts Lowell | 590 to 680 | 590 to 690 | $30,786 | 11,434 | 83% |
| Wentworth Institute of Technology | 560 to 660 | 550 to 660 | $61,096 | 3,747 | 91% |
| Western New England University | 540 to 650 | 550 to 650 | $60,262 | 2,603 | 83% |
| University of Massachusetts Boston | 540 to 650 | 530 to 640 | $30,544 | 11,512 | 84% |
| University of Massachusetts Dartmouth | 530 to 640 | 520 to 630 | $33,485 | 5,221 | 91% |
| Massachusetts Maritime Academy | Does not report SAT data | Does not report SAT data | $31,367 | 1,395 | 95% |
| Merrimack College | Does not report SAT data | Does not report SAT data | $70,038 | 3,916 | 70% |
| Worcester Polytechnic Institute | Does not report SAT data | Does not report SAT data | $78,679 | 5,447 | 60% |
Each range covers the middle 50% of admitted students who submitted the SAT. A quarter scored below the lower number, and the top quarter scored at or above the upper one. Being under the lower number does not rule a student out, and being just above it is not as safe as it looks.
Boston College, Northeastern and Boston University share a Math range of 730 to 780 and are ordered by the midpoint of the Reading & Writing range, then alphabetically. Only schools with an ABET-accredited engineering bachelor’s degree are listed. Wentworth’s and other schools’ engineering technology degrees are accredited under a separate ABET commission and are not the degrees that put a school on the list. Massachusetts Maritime, Merrimack and WPI report no SAT or ACT range to the Scorecard and are listed last.
Three things about that table are worth pausing on.
Harvard reports a Math range of 770 to 800, which puts it above Olin and ten points under MIT at the floor. The three highest Math ranges on the page belong to two universities in Cambridge and a college of 377 students in Needham.
Olin admits 25% of applicants on a Math range ten points under MIT’s at both ends, and MIT admits 4.6%. Five times the admit rate for ten points of Math is the gap the next section is about, and it is not the gap it looks like.
UMass Amherst’s in-state tuition, $17,772, is the second-highest resident charge at any public university in this series, behind Colorado School of Mines, and it is more than Louisiana Tech charges a student from out of state. A Massachusetts family pays more to send a student to its own flagship’s engineering college than a New York family pays to send one to Ruston.
A student can see where his Math score sits on this list in the image above.
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s School of Engineering in Cambridge holds ABET accreditation in disciplines including aerospace, chemical, civil, electrical, environmental, materials, mechanical and nuclear engineering, and MIT has the highest Math range on the page.
Reading & Writing 740 to 780, Math 780 to 800. The top quarter of admitted students scored 800 on Math. Cost of attendance $82,730, with tuition and fees at $62,396 for all students. 4,535 undergraduates, 4.6% admitted.
MIT is the second most selective school on the page by admit rate and the cheapest of the eight schools over $80,000. Its Math floor of 780 is the ceiling at Boston College, Northeastern, Boston University and Smith.
Harvard University
Harvard University’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences in Cambridge awards Bachelor of Science degrees in bioengineering, electrical engineering, environmental science and engineering and mechanical engineering, and Harvard has the second-highest Math range on the page.
Reading & Writing 740 to 780, Math 770 to 800. The top quarter of admitted students scored 800 on Math. Cost of attendance $85,540, with tuition and fees at $61,676 for all students. 7,601 undergraduates, 3.7% admitted.
Harvard is the most selective school on the page and the only one other than MIT whose top quarter scored a perfect 800 on Math. Its tuition is $720 below MIT’s.
Olin College of Engineering
Olin College of Engineering in Needham holds ABET accreditation in electrical and computer engineering, mechanical engineering and general engineering, and Olin admits students in two phases, the second of which is a required weekend on campus.
Reading & Writing 723 to 768, Math 770 to 790. The top quarter of admitted students scored at or above 790 on Math. Cost of attendance $86,474, with tuition and fees at $66,398 for all students, and every student receives a $10,000 annual scholarship. 377 undergraduates, 25% admitted.
Olin is the smallest school on the page by a factor of three and the only one devoted to engineering alone. Its Math range sits ten points under MIT’s at the floor and the ceiling, and its admit rate is five times MIT’s, for the reason the next section gives.
Tufts University
Tufts University’s School of Engineering in Medford holds ABET accreditation in disciplines including biomedical, chemical, civil, computer, electrical, environmental and mechanical engineering, and Tufts has the fourth-highest Math range on the page.
Reading & Writing 720 to 770, Math 750 to 790. The top quarter of admitted students scored at or above 790 on Math. Cost of attendance $88,300, with tuition and fees at $70,704 for all students. 7,061 undergraduates, 11% admitted.
Tufts charges the highest tuition on the page, $2 above Boston College’s, and its Math ceiling of 790 matches Olin’s on a floor 20 points lower.
Boston College
Boston College’s human-centered engineering program in Chestnut Hill received ABET accreditation in 2026, retroactive to 2024, and Boston College has the highest cost of attendance on the page.
Reading & Writing 710 to 760, Math 730 to 780. The top quarter of admitted students scored at or above 780 on Math. Cost of attendance $89,493, with tuition and fees at $70,702 for all students. 10,085 undergraduates, 16% admitted.
Boston College is a Jesuit university and holds the newest accredited engineering degree on this page, a single bachelor’s in human-centered engineering that graduated its first class before the accreditation arrived. Its Math range is shared with Northeastern and Boston University.
Northeastern University
Northeastern University’s College of Engineering in Boston holds ABET accreditation in disciplines including bioengineering, chemical, civil, computer, electrical, environmental, industrial and mechanical engineering, and Northeastern admits 5.2% of applicants to a university of 17,326 undergraduates.
Reading & Writing 710 to 760, Math 730 to 780. The top quarter of admitted students scored at or above 780 on Math. Cost of attendance $84,641, with tuition and fees at $66,162 for all students. 17,326 undergraduates, 5.2% admitted.
Northeastern is the second-largest school on the page and the third most selective, with an admit rate between MIT’s and Tufts’ at a university nearly four times MIT’s size. Its co-op program puts engineering students in six-month paid positions during the degree.
Boston University
Boston University’s College of Engineering holds ABET accreditation in biomedical, computer, electrical and mechanical engineering, and Boston University is the largest private school on the page.
Reading & Writing 690 to 750, Math 730 to 780. The top quarter of admitted students scored at or above 780 on Math. Cost of attendance $86,285, with tuition and fees at $68,102 for all students. 18,248 undergraduates, 11% admitted.
Boston University shares its Math range with Boston College and Northeastern and has the lowest Reading & Writing floor of the three, 690. It admits the same share as Tufts on a Math floor 20 points lower.
Smith College
Smith College’s Picker Engineering Program in Northampton holds ABET accreditation for its Bachelor of Science in Engineering Science, and Smith is the only women’s college on any page in this series with an accredited engineering degree.
Reading & Writing 720 to 760, Math 700 to 780. The top quarter of admitted students scored at or above 780 on Math. Cost of attendance $86,030, with tuition and fees at $65,178 for all students. 2,544 undergraduates, 21% admitted.
Smith’s Math range is the widest among the private schools above UMass Amherst, 80 points, and its Reading & Writing range sits above its Math range at the floor by 20 points, the only school on the page where that is true by that margin.
University of Massachusetts Amherst
The University of Massachusetts Amherst’s College of Engineering holds ABET accreditation in disciplines including biomedical, chemical, civil, computer, electrical, environmental, industrial and mechanical engineering, and UMass Amherst has the highest Math range among the public universities on the page.
Reading & Writing 650 to 730, Math 660 to 770. The top quarter of admitted students scored at or above 770 on Math. Cost of attendance $34,549, with tuition and fees at $17,772 in state and $40,449 out of state. 23,671 undergraduates, 60% admitted.
UMass Amherst is the largest school on the page and its Math ceiling of 770 is 10 points under the three Boston universities’ and 100 above UMass Lowell’s. Its in-state tuition is the second-highest public resident charge in this series.
University of Massachusetts Lowell
The University of Massachusetts Lowell’s Francis College of Engineering holds ABET accreditation in disciplines including biomedical, chemical, civil, computer, electrical, mechanical and plastics engineering, and UMass Lowell has the second-highest public Math range on the page.
Reading & Writing 590 to 680, Math 590 to 690. The top quarter of admitted students scored at or above 690 on Math. Cost of attendance $30,786, with tuition and fees at $16,966 in state and $36,264 out of state. 11,434 undergraduates, 83% admitted.
UMass Lowell holds the only accredited plastics engineering degree on any page in this series, and its two section ranges are nearly identical. Its Math floor of 590 is 70 points below Amherst’s.
Wentworth Institute of Technology
Wentworth Institute of Technology’s School of Engineering in Boston holds ABET accreditation in biomedical, civil, computer, electrical, electromechanical and mechanical engineering, and Wentworth has the highest Math range among the schools on the page that admit more than 90% of applicants.
Reading & Writing 560 to 660, Math 550 to 660. The top quarter of admitted students scored at or above 660 on Math. Cost of attendance $61,096, with tuition and fees at $42,884 for all students. 3,747 undergraduates, 91% admitted.
Wentworth is the least selective reporting school on the page by a fraction of a point over UMass Dartmouth, and the cheapest private. Its engineering technology degrees are accredited separately and are not the programs that place it here.
Western New England University
Western New England University’s College of Engineering in Springfield holds ABET accreditation in biomedical, civil, electrical, industrial and mechanical engineering, and Western New England has the lowest Reading & Writing floor among the private schools on the page.
Reading & Writing 540 to 650, Math 550 to 650. The top quarter of admitted students scored at or above 650 on Math. Cost of attendance $60,262, with tuition and fees at $47,820 for all students. 2,603 undergraduates, 83% admitted.
Western New England’s Math range sits 10 points under Wentworth’s at the ceiling on the same floor, and it is the only private engineering school on the page west of Worcester.
University of Massachusetts Boston
The University of Massachusetts Boston’s Department of Engineering holds ABET accreditation in electrical engineering and computer engineering, and UMass Boston has the lowest cost of attendance on the page.
Reading & Writing 540 to 650, Math 530 to 640. The top quarter of admitted students scored at or above 640 on Math. Cost of attendance $30,544, with tuition and fees at $15,908 in state and $38,125 out of state. 11,512 undergraduates, 84% admitted.
UMass Boston is the cheapest school on the page by total cost and holds two accredited degrees, the fewest of any reporting public. Its out-of-state tuition is $1,861 above Lowell’s on a Math range 50 points lower at the ceiling.
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth’s College of Engineering holds ABET accreditation in bioengineering, civil, computer, electrical and mechanical engineering, and UMass Dartmouth has the lowest Math range on the page.
Reading & Writing 530 to 640, Math 520 to 630. The top quarter of admitted students scored at or above 630 on Math. Cost of attendance $33,485, with tuition and fees at $15,612 in state and $32,567 out of state. 5,221 undergraduates, 91% admitted.
UMass Dartmouth has the lowest in-state and out-of-state tuition among the reporting schools, and its Math ceiling of 630 is 150 points under MIT’s floor. It is the only UMass campus with an accredited bioengineering degree.
Massachusetts Maritime Academy
Massachusetts Maritime Academy in Buzzards Bay holds ABET accreditation for its energy systems engineering degree, and the Academy reports no admitted score range.
Cost of attendance $31,367, with tuition and fees at $11,420 in state and $23,722 out of state. 1,395 undergraduates, 95% admitted.
Massachusetts Maritime is the least selective school on the page, the cheapest for a resident and for a non-resident, and the only one whose students wear a uniform. It reports no SAT or ACT range to the Scorecard.
Merrimack College
Merrimack College’s School of Engineering and Computational Sciences in North Andover holds ABET accreditation in civil, electrical and mechanical engineering, and Merrimack reports no admitted score range.
Cost of attendance $70,038, with tuition and fees at $53,962 for all students. 3,916 undergraduates, 70% admitted.
Merrimack is an Augustinian Catholic college, the second-cheapest private on the page by total cost, and it reports no SAT or ACT range to the Scorecard.
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Worcester Polytechnic Institute holds ABET accreditation in disciplines including aerospace, biomedical, chemical, civil, electrical, environmental, mechanical and robotics engineering, and WPI reports no admitted score range.
Cost of attendance $78,679, with tuition and fees at $60,965 for all students. 5,447 undergraduates, 60% admitted.
WPI has been test-optional since 2007, ran a test-blind pilot from 2021 to 2024 in which it read no scores at all, and has returned to test-optional. It does not use scores in awarding merit scholarships, and it reports no SAT or ACT range to the Scorecard.
Fourteen ranges and three blanks say who got in. One of the fourteen was produced by a process no other school on the page uses, and the next section is about it.
What Does It Take to Get Into Olin College of Engineering?
Olin admits a student in two phases, a January review of the application that selects 275 to 300 candidates and a required Candidates’ Weekend on campus with an interview and a group exercise, and it requires calculus and physics on the high school transcript while leaving the SAT and ACT optional.
Olin’s admission page gives the process. Applicants learn at the end of January whether they are advancing to a Candidates’ Weekend. There are three, on February 19 and 20, February 26 and 27, and March 5 and 6 of 2027, running from Friday afternoon through Saturday, and attendance is required to be considered for admission. Applicants living outside the continental United States interview virtually instead. Final decisions arrive in late March. The college invites 275 to 300 applicants to the weekends in a year, and it enrolls a student body of 375.
The course requirement is written in the same plain language. A strong foundation in calculus and physics “is therefore a requirement for admission,” and a student who has not finished them must be enrolled in both in the fall of senior year and show evidence of progress. Test scores are optional through the 2026-27 cycle with no minimum. Every student receives the Olin Tuition Scholarship, $10,000 a year for up to eight semesters.
Now set the range beside MIT’s. Olin’s Math range is 770 to 790 and MIT’s is 780 to 800, ten points apart at the floor and ten at the ceiling. Olin admits 25% of applicants and MIT admits 4.6%. A student reading those two admit rates as a measure of how hard each school is to get into is reading the wrong number, because Olin’s 25% is the share of a pool that was first cut to 275 to 300 and then interviewed in person for two days. The range describes students who were admitted after a weekend in Needham. MIT’s describes students who were admitted after a file read.
The image above shows the two schools ten points apart on Math and five times apart on admission, and the weekend that accounts for the second gap.
Take a student with a 760 on Math and calculus and physics on his transcript. At MIT he is 20 points below the floor. At Harvard he is 10 below. At Olin he is 10 below the floor, and if he is one of the 275 to 300 invited in January, his application is decided by what happens in a room in Needham in February, at a rate Olin does not publish and this page does not estimate. At Tufts he is 10 above the floor. At UMass Amherst he is in the top quarter of the admitted class, admitted at 60% to a College of Engineering with eight accredited disciplines, for $17,772 a year if he lives in Massachusetts. The same 760 is below the floor at three schools on this page and in the top quarter at the state’s flagship, and the one school where the number matters least is the one whose range it almost matches.
The rest of the state runs its gates in more familiar ways. WPI, the state’s other engineering-focused university, has been test-optional since 2007, read no scores at all from 2021 to 2024, and reads them again now as an option. UMass Amherst admits first-year students to its College of Engineering on the application. Northeastern admits 5.2% of applicants to a university of 17,326, a lower rate than MIT’s on a Math range 50 points lower at the floor, and Boston College’s engineering degree was accredited in 2026, retroactive to 2024, the newest accredited engineering bachelor’s on any page in this series. None of the sixteen requires a visit, and none requires physics. On our page on engineering colleges in Maryland the flagship’s gate is a grade in Calculus II after admission. Olin’s is a course in physics before it and a weekend in between.
The honest version is that Olin’s range is a small number. It is the middle 50% of students who chose to submit a score at a test-optional college of 375, so it is drawn from a few dozen students a year and can move 10 or 20 points between releases, and this page says so. The scholarship was a half-tuition award in earlier years and is $10,000 now. The admit rate from Candidates’ Weekend is not published. What is published is the requirement, in Olin’s words, and the dates, and a student who wants Olin should read those two things before he reads the 770.
Families reading Olin’s page frequently ask whether a test score is needed at all.
Do You Need an SAT Score to Apply to Olin?
A student does not need an SAT score to apply to Olin. The college is test-optional through the 2026-27 cycle with no minimum, and the two things it does require are calculus and physics on the transcript and attendance at a Candidates’ Weekend.
A student who submits a score is submitting it against 770 to 790, and it is read beside a transcript that has to show both courses. A student who does not is read on the transcript alone in January and then in person in February, and the second reading is the one that decides. More on how optional scores are read on our page on test-optional colleges.
Olin’s process is its own. The degrees are what the next section lists.
Which Massachusetts Schools Have ABET-Accredited Engineering Programs?
Seventeen Massachusetts schools hold ABET-accredited engineering bachelor’s degrees, five public and twelve private, and all seventeen are in the table above.
In Cambridge, MIT’s School of Engineering and Harvard’s Paulson School sit a mile apart beside Kendall Square. In Boston, Northeastern, Boston University and Wentworth hold engineering colleges within two miles of one another, UMass Boston holds two degrees on the harbor, and Boston College’s program is in Chestnut Hill. In Medford, Tufts holds seven disciplines. In Needham, Olin holds three. In Worcester, WPI holds eight. In Amherst and Northampton, UMass Amherst holds eight and Smith holds its engineering science degree. In Lowell, UMass Lowell holds seven, including plastics engineering. In Dartmouth, UMass Dartmouth holds five. In Springfield, Western New England holds five. In North Andover, Merrimack holds three. In Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts Maritime holds energy systems engineering. Raytheon in Waltham and Andover, GE Aerospace in Lynn and Draper in Cambridge are the largest engineering employers within the Route 128 belt.
Accreditation matters for a reason that is easy to miss at seventeen. Licensure as a professional engineer normally requires a degree from an ABET-accredited engineering program, and that is why Wentworth’s engineering technology degrees are not the programs that place it on the list. Amherst, Williams, Wellesley, Brandeis, Mount Holyoke, Holy Cross, Clark, Babson, Bentley, Gordon, Stonehill and the state universities at Bridgewater, Fitchburg, Framingham, Salem, Westfield and Worcester award no accredited engineering degree, and several of the liberal arts colleges route students to one through a three-two arrangement with Dartmouth, Columbia or Caltech.
Nothing on this page ranks the seventeen. The table’s order is a stated, verifiable number where one exists, and the choice among accredited programs comes down to cost, discipline and where a student’s score places him.
What If Your Scores Are Below the Range You Want?
In Massachusetts the top of the table is the top of the country, and the gap between a 700 and a 780 on Math is a different kind of gap from the one between a 540 and a 600. The second is closed by the questions most students miss. The first is closed by the two or three questions on each test that almost everyone misses, and a student at 700 who wants Cambridge or Needham is working on those.
At Olin the score is optional and the weekend is not, so a student below 770 who has calculus and physics on his transcript has lost nothing he cannot make up in January. At the five UMass campuses the score is read against ranges from 520 to 770, and a student who sits below Amherst’s floor sits above Lowell’s ceiling. A New York applicant has fourteen ranges, eight private schools over $80,000 a year, and UMass Amherst’s out-of-state tuition of $40,449.
The first step is finding out where the score actually is, section by section. A free diagnostic SAT gives a Math score that can be set against the table, and at the top of this table the difference between a 740 and a 780 is two questions.
The Math section rewards the same handful of topics on every test date, and a student who knows which of them he is missing can close a gap of 50 to 100 points in weeks rather than months. The method is on our page on improving your SAT Math score, and the last 40 points are their own chapter of it.
How to Read These Score Ranges
Every range on this page covers the middle 50% of admitted students who submitted the SAT. The lower number is the 25th percentile and the upper number is the 75th, so a quarter of admitted students scored at or above it.
A range at a college of 377 students is drawn from a small and self-selected set of submitters and moves more from year to year than a range at a university of 23,000. Olin’s 770 to 790 and MIT’s 780 to 800 look alike on the page and rest on class sizes that differ by a factor of twelve.
Because most colleges are now test-optional, the ranges that are published describe only the students who chose to submit at all. Students with strong scores submit and students with weak ones don’t, so a published range sits higher than the range for everyone who was actually admitted. More on what SAT score you need for college and on test-optional colleges.
Should You Take the ACT Instead?
Massachusetts is an SAT state. Forty-one Massachusetts institutions report an SAT range and thirty-one report an ACT range, and most Massachusetts students take the SAT.
All seventeen schools on this page accept either test, and a student should take whichever he scores higher on. WPI reads neither test in awarding merit aid, and read neither at all from 2021 to 2024.
Engineering Programs in Nearby States
Massachusetts borders five states, and its students apply across those lines in numbers even with seventeen accredited programs at home, because fourteen of the seventeen are private.
See engineering colleges in Connecticut, engineering colleges in Rhode Island, and engineering colleges in New Hampshire.
Engineering Colleges in Other States
We publish the same breakdown for engineering programs in every state.
See engineering colleges by state for the full list.
Glyn Caddell
Glyn Caddell holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from NJIT and has been tutoring New York City students since 2008. He founded Caddell Prep in 2012 and is the author of Digital SAT Math Secrets: Lessons & Tricks to Quickly Improve to a Perfect 800 on the Math Test, which contains over 900 practice problems and is used in Caddell Prep’s SAT math classes. He is founding president of the Staten Island Technical High School alumni association and teaches every lesson on this site personally.
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