Worcester Polytechnic Institute

WPI runs on four seven-week terms rather than semesters, and its degree requires two substantial team projects. One of them, the Interactive Qualifying Project, is commonly completed at an off-campus site abroad, with two months of on-campus preparation followed by two months in residence at the project location. The academic profile is narrow and deep: engineering accounts for 56.6% of bachelor's degrees and computer and information sciences a further 20.5%, so more than three-quarters of graduates leave in those two fields. There is no application fee at all, which is rare among US private universities. The trade-off for a Kazakh applicant is the money. WPI states plainly that it is need-aware at the application stage and may weigh ability to pay in the admission decision, and that competitive applicants can typically contribute at least USD 25,000 a year. Admission is otherwise relatively open at 62% overall, though international applicants are admitted at 39%.