Colleges Near Boston

Boston packs more highly selective schools into one commute radius than almost any metro in the country: Harvard (4% admit) and MIT (5%) a mile apart in Cambridge, Northeastern (5%) and Boston University (11%) in the city itself, and Tufts, Boston College, Wellesley, and Babson all in the inner suburbs. Below that tier sits a deep bench of urban private schools -- Emerson, Suffolk, Simmons, Berklee, Wentworth -- plus UMass Boston and UMass Lowell as the large public options. One note before the list: Worcester's colleges (Holy Cross, WPI, Clark) are about 40 miles west in their own separate metro area by federal definition, so they're not included here -- while the University of New Hampshire in Durham is, since two southern New Hampshire counties count as part of greater Boston.