Wheaton College (MA)

About Wheaton
Wheaton College is a private, residential college in Norton, Massachusetts that consistently ranks among the nation’s best. Offering more than 100 career-connected majors and minors, Wheaton provides guaranteed access to internship funding along with a highly personalized education in the liberal arts and sciences. The college’s flexible Compass curriculum encourages students to find a path that fits their interests and goals, with close mentorship to help guide that passion to career success. Wheaton is a place where we root for each other, support one another, and cheer one another’s successes. Our students say Wheaton feels like home.

Our Location
The college’s 400-acre park-like campus is located just south of Boston, north of Providence and a train ride to New York City. Wheaton’s location gives students the opportunity to explore art, research and internships at some of the most prestigious organizations in the world.

Campus Community 
Wheaton draws students and expert faculty from around the world. The college currently enrolls approximately 1,700 students, representing 40 states and 50 countries. Approximately 6 percent of Wheaton’s students are international and 25 percent are self-identified students of color, including Asian, Black and Latinx students. First-generation students account for 22 percent of enrolled students. Nearly one third of Wheaton students participate in the college’s 24 NCAA Division III athletic teams, as well as one of the world’s oldest-running artistic swim programs and more than a dozen club and intramural sports.

Breadth of Programs
Wheaton offers more than 100 majors and minors in the liberal arts and sciences. Recent additions include new academic programs in criminal justice, design, digital media and communications, marketing and nursing. With a full-time student-faculty ratio of approximately 11 to 1, the average class size at Wheaton is 15–20 students. Wheaton’s innovative academic opportunities include small, interdisciplinary courses that look at big issues from many perspectives; access to innovation spaces featuring cutting-edge technology, including VR/AR, computer-connected machinery and a digital jacquard loom; vibrant social entrepreneurship programs; and a curriculum that gives students the flexibility to adapt their learning to their interests and career goals.

Unique Living-Learning Environment  
Wheaton prepares students to create innovative solutions to big challenges and to act on them. The college’s living-learning environment (where 96 percent of students live on campus,) consists of more than 100+ student organizations, which combined with academics, prepare graduates to live purposeful lives, to be engaged in their communities, and to act effectively to promote change. Nearly half of Wheaton students study abroad through more than 100 programs in more than 45 countries, including several unique faculty-led programs and a semester-long program in Bhutan. In 2023 Wheaton introduced a new first-year study abroad program, WheaGo Global, which allows Wheaton students to study abroad at the start of their college career.

Education Your Way
With minimal requirements, Wheaton’s Compass curriculum gives students the freedom and flexibility to create their own path to success, with personalized advising and professional mentorship. The curriculum encourages students to connect academics to career interests and builds on Wheaton’s core principles of intellectual curiosity, global citizenship, experiential learning, social justice, diversity and inclusion, and collaborative community. Taught by faculty teams, the required First-Year Experience course combines the deep discussions, reading and writing of a traditional first-year seminar with cross-discipline discovery, encouraging students to consider complex problems and questions through multiple lenses, right from the start.

Guaranteed Internship Funding
Wheaton’s academic program is coupled with The Wheaton Edge, a four-year immersive personal and professional development experience designed to lead graduates to success. The program builds upon the college’s rich tradition of blending liberal arts and sciences with co-curricular leadership by guaranteeing that all students will have a funded internship, research position or other experiential learning opportunity. The college invests more than $1.2 million per year to support these internships, much of which is funded by donors. Connecting the deep alumni network of more than 19,000 with dynamic students and committed faculty, the program has led to student success.

Wheaton Grads Find Success
Just six months after graduation, 95 percent of Wheaton alumni are employed, enrolled in top graduate schools or engaged in meaningful internships, fellowships and volunteer work, as reported by the past five graduating classes. Since 2000, Wheaton students have won more than 250 prestigious awards, including Fulbrights, Watsons and Rhodes.

Visiting Wheaton
A great way to get to know Wheaton is to visit our campus or connect with us virtually. Wheaton offers a wide range of opportunities from campus tours, information sessions, Preview Day programs and virtual events. You can also fill out our short inquiry form and sign up to receive more information about Wheaton.