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Emerson College Profile

Boston, Massachusetts

Emerson College Profile

Emerson College was established in 1880 as a premier performing arts institution offering comprehensive undergraduate programs in performing arts, stage design, communications, and theatre production technology. Emerson prepares students for careers in performing arts, television and related theatre design professions and industries. The school offers 2 under graduate, and 2 graduate programs within these very challenging professional fields. The school itself is located in Downtown Boston on Boylston Street in the heart of Boston’s theatre district.

Emerson College is unique because it’s located within the center of Boston’s downtown neighborhood of Chinatown, and the Theatre District, which also borders the City’s main park, Boston Commons. The area is also unique for it’s cobble stone streets and revered Colonial Style Brownstones lining several of Emerson’s surrounding streets. The school is very compact geographically for a city school with facilities starting on Tremont Street to the east and continuing along Boylston Street up to Charles Street to the west. The northern point of the campus footprint lies on Boylston Street, the southern edge of campus lies on Stuart Street in the heart of the Theatre District of Boston. Emerson also has several green areas in close proximity to the college including Boston Commons across the street from the campus.

As you can see, the college’s footprint is small for a private city school with only 8 acres. Emerson’s educational landscape offers students a professional education in the performing arts while still allowing students to enjoy a close-knit city community. The downtown campus offers students a city college community without boundaries within one of the nation’s most popular cities. The campus has approximately 10 buildings including a private theatre, lecture, residential, studio, resource centers, and dining facilities. The internal campus setting also provides students, employees, and alumni with several types of services including health, physical fitness, library, and several cultural meeting places.

The issue of student housing on campus is a challenge for Emerson College because the school is located within a mixed residential/ commercial area in a very active city. Emerson has purchased several local residence buildings and commercial properties over the years to convert into new academic, and residential facilities for students to enjoy. Student housing at Emerson is guaranteed for students freshman year only through a first come, first served basis, upperclassmen at the school can apply for on campus housing through a lottery system each year. Emerson has approximately 1,302 students living in several different types of facilities within the city landscape. The college also has 51% of it’s students commuting to class on a daily basis.

The physical layout of Emerson’s campus is unique for a city school because the facility is located within a very busy section of Boston with no manmade barriers to the campus perimeter on Boylston & Tremont Streets. The theatre district has large numbers of tourists, residents, and students enjoying local entertainment resources within a 4-block radius. This type of physical layout allows students easy access to campus facilities and daily theatre productions along Boston’s downtown streets including the “T” Line across the street from the campus on Boylston Street. Commuter transportation resources within the city of Boston are critical to everyone because parking resources are very limited. Emerson is a city school that has several small concrete plazas and green squares that welcome students and parents to the area including the historic Majestic Theatre, and the courtyard outside of the Tufte Performance & Production Center.

Another interesting observation about this educational community is the students themselves. Emerson College is a very mixed community with local residents, students, tourists, and commercial facilities all within a 4-block radius. You will find a small number of students wearing Emerson apparel, and you also have students and local residents embracing the city culture by not relieving school colors. The footprint of the school also allows students to travel through a network of small city streets situated around the campus to reduce exposure to weather, which, is unusual for a city landscape.

Emerson has developed new student apartment buildings and residence halls right on Boylston Street in close proximity to lecture halls, campus theatres, and the student center. These updated facilities give students a perfect view of the Boston Commons, which is a main public park in Boston. This type of footprint allows for easy access to all of Emerson’s student life facilities and activities on, and off campus. Emerson is a small city school that is linked to Boston on a 24-hour basis including government buildings & services, music & theatre productions, sporting & cultural events, museums, nightlife, and restaurants. The college’s downtown location also allows students to enjoy natural landscapes within a city environment while having the ability to engage in professional activities.

The internal campus setting provides students and employees with several types of student services including physical fitness, production services, and cultural meeting places and dining halls. Emerson College’s observed focal points of reference during the campus tour were the academic buildings around the courtyard off Boylston Street including the Performance & Production Center, Walker Building, and the Mutchnick Campus Center. The area around the Majestic Theatre adjacent to the Little Building was also full of students enjoying the city landscape during my daytime visit.

Emerson’s external focal points can be found within the entire downtown community with students enjoying Chinatown & North end restaurants within a very short walk from campus. Students also enjoy the “T Line” Trolley along the main line for transportation links to everything Boston because the train is located at their doorsteps. Emerson also has several commercial and historic areas including Faneuil Market, and City Hall within a short walk along Tremont Street. Students use these cultural and commercial areas to socialize and enjoy campus life. These exterior meeting places were full of students enjoying the city landscape during my visit.

The published demographic information for the college describes a culturally diverse student population with students from all across the world. Emerson College has developed a professional educational network to offer students a performing arts and communication program to enhance it’s commitment to careers in television and the theatre arts. The college has also developed independent affiliates with several local, and global universities to highlight it’s commitment to the arts and global learning. Below is a description of demographics for Emerson’s campus in Boston Massachusetts.

Emerson College: The school is home to approximately 1,435 male, and 1,787 female full time students. Emerson also has a graduate school population of 259 male, and 645 female students enrolled. The average age of a freshman is 18 years old. 74% of students are from out of state, mostly the Middle Atlantic States. Students on campus provide a diverse multi-cultural makeup including students from 42 states, and 37 foreign countries, and Canada. 76% of students are white, 5% are African American, 7% Asian Americans, and 8% are Hispanic.

Published Academic Standards for Admission Programs

Emerson College has a large performing arts & communications educational system for a private school, which offers 2 undergraduate programs. Below is a list of under graduate admission requirements.

Freshman Class: 4,981 applied, 2,221 accepted, 843 enrolled. SAT Verbal 630, SAT Math 600. ACT 27 Application Deadline: January 5.

Student Housing

The purpose of student housing is to provide safe and reasonable accommodations for students living away from home. The issue of housing and dormitory life is a critical element of overall campus life because students spend a large amount of time in their rooms. Student housing units historically come in 3 different styles including traditional corridor, suite, and apartment style units.

Emerson College only guarantees housing for freshman students who have filed their intent to reside on campus by the stated deadline. Housing is available through a first come, first served basis. The school has a lottery system for upper classman seeking on campus housing that has continuously registered as full time students. Emerson currently has 1,302 students living on campus, which is approximately 48% of it’s students. Housing resources on campus are situated within several apartment buildings including a new multi-story residence hall complex called the Little Building on the corner of Tremont & Boylston Streets on the eastern edge of the campus. Information about housing can be found on the quick links page of this document.

Off Campus Housing

Emerson College has been described as a performing arts school situated within a mixed residential and commercial community in Boston. The reason I have mentioned the downtown community is to re-assert the point that Emerson’s network of affiliated campus buildings within the area is very limited. The campus footprint does allow almost every student to have housing within walking distance to the campus, but the school only has 10 buildings. Information about off campus housing can be found on the Northeastern’s quick links page of this document.

Campus Life

Emerson College is a multi-cultural campus environment that provides students with an excellent social, and educational atmosphere. The admissions demographics paint a picture of a very diverse community with students from all over the world. The theatre district of downtown Boston only adds to the college’s international status because the community has a rich performing arts culture as well. The physical environment is reasonably clean and well maintained for a city landscape and the economic conditions are favorable to students and local residents due to the available services in walking distance to the school.

The emotional climate and culture of the entire Emerson community is social due to it’s close relationship with the performing arts community, it’s mature student population, and educational resources in my opinion. Emerson is an attractive institution because it offers students real world professional experiences in Boston, while providing relationships with major multi-media designers and performers within an educational environment. Students also have the ability to meet, and work with set designers and lighting engineers through student activities and performances throughout the year. This issue of school culture is also a very important part of campus life because everyone wants to have a connection and emotional fit to their new school and community.

Campus life at Emerson is more than academic excellence; it’s about building personal relationships with students and facility that continues throughout each student’s career. The school may not have a lot of sports or fraternities, only 3% of male and female students belong to 1national fraternity and sorority and the school fields 15 NCAA Division III sports, but it school does have a network of very focused students that enjoy everything Boston has to offer including performing arts, history, cultural events, restaurants, and local museums. For example, the City of Boston has hundreds of venues to enjoy the previously stated activities including the Wang performing Arts Center, Symphony Hall, the Gardner Art Museum, and Boston Garden to mention a few.

The college also thrives on it’s physical and intellectual relationships with several local colleges and universities including Boston College in nearby Chestnut Hill, Northeastern University on the South Side, and Boston University located in the nearby section of Kenmore Square in Boston. These schools connect to each other on the Green “T” Line as part of Boston’s mass transit system. Students at Emerson can also enjoy student life in Cambridge, which is across the Charles River along Back Bay. Harvard and MIT are located in this student friendly location. Students flock to Boston each year to enjoy the city campus lifestyle in regard to activities, socialization, theatre, sports, history, and affordable housing resources. The City of Boston can be considered one the nations main college cities because it has several distinguished institutions, and a mass transit system that can connects them to the Boston cityscape.

This issue of school culture is also a very important part of campus life because everyone wants to have a connection and emotional fit to their new school and community. Emerson has done a great job developing positive social systems with it’s students by providing a series of coordinated programs including workshops and seminars for freshman students to advance their studies. This type of process provides a foundation for learning and personal growth providing over 60 performing arts, academic clubs, and student organizations. Emerson also develops internships for students through it’s general education requirements to allow everyone to make connections in specific industries, and to gain valuable feedback from working professionals. Students at Emerson are also encouraged to work in the school store to gain confidence in the design, and business process, while in school.

Public Transportation

The Boston Transit Authority (MBTA) has several “T” stops on Boylston Street in the heart of Emerson’s campus. This valuable train service connects to all of Boston’s transit lines and regional train services for Amtrak and Logan Airport. The train service can also be considered a vital transportation service for 52% of Emerson’s students who commute to school on a daily basis.

Regional Public transportation resources can be found within Back Bay, North, and South Stations that link with trains to suburban Massachusetts, lines to Rhode Island (Providence), and New Hampshire commuter service through (MBTA). Amtrak also uses North Station as a major hub within it’s Northeast Corridor. This complex train system also allows riders the ability to travel to downtown Boston and Logan Airport in a matter of minutes. People who live, work, and visit Boston usually travel by some type of mass transit. Students should be encouraged to purchase a metro card to get around. Mass transit information can be found at: www.mbta.com

Boston itself is located within close proximity to the 4 northeastern states of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire, which make it convenient to several suburban communities and highway networks. The city itself also has several main roadways that connect the community to major state highways including the Mass Turnpike (Route 90) and Routes 91 & 84 that links Boston and suburban Massachusetts and Rhode Island to Route 95, which is the main highway corridor on the eastern seaboard. Shopping, restaurants, and national hotel chains can be found within these major transportation networks after a short drive from the campus.

Community Profile

The downtown/theatre district of Boston Massachusetts has been described in different ways, including a busy student friendly urban community centered around it’s local entertainment and cultural destinations. The area around the college can also be considered a tourist heaven due to it’s geographical location within the City of Boston. The theatre district, Beacon Hill, Chinatown, and City Hall area of Boston also have a relatively high number of restaurants, retail, and entertainment resources within this historic neighborhood. The area can also be considered a working class residential community with historic brownstones, town homes, and modern apartments buildings lining several streets. Emerson College is also situated across the street to a large city park, which makes it a very active community for local residents, tourists, and students throughout the year. Student population and historical neighborhood architecture can be found mainly within 10 blocks of the main academic buildings within the overall neighborhood.

Downtown can also be considered a commuter area because large numbers of local residents travel to this main area of Boston to work. The Suburbs, and local neighborhoods of Boston are a maze of cultures that are unique to the people who live and work in them; downtown, and the theatre district of Boston are no exception. The overall neighborhood can be considered a mixed residential area because you have commercial, residential, cultural, and intellectual all within the same block with people walking through the Emerson campus on their way to work, or home. The areas around Boylston & Tremont Streets are the major pedestrian walkways in the neighborhood for students, residents, tourists, and commuters because it’s really in the middle of the community.

Community demographics: The following demographics for Boston Massachusetts describe a multi-cultural community within a total population of 590,763 according to the U.S. Census Bureau. A Census Bureau community survey highlights several characteristics to describe the population including: 48% of residents are male, 52% are female. 56% of residents are white, 26% are African American, 8% are Hispanic or Latino, and finally 8% are Asian. The median age of population is 33 years old. 81% of residents are 18 years old or over, 74% age 21 and over, and finally 10% of city residents are over the age of 65. The issue of housing in Boston is also interesting. 91% of all housing units within the city are occupied. 62% of housing units are renter-occupied, while 38% of units are owner-occupied.

Local weather

Weather is also an issue to consider for students preparing for a university experience. Massachusetts enjoys all four seasons of weather including rain and snow. Northeast weather patterns sometimes allow for temperatures to drop below 32 degrees for a considerable amount of time during the winter. The City of Boston also gets it’s share of rain during the spring and summer months as well.

Emerson College Quick Links Page

The Your College Profile web site also contains an “Everything in Boston” document for families who wish to explore the City of Boston while visiting Boston University. This site contains a full list of hotels, restaurants, shopping, and entertainment, and tourism resources for families enjoying the region. Below is a sample list of local hotels and restaurants in the Back Bay Area of the city.

Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel
138 Saint James Ave
Boston MA 02116
Four Seasons Hotel Boston
200 Boylston Street
Boston MA 02116
Taj Hotel Boston
15 Arlington Street
Boston MA 02116
Colonnade Hotel
120 Huntington Ave
Boston MA 02116
Courtyard by Marriott Copley Sq
47 Huntington Ave
Boston MA 02116
Marriott at Copley Place
110 Huntington Ave
Boston MA 02116
Ritz-Carlton Boston Commons
10 Avery Street
Boston MA 02111
Omni Parker House Hotel
60 School Street
Boston MA 02108

Back Bay & Beacon Hill Restaurants:

Chinatown Restaurants

North End Italian Restaurants

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