The New England College of Optometry

New England College of Optometry, NECO, prepares the next generation of eye care providers, educators, and innovators through a rigorous curriculum and extensive clinical experiences. NECO graduates compassionate and skilled optometrists prepared to practice in diverse settings.
Our mission is "Changing the way people see the world through optometric education, discovery, and service."
New England College of Optometry will continue to be a leading college of optometry in the rapidly evolving professional education and healthcare world.
At NECO, the experience is everything. We believe that the key to training great doctors lies in providing innovative, enlightening experiences that shape the earliest stages of your career. From invaluable clinical work to vibrant classroom discussions and research opportunities, every moment of your NECO training will pay dividends for a lifetime. Discover your passion in the field as you find your place in the profession.
At New College of Optometry, we educate students for careers in eye care delivery, research, and education. We challenge students to think creatively about vision and sight and contribute to the field's future. In doing so, we provide quality optometric care to more than 150,000 individuals annually and serve the community through a network of health care organizations and access to vision screenings. Our comprehensive vision centers, NECO Center for Eye Care, are part of the NECO Clinical Network, the patient care, and the clinical education affiliate of the College.
New England College of Optometry is a small, independent graduate institution that currently enrolls students from 34 states and eight countries. Our Boston location provides access to a richly innovative and active higher education and the Boston area's healthcare community. We are looking for agile, committed people to join our community to support our world-class optometric education and patient care experience programs.
Although our school is small, our impact is enormous. Through community partnerships such as the Boys and Girls Club of Boston, clinical rotations in our network of community health centers, and medical missions to provide eye care in other countries, our students have the opportunity to impact the health care of the communities in which they serve. We provide vision care to more than a quarter of a million people in the world each year.
New England College of Optometry has an active Board of Trustees that provides leadership and oversight to the College and advises the President. Members of the Senior Administrative Team also support the President.
For over 120 years, the New England College of Optometry has been educating optometrists. Initially founded in 1894 as the Klein School of Optics, NECO is the oldest continuously operating Optometry school in the United States.
At New England College of Optometry, we prepare future doctors for the complexities of practicing in the real world by providing students with great professional experiences. Whether through comprehensive patient care in team-based health delivery models, intense cultural immersion within our extensive clinical network, research focused on improving patients' lives, or debating public policy for eye care, we educate and prepare the profession's future leaders. Throughout their education, our students make an immediate and lasting impact on the community while serving their patients.
At the heart of our commitment to preparing students for successful careers is our applied approach to learning – we provide students with early and diverse clinical experiences to reflect and reinforce the knowledge they acquire in the classroom.
Students receive a strong academic foundation in visual, ocular, and systemic care. At the same time, they experience various patients and community settings through clinical work in community health centers, private practices, schools, and veteran's hospitals.
New England College of Optometry is located in the heart of Boston. This vibrant city allows students to intern in hospitals, community health centers, medical centers, and private practices and gain access to the world's best medical facilities. The opportunities for applied learning in a clinical setting are unparalleled in diversity and number.
Students have an experience as diverse as Boston itself. Clinical rotations throughout the city and the country allow students to prepare for their careers, not just seeing patients, but through the whole process of patient care. At New England College of Optometry, we believe experience is everything. We provide great academic, clinical, research, and student experiences to help you become a great doctor. We provide education not for those merely looking to start a career but for those looking to lead the profession. At NECO, we give optometry's future leaders the confidence, skill, and knowledge to practice effectively and expertly anywhere in the world.
At NECO, we foster a community that provides opportunities to question, challenge, and explore. We believe great optometrists are compassionate and skilled practitioners, thoughtful collaborators, innovative diagnosticians, and lifelong learners.
Our curriculum is designed and continually enhanced to reflect the optometric profession's evolving needs and public health. We combine classroom learning with extensive work in a variety of health care settings throughout our clinical network. These allow you to learn, explore, and hone your abilities as a doctor of optometry in Boston's innovative and active healthcare community.
Great doctors understand the people and communities they serve, the ever-changing inter-professional health care environment, and the new technologies for diagnosing, treating, and managing vision and visual disorders. We prepare doctors for optometry practice today but ready to adapt to discoveries, innovations, and patient expectations for future practice.
We offer seven-degree programs to meet the needs of our students. These programs are carefully designed to prepare future optometrists by providing a strong foundation in visual, biomedical, and clinical science and integrating this with diverse patient care experiences.