Two Saturdays, a week apart

Northeastern has published the whole Boston schedule for 2027, and it runs across two Saturdays and the week between them.

When	Ceremony	Where	Guest tickets
Sat 1 May, 10 a.m.	Doctor of Philosophy	Leader Bank Pavilion, Seaport	up to 10
Sat 1 May, 4 p.m.	School of Law	Leader Bank Pavilion, Seaport	up to 10
2 to 7 May	College celebrations	Leader Bank Pavilion and Blackman Auditorium	by college
Sat 8 May, 10 a.m.	Graduate ceremony: master’s and select doctorates (DMS, DNP, PharmD, DPT)	Fenway Park	up to 6
Sat 8 May, 4 p.m.	Undergraduate ceremony	Fenway Park	up to 5, plus a waitlist for one more

Most families need one line of that table. A bachelor’s graduate walks at Fenway on the afternoon of 8 May; a master’s graduate walks there the same morning; a PhD or Law graduate is done a week earlier, across the city on the waterfront. The college celebrations, where graduates are recognised within their own college, sit in the week between, and the graduate’s college will say which day is theirs.

A Saturday this time, not a Wednesday

The 2026 Boston ceremony was on Wednesday 29 April, and families who planned around that should note the change. Every 2027 Boston ceremony is on a Saturday.

That makes it a weekend trip again, without annual leave for most people, and it moves the hotel question onto weekend demand. It also puts two ceremonies at the same ballpark on the same day, at 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., so the streets around Fenway carry both crowds that day. A family with a master’s graduate and a bachelor’s graduate can attend both.

Northeastern’s week is still its own. Boston University, Harvard, MIT and Boston College all graduate later in May, so 8 May does not share a weekend with any of them.

Tickets, and the waitlist for a sixth

Every Fenway guest over the age of two needs a ticket. Undergraduates can claim up to five guest tickets, then join a waitlist for one more, which Northeastern allocates first come, first served by registration date if demand exceeds capacity. There are no tickets beyond six. Graduate-ceremony graduates can claim up to six, and PhD and Law graduates up to ten.

Northeastern will email the claim instructions in March 2027. Graduates can log back in and claim tickets they did not take at first, up to the day of the ceremony. If six people are travelling to an undergraduate ceremony, the sixth seat is the one to sort out early.

Children aged two and under who sit on an adult’s lap do not need a ticket. Strollers are not allowed.

The day at Fenway

Northeastern states that the Fenway ceremonies go ahead rain or shine, with ponchos provided to students, and that each lasts one and a half to two hours. They are livestreamed on Northeastern Global News for anyone who cannot be there.

Arrival times for 2027 are not published yet. In 2026 both students and guests were told to arrive two hours before the ceremony: guest gates opened at 2 p.m. for the 4 p.m. start, graduates entered by a separate gate, and the procession began around 2.30. Ballpark security is the reason for the two hours, and it is a sensible working assumption until the 2027 times appear.

Not published yet

Northeastern has not yet published the 2027 arrival and gate times, the day-by-day schedule of the college celebrations, the student speaker, or the date of the Boston Grad Fair. This page will carry them once they appear.

One further thing worth knowing about this university. Northeastern confers degrees at a dozen or more campuses, from Arlington and Charlotte to London, Oakland, Toronto and Vancouver, and each holds its own ceremony. If your graduate is finishing at a campus other than Boston, the Fenway date will not be theirs, and the ceremony you need may not be in this city at all.

What we checked

Northeastern’s commencement events page and its four Boston ceremony pages (undergraduate and graduate at Fenway, Doctor of Philosophy, School of Law) were read at source on 13 October 2026. The weekdays were checked independently: 1 May and 8 May 2027 are both Saturdays. The 2026 arrival pattern comes from the same undergraduate ceremony page as it read in August 2026, and is labelled as 2026 wherever it is used.