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The Architecture+Design Program is home to New England's first and only public Master of Architecture program that has been fully accredited by the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB).

In the United States, most state registration boards require a degree from an
accredited professional degree program as a prerequisite for licensure. The
National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB), which is the sole agency
authorized to accredit US professional degree programs in architecture.  A
program may be granted a five-year, three-year, or one, two-year term of
accreditation, depending on its degree of conformance with established
educational standards.

Masters degree programs may consist of a pre-professional undergraduate degree and a professional graduate degree, which, when earned sequentially, comprise an accredited professional education. However, the pre-professional degree is not, by itself, recognized as an accredited degree. At UMass, the BFA Design is the pre-professional program.

Candidacy status indicates that a program should be accredited within six years of achieving candidacy, if its plan is properly implemented. After being granted full accreditation status, the University of Massachusetts Amherst will be the only public university in New England offering a Master of Architecture Degree.

The Master of Architecture program is committed to interdisciplinary collaboration, research and public outreach. By forging new links with the many university departments that are engaged in issues of the built environment, the graduate architecture program has developed an innovative curriculum with cross-disciplinary educational and research opportunities.

Graduate students select a “concentration” at the end of their first year of study in order to develop a focused expertise. Graduate concentrations are derived from five “Areas of Knowledge”, which consist of thematic groupings of select courses offered throughout the University and Five Colleges . Each graduate student will be guided in assembling a coherent Concentration Study Plan which will be reinforced in the Research Seminar and culminate in the Masters Project.

These concentrations are possible due to a network of courses and resources across the university in Art, Art History, Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning, Building Materials and Wood Technology, The College of Engineering, and the Office of Instruction and Technology and many other departments across campus. Students are also able to access the resources throughout the Five College consortium of the University of Massachusetts , Amherst College , Smith College , Hampshire College and Mount Holyoke College.