<p>Just wondered who is looking at Olin and thinking about applying.</p>
<p>If you're applying (or if you're headed there this fall), let us hear your questions.</p>
<p>I’m applying!!!</p>
<p>I have a pretty traditional list of schools, but deep down I know I would pass up MIT to go here. The open house was so much fun, I was already making friends. The type of students that Olin attracts are almost as compelling as the innovative ideas and collaborative atmosphere.</p>
<p>Another thing I love is FWOP. I’m a hardcore techie: stage manager, technical director, lighting operator, you name it. I would definitely be interested in being involved backstage at Olin. </p>
<p>I went to a Montessori school through 8th grade, with 20 kids in my grade. Olin brought me back to that new way of learning and tight-knit atmosphere. I would love it here. Everything about it felt like home.</p>
<p>“deep down I know I would pass up MIT to go here.” - Ha, our Olin son would have done the same. (He did not get accepted at MIT, but some of the other Oliners did). It sounds like you are a good candidate 
</p>
<p>Apply to a variety of schools. Then hopefully in February you will get a chance for another taste of Olin at Candidate Weekend. Good luck!</p>
<p>Thank you! I’m not a super crazy qualified applicant but it’s not an unrealistic reach for me either. I’m hoping so!!!</p>
<p>DS has applied, so now we wait. 
</p>
<p>We have not visited the Northeast at all, so have no idea about weather or being in a big metropolitan area. I’m going back and reading some of the posts from last year to get a feel for the admission process and candidates weekend.</p>
<p>Good luck to others applying!</p>
<p>As far as weather, they did get snow flurries yesterday, but nothing stuck.</p>
<p>My daughter, who feels the cold as much as anyone I know, still loves being at Olin. She just bundles up more than most of the other students.</p>
<p>Olin is not a metropolitan or urban campus. It is located in an affluent suburb. While students have “access” to Boston, it isn’t just outside the door, unlike BU or Northeastern.</p>
<p>Weather is seasonal. Snow flurries yesterday, but high-50s this coming Fri-Sun. Sunny the whole time.</p>
<p>Thank you! I look at the map and see it on one of the loops around Boston and I just assumed it would be a busy area. I like the non-city area better, I believe. My DS has just recently purchased a mountain bike and is enjoying riding it on trails. Is that something that is easily accessible from campus, or would he need a car to take him out even further? He also enjoys hiking and camping - I would assume he would need transportation for that. Do your kids have cars with them on campus?</p>
<p>Right now, there seems to be a big biking culture on campus (including a couple of students who biked x-country last summer) and a lot of students interested in hiking/camping. Biking is easy around Needham…students bike to town, to the T (to take them to Boston) and to classes at Wellesley or Babson. There are enough students with cars on campus that they never lack for someone to pick them up at the airport or T station. They are a helpful group, so students send out a “Carpe Diem” message asking for a favor ("Who can pick me up at Logan tomorrow night at 10?) and, from what I understand, it always gets a positive response. Groups also share rides to activities and classes out and about the greater Boston area. Also, there are vans the school uses (with student drivers) to transport Scope groups or volunteer groups or other teams of people around (e.g.: DS went to South Carolina during spring break 2 years in a row with a Habitat for Humanity group from Olin–in one of Olin’s vans).</p>
<p>My daughter doesn’t have a car. Her roommate does. Not having a car has been pretty easy for my daughter.</p>
<p>My daughter goes into Boston/Cambridge probably once or twice a month. Sometimes she just walks to the commuter rail station. Sometimes she gets a ride to it or to the T station.</p>
<p>Olin does have an Outing Club that coordinates some camping/hiking trips. That’s not my daughter’s thing, though, so I don’t have any more info on it.</p>
<p>I’m applying I finished my app but don’t want to hit submit yet.</p>
<p>Any Northeast school will have gray-ish winters. But Olin is a teeny, compact campus. Oliners do not have to be outside nearly as students at typical college campuses. </p>
<p>DS has a mountain-ish hybrid bike, no car. He mostly uses it on the roads, but he did try it on a trail (I think nearby). He’s from CO and commented that he had to adjust to leaves on the trail. There is a bike storage room - that’s a nice feature. I think there may even be some school bikes available to use.</p>
<p>I was just wondering what being at Olin was like? How does it differ from MIT’s culture?</p>
<p>Both school have students avid about math science, interested in rigorous academics. </p>
<ul>
<li><p>Olin tends to draw students interested in the project-based learning approach. It is highly collaborative. MIT is a more traditional approach, with lots of grad students on campus too. </p></li>
<li><p>Olin students tend to have incredible talents in areas outside of STEM (music, fire arts, etc etc). Perhaps the same is true on MIT - I don’t have the same exposure.</p></li>
<li><p>Olin students are required to live on campus 4 years, in dorms and dining halls the whole time. That makes it a different experience than MIT and most colleges. Also of course, Olin is tiny and limited…with only undergrad focus. These things can be a pro or a con, depending on personal preferences.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>My son is very keen on Olin. However he does lots of other stuff in genetics/med as well as in robotics and engineering. How much flexibility is there to add some research and do some xreg courses to cover those areas? The program at Olin seems to be what engineers need to do today!</p>
<p>Also, how many Olin grads go on to be entrepreneurs as opposed to working for someone?</p>
<p>You can find information about Olin grads at the website. Under “After Olin” in Post Graduate Planning there are profiles of each class - where they go work, how many go to grad school and where, how many start businesses, how many do other things, etc.</p>
<p>Olin has added a new Robotics concentration to the Engineering degree. There are also the clubs such as the SailBot team and others that would fall into that area. If he approached them with a self-directed study area, I’m sure they would work with him.</p>
<p>ThoughtfulParent –</p>
<p>Lots of Oliners do research and it doesn’t have to be in their major. My daughter’s in a math research group (graph theory) even thought she’s a mechanical engineering major.</p>
<p>After the first semester, students can cross-register at Babson, Wellesley or Brandeis. Getting to Brandeis is something you have to work out on your own. Getting to Babson is a short walk and getting to Wellesley is via a van that drives the route every 20 minutes.</p>
<p>It’s pretty easy to get into 1 class per semester at any of other schools (if there’s room in the class). So, you could technically register for 1 class at Wellesley, 1 at Babson, and 1 at Brandeis in a semester. It’s evidently a big deal to try to cross-reg for 2 classes at the same school in one semester.</p>
<p>My daughter took a history class at Wellesley this past semester and there were probably a dozen Oliners that rode the van with her every day, each going off to different classes.</p>
<p>There was an Olin Post-Graduate Planning blog within the past year about someone who went to Med School after Olin. Maybe you’d be interested in reading it?
It’s a 3 part story, but the first entry is here:
[How</a> I Decided to Become a Doctor - Post Graduate Planning](<a href=“http://blogs.olin.edu/pgp/2013/03/how-i-decided-to-become-a-doctor.html]How”>http://blogs.olin.edu/pgp/2013/03/how-i-decided-to-become-a-doctor.html)</p>
<p>There’s been a lot in the news lately about the Olin start-up Technical Machine. [About</a> us | Technical Machine](<a href=“http://tessel.io/about]About”>http://tessel.io/about)</p>