<p>Olin will be sending out invites for admitted students to visit overnight. Those dates are:</p>
<p>Thursday, April 4 to Friday, April 5
Monday, April 8 to Tuesday, April 9
Tuesday, April 16 to Wednesday, April 17
Monday, April 22 to Tuesday, April 23
Monday, April 29 to Tuesday, April 30</p>
<p>If you live in one of these counties, you might want to check out this $10k scholarship:</p>
<p>California: San Gabriel Valley, Antelope, Conejo, San Fernando, Simi Valley, Santa Clarita Valley or Ventura County
Florida: Orange or Seminole County
Illinois Cities of Arlington Heights, Hoffman Estates, Inverness, Mt. Prospect, Palatine or Rolling Meadows
New York Erie or Niagara County
Ohio: Butler, Claremont, Hamilton or Warren County
Utah: Davis, Salt Lake, Utah or Weber County
Virginia: Albemarle County</p>
<p>[Northrop</a> Grumman Engineering Scholars Application](<a href=“http://www.northropgrumman.com/CorporateResponsibility/Community/Pages/EngScholarsApply.aspx]Northrop”>ESG - Northrop Grumman)</p>
<p>Thanks PS! I would be happy with either place for DS. </p>
<p>Advice to next year’s applicants: a prior post by someone was correct to warn that a WL or Redirection after CW is hard, because students feel they have been ranked in the bottom half after after being met personally by the faculty and current students/alum, not as just a form. CW is also a big investment in time and money. </p>
<p>During interviews, be memorable (in a good way), promote yourself, and remember that the last four years of your achievements mean nothing during and after CW if you don’t repeat and emphasize all of it during interviews. Kids from poor schools have no interview training and enter this interview process unpracticed and unprepared; don’t be one of them. You have to self-promote, something some incredibly talented kids have not yet learned because they are used to teachers, classmates, and their obvious accomplishments doing the promotion for them. (Also why writing essays are painful too!) Also, don’t catch the flu right before CW and run a fever for most of Crucial Saturday Afternoon. If that happens, confess your problem or else interviewers will assume you lack enthusiasm and not realize you simply are trying not to collapse. Families need to go into this process with eyes wide open; CC helps, and current parents and Admission are very useful and generous in their advice.</p>
<p>Of course, the parents of successful candidates and the students themselves I am sure can offer even better advice. It is an interesting opportunity and worth the try.</p>
<p>By the way, does anyone know the gender of the 10-12 or so gap year kids coming in as frosh this fall? If it is disproportionately one gender, then I assume that would make it even that much harder to get an acceptance spot for this incoming class.</p>
<p>DDHM - You have some helpful insights, good for future applicants to Olin and some of it applicable also to other competitive schools too. Heck, I’m stashing away your excellent “confess your problems” advise for myself if ever needed. </p>
<p>It’s good that you were able to type things out here. There is likely not a more sympathetic / empathetic group on earth. We all know the appeal of Olin, and some of us experienced similar mourning. It our case it was for lack of an Olin acceptance as well as a Harvey Mudd scholarship. (You should never get your heart set on a scholarship. But in this case it was one that had until that year been done by slam-dunk stats formula, which DS far surpassed). The good thing is you can vent here and hopefully minimize the gory details at your house. Your kid will need lots of upbeat support - that’s not easy when the parents have fallen for the school too, like DH did after CW. </p>
<p>Another thing to keep in mind is that many teens find it difficult to write introspective essays. I think talented/modest engineers especially find it hard to “toot their own horn”. Don’t assume kids from more affluent schools all have interview training. If ours did, my geeky kids were too modest and self conscious to pursue it. My son did however feel like he (and one other kid from his group of six) did the best showing at the group project… yet still he was waitlisted. There are just MANY great students applying to “the best little school you never heard of”… and they can’t all make the cut.</p>
<p>I agree that there is not a more sympathetic/empathetic group anywhere around, and believe me, we all understand what you’re going through. Olin is still in the process of traversing from the “we have to talk students and parents into taking this risk” to “we have the difficult task of turning down students we want and have come to know, but cannot accommodate at our tiny school”. It’s a very difficult balancing act. And we on CC are just parents who get excited about it all, and we want everyone to have a happy outcome!</p>
<p>BUT, you have to resist the urge to parse the weekend and look for reasons “why”. We all want to do that; I wanted to do it after my own kids’ interviews, both successful and unsuccessful, and I’m still trying to figure out their unsuccessful job interviews, though I wasn’t anywhere in the vicinity!! The truth is, we just don’t know. The person from Olin admissions did a great job on the other thread of explaining how they strive to keep it all on an even playing field, and I know that they do! While it may have been wise for a candidate to tell people he/she is under the weather, I’m not convinced that concerted self-promotion is the answer, either. It could seem as if a candidate is inclined to take over the group–it’d really hard to know how you are being perceived by 3 people who have their own individual style preferences and preconceptions. I also realize that it is difficult for us to say “just be yourself”, because then it seems like it had something to do with you, personally. </p>
<p>I commiserate with all of you whose students didn’t get accepted, but I also want to celebrate your wonderful, passionate kids who will go on to have amazing opportunities and each change the world in their own way. They will take a little Olin spirit with them and do some good with it!!</p>
<p>Like the many who have posted, especially siusplau, I would really refrain from coming to a quick conclusion what it was that made the interviews rock or not-rock… especially if you weren’t in the room, and even more especially if you are closely related to someone who was in the hotseat. What you received is likely to be a watered-down, summarized version of what really happened, and what you in turn understood is likely to be affected and modified by your personal opinions on what should have happened.</p>
<p>About self-promotion: Often, it is much less about self-promotion than an acute sense of knowing one’s strengths. It is more important to know what makes one different and better than attempting to give a slipshod account of one’s achievements. The former is about what is within oneself, sometimes not easily shown, the latter is merely bringing to light something that might already be on a piece of paper. As colorado_mom said, it is about being “introspective”, although I disagree that that is tooting one’s horn (which, I understand, she didn’t mean to the fullness of the word’s definition, because it was in quotation marks). If one is introspective and reveals one’s true self, there is no need to toot one’s horn. One’s best qualities will be displayed naturally.</p>
<p>Which is to say that it had everything to do with you, personally. We often need to be reminded that there is nothing necessarily wrong with rejection, and that we’re not in the world to shield the young, fragile egos of our loved ones from it. What we should do is let the pain happen, and grow and learn together. Rejection is always personal; in this case, the student is simply not the best fit for the next incoming class, personally. Sometimes, when the pieces fall, your piece just doesn’t fit with whatever picture was already being made. It is a common desire among the youth to “find one’s place in the world” - it is invaluable to know where one does not fit. Because at the end of the day, idealistically speaking, (this is what I always say to parents and kids who come to me for advise on college applications) “you only need one”.</p>
<p>I’ve been around CC a few years, and the March posts (in college specific threads and Parents section) serve a good purpose. When friends and family are sure that the top hs students will get accepted everywhere they apply… CC readers get a dose of reality. That helped us plan, and I am thankful to the posters in the year ahead of us. </p>
<p>However the most memorable March words came from Olin. There is a similar encouraging blog this year - [Looking</a> outward - The OLINformer](<a href=“http://blogs.olin.edu/olinformer/2013/03/looking-outward.html]Looking”>http://blogs.olin.edu/olinformer/2013/03/looking-outward.html)</p>
<p>Thank you current and alumni Olin parents for sharing your heartfelt messages with this year’s parents.</p>
<p>I thought I had posted here … My D was accepted!! She’s so excited she emailed me from her school trip to let me know. I have a fat UPS envelope I’m not allowed to open until she arrives. LOL!! </p>
<p>She very excited!! :)</p>
<p>My D has decided to attend Olin! The acceptance letter is in and the deposit is paid. She is very excited.</p>
<p>m0m0f3 -
Congratulations to your daughter!That’s very exciting news!</p>
<p>She’s in for four amazing years at Olin that she’ll never forget!</p>
<p>Congrats momof3. Welcome to the Olin family.</p>
<p>Great news momof3. My son will be attending as well. We sent the deposit in a week ago</p>
<p>Welcome, new Oliners and parents!</p>
<p>Lots of posts about kid and parents being excited about kid committing and looking forward to attending. For me, I think I would be sad either way. Both MIT and Olin are great schools for different reasons. Sad about missing out on what the other school has to offer. Other than encouraging a little for Olin (just so couldn’t say we pushed her to the big name school) the choice was hers. Sadly she will be missing out on being an early adopter in a new way to teach engineers.</p>
<p>Best wishes to you all. It will be interesting to watch Olin develop over the next 10 years. Maybe one of my grandkids will have the opportunity to attend.</p>
<p>Best wishes to your DD, Operadad. Please have your DD return her NO response to Olin.</p>
<p>OperaDad - Doesn’t if feel good when the decision is DONE? Best of luck to you all next year. Boston is a great area for college. Yes… do make sure you DD has returned her Olin response. This is a tough week for WL families - I have great empathy for them.</p>
<p>She returned the response last week. Best wishes to the WL folks.</p>
<p>It’s a very bittersweet day in our house. My D has been deliberating and weighing every single matter that could be considered. In the end, she declined her offer at Olin & committed to MIT. </p>
<p>We are both sad for the lost opportunity to be part of an amazing community at Olin. (I wasn’t the only one lobbying for Olin!) However, we are both happy that decisions are done and that she had the opportunity to consider these fine institutions and to meet the wonderful people she had the pleasure to get to know along the way (Olin’s ENTIRE admissions staff, to start!). </p>
<p>Keep up the fantastic work Olin. My D has highly recommended your school to others she knows who are starting the process who she believes would be a great fit for Olin, even after she committed elsewhere. THat sure says something for your school.</p>
<p>THank you again for the opportunity to be a part of this community. I can’t wait to see how Olin continues to evolve over the years to come and to hear how your students grow in the process!!</p>
<p>For those whose students have committed to Olin, you might want to join the “Olin College Parents” group on Facebook.</p>
<p>And, welcome to the family!</p>
<p>Congratulations to everyone on their decision whether it was for Olin or for somewhere else. I know many of you had several awesome choices.</p>
<p>Crossing my fingers for the WL folks.</p>