<p>I was just wondering how the two institutions compare. Olin is a very strong engineering school, but do its academics compare to those of MIT?
From what I have heard, Olin encourages its students to be very hands on, and freshman immediately delve into construction and engineering projects...but that is about all I know...</p>
<p>MIT tuition = ~$36k/yr (that’s not including room & board)
Olin tuition = ~$35k/yr, except “Every admitted student receives a four-year, full tuition scholarship valued at approximately $130,000”. ([Olin</a> College : About Olin : Overview](<a href=“http://olin.edu/about_olin/overview.asp]Olin”>http://olin.edu/about_olin/overview.asp))</p>
<p>don’t forget about size… lol</p>
<p>Olin has just under 300 undergrads. MIT has just under 4200 undergrads. they’re very different, community-wise. opportunity/education wise… they should be pretty equal. Oliners normally get more attention from their professors though, I imagine, as it’s such a tight-knit community. and it’s also very, very new</p>
<p>Consider reading this blog article and its comments. Philip Greenspun holds S.B. and Ph.D. degrees from MIT and taught 6.171 (Software Engineering of Internet Applications, last offered Spring 2006).</p>
<p>[Philip</a> Greenspuns Weblog: Olin College graduates](<a href=“http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2007/11/19/olin-college-graduates/]Philip”>http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2007/11/19/olin-college-graduates/)</p>
<p>By the way, here is an aerial photo of the attractive Olin College campus:</p>
<p>[Photograph</a> by Philip Greenspun: olin-college-5](<a href=“http://philip.greenspun.com/images/20061019-boston-aerials/olin-college-5.tcl]Photograph”>Photograph by Philip Greenspun: olin-college-5)</p>
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<p>That is a very debatable statement. There are considerable differences in the educational philosophies, scope and depth of majors, research and career opportunities. </p>
<p>MIT is still the worldwide reference in engineering and science, with top notch faculty in every single department. Undergrads routinely participate in cutting edge research alongside leaders in the field. Olin is largely an unproven concept that still depends on free tuition to attract talented students. While a small size is not necessarily a downside in the liberal arts, it is clearly a much more serious issue in science and engineering where labs run in the millions and good faculty is at a premium. The Brain and Cognitive Science lab at MIT cost over $400 million alone to build and is the largest such lab in the world. Chemical engineering which MIT pioneered has more undergrads than he entire Olin enrollment and a $30 million annual budget just for research. EECS has over a $100 million annual budget for 800 undergrads. The Media lab has by itself another $30 million budget for 300 research projects where many undergrads are involved. In the new field of biological engineering which MIT also started, there are over a dozen associated labs where undergrads are trained. Same thing with virtually every engineering and science department. Scale and resources matter. You just can’t do serious engineering work out of a shoebox. </p>
<p>If engineering and science training was just about absorbing the course material you must as well use distance learning. OCW is free and has every MIT course online.</p>
<p>Olin was founded because Franklin W. Olin was sick of donating money for learning and innovation and finding that the people who got it weren’t as innovative as he’d hoped, despite a large number of buildings named after him on campuses across the country. He figured that if he started a school from the ground up, people would not be so set in their ways that Engineering teaching and learning could be revolutionized. About half of the first graduating class was admitted before the school was completed and these students actually got to help plan the curriculum and other aspects of the school before entering a year later with the next round of admittees. The school’s teaching is more hands-on, group project, and communications oriented. You would probably retain more of the material taught at Olin than at MIT. Frankly, MIT’s homework wouldn’t be so darn hard if the teaching were better.</p>
<p>With the zero dollar price tag and a class size of roughly 70, Olin became as selective as HYPSM before it was ever accredited (a non-issue, one of the accreditation requirements is actually graduating a class. That has since been fixed). Despite its lack of a national reputation for having very intelligent students who go to Vegas, put cars on roofs and cook gourmet meals instead of doing homework, you would find your Olin peers to be highly intelligent and engaging and your schoolwork to be suitably difficult and time-consuming. The handful of Olin students I know seem to have little trouble finding summer and post-graduate opportunities outside Olin.</p>
<p>Olin’s size lends itself to a close-knit community, however it limits the breadth of the education you can get on-site and the possible majors to a few flavors of engineering. Engineers are not scientists, are taught to think differently and if you don’t know if you are interested in definitely engineering, Olin is a very very bad choice. If you are doing a northeast college tour, try to visit Wellesley College(even if you are male), Babson, and Brandeis as well, because you will likely spend a large chunk of time there.</p>
<p>More than anything, Olin, like a single-sex college or a highly religious school is a non-standard college choice. Not for everyone, doesn’t have everything, a very different culture, but when it comes down to it, still a great school that attracts great people because of its unusual nature.</p>
<p>“Frankly, MIT’s homework wouldn’t be so darn hard if the teaching were better.”</p>
<p>I take issue with this. A lot of the time the teaching is just fine if you do what the professors ask: (1) read the textbook carefully before class, (2) take good notes, (3) read your notes carefully afterwards, and (4) go to office hours if you have any questions.</p>
<p>Of course most MIT students don’t do all these things. They’ve got too much other stuff going on. Most of my education at MIT comes through doing this “hard homework,” and it is largely a self-education process (and I sometimes work with other students when I have questions). </p>
<p>It’s also rather nice to attend classes where the professor is lecturing on some advance technique or result, and then casually mentions that (s)he or his/her colleague participated in that discovery. It makes the science suddenly a whole lot more than just textbook type of stuff.
On topic though: MIT is first and foremost a tier-one research institution. That means the first priority of the 'tvte is doing world-class research. If you go to MIT you’ll get to participate in this type of research, and hang around the type of people who want to do this type of work. </p>
<p>Olin seems an excellent place to get a hands-on learning experience. You’ll probably learn better communication skills, etc. The small size is a factor, whether good or bad depends on you.</p>
<p>all I can contribute is that I was not sure which to choose, ultimately chose MIT and am very happy in retrospect I did so-- not because I think that I would be a less-happy engineering student there than here but because it turned out (as I sort of suspected) that I don’t actually want to study engineering at all! I am glad that I chose the bigger school because I feel much less restricted and have the freedom to change majors to something drastically different, should I desire to do so</p>
<p>MIT >>>>> Olin</p>
<p>^Opinion varies: Olin is a unique, fantastic place</p>
<p>Olin - 300 undergrads
MIT- 4000 undergrads (~6000 grads)</p>
<p>FYI. Olin is not completely free. According to their site the Net Cost is ~18,000. You do have to submit the FAFSA if you cant afford that and want aid and its probably likely that full need for the 18k will not be met. I cant be sure because I havent asked any Olin students so this is just an assumption considering their endowment and the surrent state of the economy.</p>