<p>Are entering freshmen at Olin required, or expected, to get new identical laptop computers? If so, where, when, and how does this take place, and who pays? Thanks for any information you can provide.</p>
<p>I believe all incoming Freshman receive new laptops and it is part of the tuition. (A one time fee in Freshman year) I think they get them during orientation.</p>
<p>For my son (Class of 2015), the laptop $2500. It was split across the first two semester bills. The cost at first sounded very high, but it is a powerful laptop with lots of engineering software and 4 years of service coverage.</p>
<p>Pretty much same for class of 2016. They didn’t get the computers until after the parents left, but it was before the first day of classes.</p>
<p>They do change the specs from year to year. One of the students who worked in IT last summer ended up posting the specs to the fb page so all the incoming students knew what they were.</p>
<p>Students don’t have to worry about ordering the computer at all. They will have to bring any other software they want to install, plus data they want (pictures, music, etc.).</p>
<p>You will also get info about personal property insurance which, if I remember correctly, you can take in $1,000 increments. So if your students has items you want to insure in addition to the laptop, you will get info on that. It is very reasonably priced.</p>
<p>You have plenty of time to worry about all of these details. Your student has successfully accomplished step 1 and 2 - applying and getting an invitation to CW. Now is the time to focus on getting accepted, filing FAFSA and the CS Profile if your student’s other schools require it, and encouraging your student to apply for as many scholarships as possible. Enjoy these remaining seven months with him/her. They will fly by.</p>
<p>Thanks, all, very helpful. I asked because son’s current computer is kaput, and he needs to replace soon. He’ll just have to wait a while.</p>
<p>Hopefully he has access to a home computer. A lot or social stuff can be done via smartphone, but my son relied heavily on his laptop in hs for schoolwork.</p>
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<p>Link? Last year’s specs? Seems like the pricing ($2,500) is about $1,000 high, even with the 4 year warranty and MS Office. Just thinking about what accessories she may want - external monitor, full size keyboard, docking station, etc. I know, the specs change year to year, but it helps to start thinking in advance what the options may be.</p>
<p>Price pays for extremely expensive engineering software licenses as well.</p>
<p>External monitor is good to have (definitely one that supports VGA; DVI may be on next year’s computers / I don’t know), full-size key board is good to have, docking station is probably not necessary (a cooler is fine). Mouse. Definitely a mouse.</p>
<p>In order of importance, personal recommendation:
0. Ethernet cable(s). I have quite a few 6’ ones; one for the backpack, the rest for the desk / spare.
- Mouse. Maybe one wireless for the backpack and one wired for the desk.
- External drive. Drive space is a little limited and will be used up in time.
- External monitor. One will be fine. More is just luxury.
- Keyboard. Especially if intended to code.
- Laptop cooler stand. Just for kicks (and the kickstand).</p>
<p>OperaDad --</p>
<p>It’s not Microsoft Office software that kicks up the price. It’s MatLab, Maple, SolidWorks, and the full Adobe Suite, among others.</p>
<p>There’s other stuff installed (TeX, Python, etc.), but it’s free.</p>
<p>The kids need and use this software in required classes.</p>
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<p>According to Olin, when you graduate, all the software, other than the OS and MS Office has to be wiped from the computer. Thus, everything else are enterprise licenses (cheap education licenses), not individual license. As such, those license fees (annual enterprise license cost) should be part of tuition, and not charged to the laptop.</p>
<p>Whether it should be part of tuition or not is a question beyond my pay grade, but it also pays for an extremely comprehensive warranty program and support service.</p>
<p>By the way, in no way are the licenses “cheap educational licenses”. They might very likely be “educational licenses”, but no way are they cheap…</p>
<p>OperaDad - If your kid comes to Olin, you will likely gt past your concerns about the laptop charge methodology. Most of us parents had an initial sticker shock but have come to accept it. From what I’ve heard, the on campus support (including loaner laptops as needed) is excellent. </p>
<p>When I was a student at Clarkson in the early 1980s, personal computers were coming along. Clarkson decided to require each freshman to purchase a Zenith Z100. I think the charge was $200/semester, about the same as if they had done mainframe upgrades and prorated via student tuition.</p>
<p>I’m not concerned about $1,000 on a $240,000 bill. It was more of an observation. If the laptop had a street cost of $2,500, then that would be some laptop. Seems more like a standard upper end laptop with a high sticker price (my son got a mombo laptop suitable for gaming last year for $1,600). Maybe they have a high end video card for all the CAD type functions.</p>
<p>Nope, the bulk of the cost is for the warranty program.</p>