<p>Is anyone applying to Olin? What was it about the school that you found attractive (other than the free tuition)? What other schools were you applying to?</p>
<p>I'll shed a different light on the schools... why I DIDN'T apply(I'm interested in CS). I didn't really look into Cal Tech, so I can't comment on it.</p>
<p>MIT: Too math/science focused. Now, that said, I want to be a math/science major, and I enjoy both greatly. But, I didn't want my ENTIRE life to be dominated by people obsessed with math/science. That's probably a huge hyperbole, but MIT is more dominated by the math/science type than say, Harvard. It's good to have a mixture of people. On top of that, MIT sounds like it would be amazingly hard. As in, I don't think I could manage better than a C in any class(based on OpenCourseWare anyway).</p>
<p>Olin: To me, it seemed like Olin was too focused on hands-on activities. Don't get me wrong -- it sounds like they do a lot of great activities for making great engineers, but without a "backbone" education, it seems like you'll have (somewhat) limited your opportunities in the future as the requirements of employers change. At least if you have a liberal arts education of some form(even MIT makes you take humanities classes each semester), you can adapt to the job market. To summarize: It's too hands on for me, and focuses too little on anything other than engineering. Plus, they didn't have a CS major(only ECE).</p>
<p>Now, I can see plusses to both schools depending on what you like, but hopefully that gives you an idea of what the schools are like.</p>
<p>I did applied to these school. I chose Olin in the end. As a freshman there, I can tell you "the backbone" courses are intense. As for the the "hands on" projects, they are part of most courses. The belief is that is how you can appreciate and learn "the backbone" courses. I just love it here. good luck</p>
<p>From an outsider's point of view, I always saw MIT as very theory-based and Olin as very practical. For that reason, I would pick Olin since I'm very much a hands-on type of person.</p>
<p>
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Don't get me wrong -- it sounds like they do a lot of great activities for making great engineers, but without a "backbone" education, it seems like you'll have (somewhat) limited your opportunities in the future as the requirements of employers change.
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</p>
<p>What do you mean by that exactly? Does taking a few liberal arts courses really allow you to adapt to the job market? I don't think so. Do engineering firms change what they look for in prospective employees? Not really. I can see why some people would be turned off by schools with an intense engineering curriculum, but it doesn't negatively affect one's employment opportunities.</p>
<p>With all that being said, if I had known about Olin 5 years ago, I still would've picked MIT since Olin since the vast majority of Americans still haven't heard of the school yet, and all new schools are risky anyway. Also, they don't offer civil engineering, which was my major. </p>
<p>Olin and The Cooper Union are fairly similar in that they are very engineering intensive and both offer free tuition. Both are very well respected in the field by those who know of these schools.</p>
<p>As others have said, Olin is very hands-on. Olin also focuses more on the business side of things - they bill themselves as a LAC with a three-pronged curriculum of engineering, business, and liberal arts. It seems to devote more energy to going through the actual product design process than places like MIT or Caltech.</p>
<p>I think ken285 is underestimating the hands-on aspects of MIT or Caltech, though.</p>
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I think ken285 is underestimating the hands-on aspects of MIT or Caltech, though.
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Entirely possible. This is just the impression that I've gotten over the years, and I don't claim to know those schools well.</p>
<p>My son's a freshman at Olin and like Mathwiz, he absolutely loves it. He applied to 9 schools and wasn't sure if engineering was really the direction for him so he applied to several liberal arts colleges. He did end up applying to MIT but not CalTech (he visited and didn't care for the intensity there). If he hadn't gotten in to Olin he most likely would have gone to Harvey Mudd, a school he visited and liked the feel of the campus. I guess the point I'd make is that Olin does allow you to follow your interests beyond engineering. In his second semester he'll be taking linear algebra, chemistry (classes he would have taken at a liberal arts college), probability and statistics, a couple of engineering courses, and "6 Books that Changed the World" (offered on campus by a great humanities professor). He's hoping to take a Chinese class at Wellesley in the fall of his sophomore year. His take on the whole interest in business is that there are some students pursuing that subject, but many more are interested in humanities. Above all else, he raves about the student body and the professors. Yes, it's a new school which has its pros and cons, but it's exciting to be part of building an institution. He has no regrets whatsoever, and this from someone who seriously considered majoring in math or physics at a liberal arts college.</p>