<p>Fairly self-explanatory.... Has the engineering community reached a consensus about Olin? If so, what is it? How do the two compare? Which one would you advise attending and why? Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>olin rocks. in my opinion, it is a little bit more hardcore than mit... yet pulls from much of the same pool.</p>
<p>olin = awesome</p>
<p>Olin is cheaper. ;)</p>
<p>MIT will always be MIT. And more prestigious. Much more prestigious.</p>
<p>Olin and MIT are two very different educations. VERY. I've worked with MIT kids, and we're different. they have a load of technical knowledge. Olin kids have the huh, thats interesting, I've seen it, be back lemme look it up and work it out. We've been thrown into the deep end a fair number of times, so we know how to swim when we have no idea of whats going on. This is where an Olin education shines. Also companies consistently say we are self sufficient and able to figure things out on our own, much much more than any other interns. We also have awesome design skills. Projects don't phase anyone around here. </p>
<p>Comparing the two educations is like apples and oranges. Olin is trying to change the way engineers are educated, and its not easy. Most people here have had classes where they realize in the middle things have gone wrong, and we restart. Its normal. MIT is set in its ways a fair bit. Its been educating engineers for well, since Uncle Frank was born. (Uncle Frank is Franklin W Olin, the man who I owe my lovely education to. Thanks Uncle Frank) MIT is also bigger and things are harder to change there. We have something that needs changing and it gets done quickly. A day, two days.. a week. MIT may take years. </p>
<p>Olin may not have that large of a name, but its growing. Talk to people in academia, they know us. they may also think we are crazy, but they know us. They know we turn out some good engineers too. Companies now say they will look at Olin and not MIT (yes, I've talked to one of those companies) since they like the way we think over the way MIT kids think. Must be something in that water at the deep end. </p>
<p>Olin is my passion. And you cant make it here if you don't love it. Visit Olin, visit MIT, see where you think you will fit. Both give you a good education, I just know the Olin one is the right one for me. </p>
<p>Not that I adore my school or anything of the like...</p>
<p>Did you get into them both?</p>
<p>yes.
I looked heavily at both.
I'm happy with saying I turned MIT down, many around here are. I think MIT is much more of a grad school than an undergrad school. But thats me.</p>
<p>I work at the largest engineering company in Massachusetts and I don't know anyone from Olin. Most of the engineers here have never heard of Olin before. We hire heavily from MIT, Harvard, Columbia, CMU, Princeton, Cornell, Georgia Tech, etc.</p>
<p>nogardder,</p>
<pre><code> You don't know anyone from Olin because they have just had one (or is it two?) graduating classes.
Olin looks like an amazing place. MIT is focused on graduate education - if you want the best graduate education go there. If you want the best undergraduate education go to Olin (for free) or Rose-Hulman (not so free).
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<p>no gardder, Olin graduated its first class in 2006. Of roughly 75 graduates, 2 won Fulbright Scholarships and 4 were awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowships. About one third of its graduates went on to graduate schools in engineering (CMU, Cornell, MIT, Oxford, Stanford, Berkeley, Michigan, Rice, PSU); a few to non-engineering grad schools ( HBS, UVa Law, Tufts Sch of Medicine). Roughly 40 students went into the workforce, primarily at smaller firms such as iRobot, Bluefin Robotics, Lux Scientiae, Slipstream Design. A handful went to larger firms (Google, IBM, Raytheon). A few started their own companies (Salubrion LLC, Y Combinator); two joined the US Antarctic Program. I'm sure Olin has precise numbers and a breakdown of where its graduates went.</p>
<p>My sense is that students who are attracted to Olin are those who would seek a smaller, entrepreneurial environment post-graduation. I'm not sure "the largest engineering company in Massachusetts" would hold much appeal and hence may explain the paucity of Olin graduates at your firm.</p>
<p>Branching back to the original question: it may be several more years before the engineering community arrives at a consensus on Olin graduates since there are only forty of them "out there". That number will double in about three months.</p>
<p>
[quote]
MIT is focused on graduate education - if you want the best graduate education go there. If you want the best undergraduate education go to Olin.
[/quote]
I don't think that's fair. Just because MIT has a great graduate program doesn't mean that its undergraduate program is neglected.</p>
<p>Actually, I would say that undergrads at MIT are treated like grad students -- many classes are joint undergrad/grad classes, all other (non-joint) grad classes are open to undergrads, and grad students and undergrads work side-by-side in faculty labs. (My fiance actually was supervising a grad student for a while at his lab, which he enjoyed a little too much. :)) Students and faculty are close -- my fiance is inviting his best faculty friend to our wedding.</p>
<p>That's not to absolutely say "go to MIT", but I think it's a little silly to say that Olin would be better than MIT for everyone's undergraduate experience. There are several people on this forum who chose MIT over Olin last year, and vice versa. It's a choice that, I think, can't be made without visiting both schools.</p>
<p>I think I was asking the OP, ever_after, if he had gotten into both. I mean they are so hard to get into - I suspect the odds of having to actually make this decision are so low that it is sort of a moot point.</p>
<p>mollie, I may be mistaken but aren't the intro classes in physics, chem, bio and calculus, rather large? I'm under the impression that the GIR classes are a combination of large lectures (two hundred students?) + smaller recitation sections (25 students)?</p>
<p>At Olin, it would be highly unlikely to have more than 75 students in a class simply because the annual intake is roughly that number.</p>
<p>My impression is that at MIT, it would be harder to establish relationships with instructors in the first two years because of the large number of students. At Olin, it would be possible to forge such ties from day one.</p>
<p>OP can probably tell in a few weeks if he has gotten into both. I am sure there have been and will continue to be a fair number of overlap admissions. Even though both schools are very different-like comparing Caltech to Mudd- many of the top kids apply to both. (Olin has several former MIT folks on the staff too).
The cultures are very different but the quality of the students attending both almost certainly suggests thate either school will offer great post graduate opportunites for any student who attends. Remember, however, that entrepeneurship, collaboration, and community service are explicits parts of the Olin mission and that students who are admitted must have a strength area outside of math/science. This makes for a different educational environment at the school and produces a different mind set and skill set for its graduates.</p>
<p>Heydad was right. We've only gotten one class out, and another will be out in a few months. </p>
<p>However, we have people flocking out for internships yearly, so a lot of companies have heard of us that way. But as someone said, we tend to stick to things that are not normal. A few of my friends are starting their own company this summer. I'm working at a start up, and a few of my friends are doing the same. MIT and Olin have two very different cultures, and thats what I looked at. The caliber of the education is the same, the culture is not.</p>
<p>OOD is correct. Olin decisions come out next Friday, so a distinct (and extremely depressing) possibility exists that I will not get into both. While receiving positive news on the 16th would be amazing, I am certainly not banking on it. Posing this question was an interesting way to spend time in the interim.</p>
<p>Thank you to everyone for the responses. They have provided extremely helpful insight. Hopefully, I will have some serious thinking to do following next weekend....</p>
<p>And by the way, I'm a girl.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I may be mistaken but aren't the intro classes in physics, chem, bio and calculus, rather large? I'm under the impression that the GIR classes are a combination of large lectures (two hundred students?) + smaller recitation sections (25 students)?
[/quote]
Some of them are, and some of them aren't, and recitations are usually closer to 15 students. Two hundred students is about the theoretical max for any MIT class, as only one lecture hall can seat more than two hundred people. </p>
<p>There are several ways to avoid taking large classes at all, though, if you'd rather -- programs like ESG or Concourse restrict class size in the GIRs to very low numbers. When I visited MIT, I sat in on an ESG lecture for three people.</p>
<p>But I don't think most professor-student relationships are forged in class -- generally students will be closest with their research supervisors and/or their academic advisors, and of course it's possible and easy to start research as soon as you come to MIT.</p>
<p>oops, should have said he/she or she/he! sorry ever_after!</p>
<p>Thanks, mollie, for the clarification. I've never set foot in an MIT classroom so my numbers were only estimates. I also don't know the dynamics of student-faculty working relationships - whether the initial linkages are formed in the classroom, through academic advising etc...</p>
<p>Having spent a day and half at Olin, I got the impression that because of its small size, students there forge relationships from day 1, through classroom contact, through academic advising, through research projects. It may sound absurd but it felt like a "Montessori environment" for engineers.</p>
<p>Clearly, some may be drawn to it while others would prefer something else and as you pointed out, a student needs to visit both schools to see which "fits". </p>
<p>Again, thanks for your clarifications.</p>
<p>mollie,</p>
<pre><code>I never said that the MIT undergraduate program is neglected. That would certainly be a lie! But the focus of MIT is not undergraduate education, the focus is research and graduate education. Of course MIT is an excellent school no matter how you slice it - but I would recommend Olin over MIT because the focus at Olin is on undergraduate education.
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