My son is also admitted to Olin, but is interested in computer science, so hesitating on committing. Do you know if there is a source of info about where students who had a computer science focus at Olin ended up working and what jobs they are in? We can find a general list of employers, but can’t drill down into the information to see if kids actually ended up working in the field of CS.
she may have more options of Michigan - seems a more flexible school
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If this was mentioned already, I’m sorry. I didn’t read all of the replies.
People can advocate that one is “better” than the other, but you really can’t. You’ve already hit it on the head that the two can’t be more different than one and other. There is no better or worse when you’re choosing between an apple and an orange.
You can set foot on any big public campus and get an approximation of Illinois. There’s only one way to understand Olin. You have to see it in person. It’s a love it or hate it thing. For better or worse, depending on what a student wants, it’s SMALL! I’m talking Hogwards small. There is no way to appreciate that unless you see it in person. You are close enough to do that if you haven’t. Go there, and say Rutgers (just as a proxy). Then she’ll know.
No wrong answer. Good luck.
As I mentioned in reply #28, this may be a case where the answer to the “A vs. B” choice may actually be C, a college where a student undecided between computer science and some type of engineering can more freely choose between them later (UIUC is very difficult to change into some engineering majors, while WPI has limited CS offerings).
This type of situation comes up occasionally. In one case, the initial post gave a choice between a too-expensive (large parent loans) college for CS versus a full ride at a college without CS (the desired major). After some prodding, a third choice barely affordable college with CS was revealed, and it was the best choice. Another case involved a choice between full ride in-state UIUC but to pre-engineering, when the student wanted one of the hardest to get into engineering majors, versus an expensive out-of-state flagship (that still had secondary admission to the desired major). Later in the thread, a full ride to a different out-of-state flagship where there were no barriers to the desired major was revealed.
That’s what I get for not reading all 40+ posts. 
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She may . . . there was another thread on UMich vs CMU and, in it, the flexibility of transferring between colleges/schools at Michigan came up as a positive. That said, UMich still seems a distant third or fourth among options for my daughter.
There’s a video on YouTube with a couple of recent Olin graduates. One is working at Stripe, and the other is at IBM. The great majority of CS or Software Engineering grads from any school end up doing software development, and I’d bet the house that the same applies to Olin grads.
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That’s exactly what you were suggesting, as to why Olin is better.
Deeper discussions don’t happen in stem classes, anyway, that’s highly overrated. As someone else mentioned a few years back on c/c, engineering and cs is about solving problems, lots of them.
I’m assuming that part of your definition of “intellectual horsepower” are incoming test scores,
Olin’s middle 25 SAT is 1445 to 1560, UIUC Grainger College of Engineering (where CS is) scores are 1440 to 1540.
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no SAT in my thinking - mostly ever.
Can’t remember much about this thread. Feel like it must be more than a month old. I do, generally, believe that stronger students make for a better school and reputation.
UIUC CS students would be pretty darn strong.
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That is true.
just curious, do you have an update on your daughter’s final decision?
Yes. We finally chose UIUC purely due to the specialization on Computer Science that it offers and the placement history- just dropped her at college this week. But let me not bias you, Olin is absolutely top notch- better than the best, if the interest is in engineering. We have visited the campus twice and liked it a lot as well. Just that my daughter’s interests are better matched with UIUC.
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Great choice!
PS My wife and I both attended uiuc back almost 20 years ago. never regretted. Now living in NJ, but used to live in Weston MA, so I know Olin pretty well too.
Congratulations! Have a great 4 years. 
So what’s really interesting to me is how did you get that far down the path with Olin, only to decide that another major was a better match?
We did the open house at Olin several years ago, but ultimately didn’t apply. Had our ED I school been a rejection, we likely would have run the gauntlet that your daughter ran. I assume that includes the on-campus weekend in January/February. How did that go? Were there warning flags about the program…the size…the students…etc., that had your daughter (and/or you) wondering what 4 years would be like?
Your choice was between one of the smallest colleges in existence, and another 100 times larger. That’s an enormous difference in experience.
We really liked Olin…a lot…but I had reservations I couldn’t really put my finger on. Did you have similar concerns?
Best of luck this fall!
We proceeded with Olin that far with the knowledge of its size and related constraints (specifically, the lack of name recall) and were ok with that. This year’s on-campus interview process was online, as you can imagine but we did drive to the campus a second time just to make sure. These are truly different experiences as you mention- so this is a choice each one has to make on their own.
All the while we were thinking of what major and therefore outcome we were really looking for and that finally helped make the decision- not that we know the future, but at least for now. If you search on linkedin you will notice the difference in outcome profiles for both colleges. Olin often leads into design jobs, startup type entities (not that people cannot go into more traditional corporate or consulting type opportunities) vs more traditional CS heavy corporates for UIUC (but again folks go into design/startups too). The CS undergrad program (core CS not CS+X) at Olin also offers a route to a 1-year grad school for CS which too is highly ranked. If the student carries enough AP credits, she can finish both in 4- 4.5 years, as a plus. Our visit to UIUC also made us more comfortable once we started leaning towards it.
At the end, you have to know your kid and weigh outcomes against the college options you are considering- so there are no generic answers obviously. And again, Olin, based on whatever research we have done so far, is a great option if the fit works well.
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Very interesting. Thanks.
I wonder to what extent location is a factor in outcomes. But this I mean that Boston is one of a handful of hot beds around the country fur start ups, so Olin grads are more likely to connect with these? Just a random thought.