<p>Hi everyone who's been invited to CW, I know you must be brimming over with questions about anything and everything Olin-related (I know I was!). I'm going to be busy this weekend but if I'm ever online and you want to ask a question, feel free to IM me at my AIM screen name, fofetothex. Yes, that is f(e^x). Yes, I am a nerd. Anyway... Congrats!</p>
<p>kelliott</p>
<p>Yay first question! What exactly goes on during CPW? And how awesomely fun is it?</p>
<p>Yay second question! What does Olin do outside engineering?</p>
<p>As far as travel plans for CW go, it looks like I have essentially two options for departing Logan Airport on Sunday: a plane that leaves at 6:25 am and one at 5:30 pm. Is it possible to get a cab in Needham early enough to make the morning flight? (I'm pretty new to the whole taxi situation) Thanks!</p>
<p>Do you have any specific travel tips, and by any chance, were you an 'orphan'? How did that go?</p>
<p>Mathwiz, you can find a example CW schedule at
<a href="http://olin.edu/admission/docs/cw2006.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://olin.edu/admission/docs/cw2006.pdf</a></p>
<p>Basically, Friday is when you get stuffed full of information and get to meet tons of people. Saturday is when you do the design/build exercise in your assigned teams (of about 5-6 candidates usually). This is just to get to know your teammates and have fun. Then in the afternoon, you will have an individual interview and a team interview (with the same people you did the morning exercise with). While you are not interviewing there are other talks and things to go to.</p>
<p>Also, you get to eat yummy Olin food (I miss it sooo much!) and hang out and talk with candidates, facutly, staff, students, alums, parents, etc. As a student, it was always one of my most favorite times of the year. As a candidate it is a bit stressful (at least I was nervous about my interview because I really wanted to get in!) and really fun.</p>
<p>And the point, of course, is to find out if Olin fits you and you fit Olin. CW is usually the point where you decide if this could be a great place for you.</p>
<p>Everafter, I was not an orphan, but in general, the orphans always seem to have a great time and often make more friends with other candidates because they tend to all stay at the CEE together. As students, we always tried to make the orphans feel good, so if your parents can't come, it will be OK!</p>
<p>About your flights...I would assume Taxis go all night long...but I rarely used them, so we'll have to wait and see what someone else says. Just know that you will probably be ridiculously tired and/or hyper by Saturday night, so the later flight would probably allow more sleep :)</p>
<p>What does the design project entail? And I thought there were both individual and team projects. I don't want to make a fool of myself!</p>
<p>I loved being an orphan, although my weekend didn't have a lot of orphans, twas still pretty awesome. The CW1 people with more orphans claimed it was more fun, but I'm still not sure about that. I remember I was uberexcited for CW, and couldn't wait to meet people. I'm still excited for 2007 CW weekends. =) I was also pretty nervous too, but the whole thing about CW is being yourself and as joyjoy said, thinking about if you're a fit for Olin.
My parents and I decided it was a good thing for me to make decisions on my own, and take the whole college admissions process in my own hands.. which meant I went visiting to most of the east coast colleges on my own. It really depends on your family and how comfortable you are with/without your parents or guardians. It also may be a financial thing, and definitely something to take in consideration- if your guardians can take off work, how much two or three plane tickets it'll cost, etc. Anyways, talk it over with your family.
There are a bunch of taxis at Logan, on the curbside. They should be there, if it's not like 2am or something. In any case, if you want to go from somewhere, Veteran's taxi number is 781 449 8294, Yellow Cab is 617 332 7700. The concierge can call a taxi or whatever if you need to. It's about 50-60$ each way + tip/tolls for the airport, so either carry enough cash or a credit card. If someone is coming during your time, you can split the taxi fare with them. Olin also will room you with another orphan if you want to cut down the amount of money you'll spend for the hotel room at the BECC. No worries.
I love to talk to prospective students, so IM me at elladorkess if you wish. =)</p>
<p>Sorry for the double post... I totally did not see that new post.. so there's team projects, individual interviews... you really don't need to know more than that. Anyways, you'll find out in a few weeks!
Don't worry, it's all in good fun! Our group didn't do extraordinarily well, and all but one ended up at Olin. =) Really, don't stress about it- I know everyone's going to be saying this, and I didn't take it all to heart at the time. Although once I got caught up in everything, it was just fun and meeting amazing people.
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=145061%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=145061</a> Last year's CW thread.</p>
<p>Answering questions in a bit of a random order:</p>
<p>There are team and individual interviews, but not projects. The projects are in a team-setting and aren't for the purpose of evaluating you. They're really fun. They come up with a new project each year; last year's involved building a boat out of various materials that had to be able to hold 5 pounds. It also had to fit certain height requirements.</p>
<p>As for "outside of engineering" while you can only really get an engineering diploma, there are certainly many other things that people pursue. If you mean in terms of hobbies, there are clubs that range from drama to fire poi to ultimate frisbee. It's really amazing how many people have such varied and interesting things that they do here. In terms of classes and academics, you do have to take a decent amount of humanities/business classes. You can also cross-register to get a bigger variety. For example, I am in Drawing I at Wellesley College.</p>
<p>Candidates' Weekend is amazing. I was an orphan, even though I could've driven home easily enough. I was quite glad I did stay, though, because I ended up making a lot of friends and having a really really awesome time staying at the BECC. I was a CW1 kid, and there were a LOT of people who hung out at the hotel at night, eating free M&Ms and playing twister in an elevator, among other things. The parts at Olin are fabulous too- you get to see the campus, the people who could be your classmates, and participate in a lot of fun activities. Olin is showing itself to you just as much as you are showing yourself to Olin. I almost wish I were a candidate again...</p>
<p>Finally, congratulations to all of you who made it! That's a huge achievement, and I can't wait to see you all at CW :) Feel free to IM me also; my screenname is a2wheeldtricycle. You can also send me emails at jessi[at]students.olin.edu</p>
<p>ever_after, you can get a cab from Needham to Logan airport, but just be sure to call the cab company and tell them to pick you up at Olin College (or the BECC if you're staying there) very early in the morning. When I was visiting the campus I called the cab company ahead of time to arrange a flight. However, 6 AM flights are icky, so I would suggest getting the 5:30 PM one.</p>
<p>Definitely don't worry about "doing well" during the building activity--it's just for fun! The 2006 CW involved making a boat out of assorted materials and then testing the boat with small ziploc bags full of sand. My team's boat sunk after ONE BAGGIE but 4 out of 5 of us are here today :)</p>
<p>As far as the interviews go, just be calm and act like the shiny beautiful person that you are :-)</p>
<p>KE</p>
<p>A Mom here with practical questions about CW. Should the student plan to stay over Saturday night, or if she can get, say, a 10:00 p.m. flight, should she save some $$$ and leave on Saturday night?
Does Olin offer the orphans any help in getting from the airport to campus (and campus to airport)?<br>
Is there any way to find out whether there are any other candidates from our metropolitan area who are going to CW?
Thanks!</p>
<p>Technically, the formal parts of Candidate's Weekend are over around dinnner time on Saturday but then there is usually a variety show or something similar that is after dinner, around 8pm. And sometimes more informal stuff after that. So, with a 10pm flight, she would want to be at the airport by 8:30pm or so, and it takes at least 30 minutes (lots more if there is construction or something silly going on) to get to the airport.</p>
<p>So it seems like 10pm or something could work. Though if it's doable, I recommend leaving the next day so it's not such a time crunch. But if necessary, she could leave that night and not miss anything essential, just hang out times and stuff like that. </p>
<p>As for help from the airport...in the past it seems like the orphans sometimes got some help from Olin students to get from the airport, but I would check with Allison to find out the official deal.</p>
<p>While I think 10pm is feasible, I would recommend staying the extra night if it's too much of a hardship. It really is a good thing to get to know the other people who could be in your class; at Olin, you will definitely see all of your classmates on a daily basis.</p>
<p>The Office of Admission usually will do airport runs for the orphans if they are coming in at similar times. The Olin Van (yes, we have one!) will usually get driven by either someone from the Office or by a friendly Olin student (aren't they all?) who volunteers to pick up incoming prospies.</p>