The OLINformer

Since “The Lost Blogs” are in the past, you may miss them if you’re just looking for new stuff. Therefore, I offer you convenient links to the “lost” entries and I’ll update them as the new “old” posts go live…

“Tradition!” - Olin’s longest tradition is for a good cause

“Guest Blog #1” - Welcome to Career Initiatives Day!

“Halloween @ Olin” - That pretty much says it all

“Guest Blog #2” - The *biggest* Fall Open House EVER!

“In the news…” - What some of our alumni are doing lately

Thanks for reading and please let me know what’s on your minds!
Allison

allison.bahme@olin.edu
781-292-2203
IM: OlinAdmission
http://www.olin.edu/

1. How many applications is Olin expecting this year?
Honestly, we don’t really know! It’s actually a little harder to determine numbers of applications than you might think. Right now, applicants are at many different points in the application process. There are students who have created application accounts (here’s that address one more time, https://apply.olin.edu), students who have submitted the online application with varying amounts of supporting credentials, students who have completed the entire application process and even students who have sent us a ton of credentials but haven’t gotten around the creating an account! Based on all those different numbers our best prediction for how many completed applications Olin College will receive for the Class of 2011 is… (drum roll, please…) at least 800, but probably more. Was that vague enough for you?!? As I am sure you can imagine, with Olin’s short history it is sometimes a little difficult to predict these trends. Olin’s reputation is spreading and more people are starting to take notice, so we think that we’ll continue to see an increase in applications.

2. I’m confused… which standardized tests am I supposed to take?
We require the SAT Reasoning Test or the ACT with the Optional Writing section; in addition, you need to take two (2) SAT Subject Exams: one in math and a science of your choice. Apparently, some of you have stumbled upon some old information on our website that still says we require three Subject Exams – not true! The correct information is located on our Applying to Olin College page.

3. What the heck is the Senior Year Progress Report?!? And why do my teachers/counselor need to fill it out?
Many colleges and universities require a “Mid-Year School Report” to see your senior year first semester grades and, at most high schools, those grades are not ready (and mailed) until the middle or end of January. The Senior Year Progress Report is our alternative to the Mid-Year School Report because, in many cases, we don’t receive your first semester grades before we finish reading applications in late January. Therefore, it is critical that we have some kind of official progress report from your senior year sent to the Office of Admission and postmarked by January 1, 2007. The basic idea is that you take our Senior Year Progress Report (Form D) around to all of your teachers, have them give an estimate of your grade in the class, and then have your teachers and counselor sign off on it. If you do have first quarter/six weeks/trimester grades available, then your counselor may simply sign Form D and attach it to your grade report. We realize that this deadline falls before you receive your first semester grades, so please be sure to discuss this with your counselor and arrange for him/her to send us a progress report prior to our deadline.

Happy Thursday,
Allison

allison.bahme@olin.edu
781-292-2203
IM: OlinAdmission
http://www.olin.edu/

Greetings, friends!

I just wanted to THANK YOU for your patience thus far this year - there haven’t been nearly as many posts to this blog as I would have liked. But, as we move over to the new software, I am happy to inform you that “The Lost Blogs” will be posted (in various stages) over the next few days or weeks. So with that in mind, I ask for your continued patience as we tweak the new and improved blog…  Oh and please let me know what you want to see here!  If y’all don’t ask me questions, I’ll just keep posting silly pictures… well, I’ll do that anyway…
Stay tuned,
Allison

allison.bahme@olin.edu
781-292-2203
IM: OlinAdmission
http://www.olin.edu/

On my way into work today, I heard Seahorse Power mentioned in a little blurb on NPR (yes, again, I am a big nerd and I listen to public radio on a regular basis).

“Who or what is Seahorse Power,” you ask?!? It is a very cool local company that one of our alumni works for - his name is Jeff Satwicz and he is a mechanical engineer. He and another Olin student started working on a solar-powered trash compacter with 2 Babson MBA students in their sophomore year; that idea became the “Big Belly” which can be found in several cities in the US and Canada!! I even went out and took pics of one near Copley Square right here in Boston!

Not my finest photographic moment, but you get the idea

So back to the radio broadcast - it was that Seahorse had been named to Inc.com’s The Green 50 list, “a collection of entrepreneurial companies that are showing what it means to run good businesses, attack the most pressing problems of our time–and make serious cash along the way.” Click here to see the press release from Seahorse Power.

On that note, here’s the dirt on Jeff and a few other alumni:

Jeff Satwicz is a mechanical engineer at Seahorse Power Company, and has led successful efforts to reduce manufacturing costs and improve product performance. He brings experience in product testing for Department of Defense projects on remote vehicles. He spent September 2001 to May 2002 as an Olin Partner at the Franklin W. Olin School of Engineering, helping professors design and test curriculum for Olin College. In addition to rigorous study in math, science, and engineering, the innovative curriculum emphasizes hands-on projects, teamwork, entrepreneurship, and the arts and humanities. Jeff has been working with SPC since May of 2003.

Drew Harry - “Over the summer, I worked with another alumnus (Jon Chambers, my freshman year roommate) to create Thinkature, a visual workspace and communication application on the web. We launched on November 1st at http://www.thinkature.com and have attracted a lot of positive attention. In September, I started as a first year Masters student at the MIT Media Lab; I work in the Sociable Media group. My current project is to develop new ways of expressing online identities through visualization of past online activities.”

Joelle Arnold - “Less than a month after graduation I joined DfR Solutions, an electronics reliability and failure analysis start-up in the Metro DC area. Being employee number 9 has been as great as I ever hoped. Some tasks are familiar: grinding and polishing, microscopy, mechanical testing, writing reports, giving presentations. But I’ve gotten to grow as well: meeting with clients, managing interns, designing investigations, planning and manning an expo booth and even a little bit of product development. Now that I think about it, I got a taste of all those things at Olin, only now I do them all the time. My job features a variety of projects and roles, and it’s the flexibility and diversity of my work that I love about being at a start-up. While yesterday I was supervising vibration testing of a mounted circuit board, today I’m assembling a thermal cycling setup to test solder joints and tomorrow I may be cross sectioning capacitors in search of defects.
I’ll be starting my graduate course work this spring at the University of Maryland - College Park, courtesy of my employer. And if you’re interested, we’re looking to hire employees 12, 13 and 14…”

For a list of what the Class of 2006 is doing these days, you can take a look at the Post Graduate Planning website or just click here.

Back to work,
Allison

allison.bahme@olin.edu
781-292-2203
IM: OlinAdmission
http://www.olin.edu/

Hello all, it’s me, Emma again. I’m back to tell you about our recent Fall Open House. It was crazy! We had 400 guests on campus including prospective students, their parents, siblings and other relatives, and a group of administrators from a school in China. 400 people is a lot – a third more than our student body. (you can tell I’m an engineer - I look at numbers.) The funny thing, though, about these numbers is that we only have 299 seats in our auditorium, plus 50 additional chairs in the viewing area up top. That meant that the Open House was standing-room only! Most definitely a first at Olin College. Here, take a look at our auditorium as packed as we can possibly make it (without disobeying fire codes!):

Isn’t that just a little bit crazy? I’d never seen it like that in any case… Okay, so here are some more pictures of the day to explain things better than I ever could. A picture’s worth a thousand words, right?

Okay, we’re off to a good start. The obligatory picture of myself. This time really staged because although I’m here “working” registration, that wasn’t actually my job that day. But hey, if I’m going to be an actress, I’d better get used to “staged” presence, right?

Here you can see the real registration people – Teresa Kelleher, Admission Service Coordinator, and Sara ’07. The day started off with guests checking in and getting a packet full of information about Olin. While waiting for the program to start, they could talk to staff and students or take a campus tour.

This is a picture of Alex ’07 and Ash ’09 starting off their tour outside the Olin Center. As you can see, it was a gorgeous day, but super windy!

Here are the Chinese administrators who were visiting during the day. They were guests of Rick Miller, Olin’s president, but they got to see more of what Olin is really like by participating in the Fall Open House.

The Olin Volunteer Ambassador League (OVAL) was out in full force during the Open House. They were talking to our guests, guiding people to where they needed to go, leading tours, and just generally being very helpful. They could be recognized by their grey jackets and fancy OVAL nametags. Thank you to all of them!

Here’s Olin’s President – Rick Miller. He and Robin ’07 (President of CORe) helped open the program by sharing some of their perspectives and experiences with our guests.

The day had a few sessions in the auditorium. This one is going over Olin’s innovative curriculum. Professor Gill Pratt gave a brief overview (including a video of students drilling pumpkins on Halloween!) and three students (Joe ’10, Andrew ’09 and Tiana ’08) supplemented with explanations of some of the projects they have done in their classes at Olin. Other presentations during the day included one on our SCOPE Projects (Senior COnsulting Program for Engineering), an overview of Admission and Financial Aid and a student-made video about Olin called “Leading the Way.”

The highlight for most people during the day’s events was an open hour and a half where students could drop in to talk to either faculty, alumni (pictured here – Ann Marie Rynning, Steven Krumholz, and Cheryl Inouye), the Diversity Committee or representatives from the Office of Student Life. Snacks were of course provided! (and the leftovers are now the official munchie-busters in the Admission Office)

There was also a performance from Olin’s Conductorless Orchestra. These are pictures of some of our talented musicians:

And to end this blog entry, a picture of Kat ’07…

Thank you all, and maybe I’ll be back again, one day…

-Emma

Everyone loves Halloween, right?!? Costumes, candy and general craziness – we can all be kids for at least one day out of the year. So here are some pics from various Halloween-related events over the weekend…

From the FaculStaff Costume Competition:

Professors Zhenya Zastavker, Debbie Chachra, Alisha Sieminski and John Geddes

Asst. Director of Admission/Financial Aid Patty Blanchette (the bow-headed ghost) and Oscar, Zhenya and Debbie (all profs) applaud Visiting Professor Dave Miller’s “Hopper Accident” costume

Kate ‘09 with Debbie, Oscar and Zhenya

Oscar with Sarah ‘10 (I cannot tell you how much I love her costume, especially the udders!)

The Pigtail Crew - Emma Goodman ‘06, Alison Black (Asst. Dean of Student Life) and me

After a long day of Halloweening, Emma and her husky slippers take a break

Halloween Party
As my lame pictures reflect, few students dressed up on Halloween… that is in part due to the fact that many of them got decked out for their own Halloween Extravaganza on Friday night… (Photos below by Chujiao ‘10)
Alice in Wonderland

The Fanta Girls!

Tetris

The crowd, from above

The T (Get it?!? The Red, Green, Blue and Orange lines)

X-Men

The Ant Farm…

Sooo, the story goes that the Class of 2006 referred to the Academic Center as the “Ant Farm.” Why? Well, it becomes quite apparent at night when the entire building is lit up and you can see EVERYONE inside…

Although I usually mention that little anecdote in information sessions when I show the above picture, I was beginning to wonder if the younger Oliners would carry on the tradition. I am happy to say YES!! Check out the little Halloween “prank” below:

That’s the latest and greatest from the Land of Olin! Hope everyone had a great Halloween… and keep working on those applications!

Regards,
Allison

allison.bahme@olin.edu
781-292-2203
IM: OlinAdmission
http://www.olin.edu/