The OLINformer

I couldn’t possibly let this week go by having only posted to notify you of the change in the deadline. (See previous blog for info.) I guess that I hadn’t realized how many Oliners read this blog, even (especially?!?) those who don’t specifically need information about Admissions! It’s interesting to hear feedback from the community, and I think that it points out what it’s “really like” here at Olin. There are so many different types of people, with different backgrounds, different opinions, and different interests, yet we have all found ourselves here for one reason or another, a pieced together community of people who enjoy not only the idea of Olin College, but the day to day accomplishments.

And the accomplishments are many!! Looking over all of the mail and credentials that have come in over the past few weeks, I am humbled by the intelligence and acumen of our prospective students. You all have remarkable lives ahead of you, and I wish you all the best!!

Now, to answer some questions that have come in of late:

1. I got an email that said that the deadline had been extended to December 3rd. Are you serious?

Yes! The deadline has been extended to December 3rd. No, this is not an installment of Punk’d. It’s for real. We wouldn’t do that to you guys!!!

2. Do I have to wait for Mrs. X, my super busy Physics teacher, to give me my recommendation in order to send everything together?

No! You can send in your credentials as you get them. You don’t have to wait for your science teacher to get back to you to send in the other stuff. Send it in as many installments as you need.

3. Should I hire an envoy to carry my application materials to campus to make sure that they are in your hands precisely at midnight on December 3rd?

No! Postmarked by December 3rd is fine. We won’t be here at midnight anyway (at least I hope not)!!!

4. I won an Oscar/wrote a Pulitzer Prize winning novel/restored a rare Van Gogh painting! Can I send it to you as a supplement?

Sure, you can send it, but we can’t give it back, and we don’t promise to be able to review it, though we will try.

5. I had College Board/ACT send you my scores a long time ago, but they aren’t showing up on my account! What do I do?

If it was a long time ago (as in several months) you should call and check with us. If it was a shorter time ago (as in several weeks) you can assume that they were sent but we haven’t got to them yet. If we never get them, we will let you know. We always follow up about missing or incomplete information.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email or call one of us. Our email addresses are listed on the website, and we are more than happy to help you out in any way we can. Now relax, finish those essays, and think of all the fun you are going to have over Winter Break when your applications are done!

Yours Truly,

Emily

Hello!

We wanted to share with you that the deadline has been extended to DECEMBER 3, 2007 - NO JOKE!!
This will give you a few extra days to fine tune your essays and resumes.

Good luck!!!

Emily

Here we are, working hard (Caitlin on L, Emily on R)!!!!!

Thanks to Susan Johanson for the pic!

• Remember - we WILL accept your December SAT and/or ACT results! Go ahead and submit your application online by the deadline; if we don’t have your test scores by the end of December, we’ll let you know! All test scores need to come to us on an official score report from the College Board or ACT. If you haven’t had your scores sent to us yet - contact the College Board or ACT as soon as possible and request that they be sent to Olin College
• We do not need official AP Scores. Just fill in the box on the application and we’re good to go. If you’d like to send a photocopy of your AP scores from the College Board, that’s perfectly fine.
• Some of you have been wondering about “superscores” - i.e. combining your highest scores from each section of a standardized test. Yes, we do take your highest individual scores! And yes, even on the ACT.
• You may submit the signed Affidavit at any time. You don’t need to wait for us to receive all of your other materials. A good rule of thumb might be to send the Affidavit when you submit the online portion of the application.
• Again, we don’t need a Mid-Year School Report but we do need some kind of official documentation of your academic performance in your senior year - by using Form D or an official copy of your first quarter/six weeks/trimester report card - that’s all we’re looking for. Oh and be sure to send all of your transcripts to us, including those from any college courses you may have taken.
• The December 1st deadline is for submission of the online portion of the application. Although we’d love to receive all the pieces of your application around that time, we realize that’s not always possible! Supporting credentials - letters of recommendation, transcript(s), senior grades - may arrive after the deadline.

T-2 weeks until we start reading all those applications…

On Monday, the Olin community celebrated Olin College’s 10th birthday. In November 1997, we came into existence on paper- there were no buildings, faculty or students yet, but we were a college. The birthday celebration was a good opportunity to reflect on how far this college has come in such a short amount of time. The Board of Trustees and the President’s Council were on hand to celebrate with us, and one major event was the re-naming of the Olin Center. Those of you who have visited campus have been in the Olin Center, because that is where we in the Admission Office make our home. It is now named Milas Hall.

Larry Milas was hugely instrumental in getting Olin off the ground. He was the chair of the F.W. Olin Foundation, and had the vision and the drive to make a brand-new college appear out of thin air. In appreciation of his hard work, the Board and the President’s Council decided to surprise Larry by renaming the building in his honor. Judging by his reaction, he was incredibly surprised and touched. The students also presented a gift in honor of the birthday, and everyone had cake and ice cream. Happy Birthday Olin!

-Caitlin

Larry and his granddaughter revealing the new sign.

Every proper celebration needs an ice sculpture!

Hello!

Our annual Fall Open House was held on October 28th, and it was a resounding success. We had nearly 350 people come to campus to learn more about Olin College, take tours, chat with faculty, and listen to the Olin Conductorless Orchestra. It was truly a whirlwind day for us. Overall, the survey responses have been very positive, and people are already asking about next year!!!

Before we can start planning another Fall Open House, we have a couple of things to get done first. Namely, admitting the class of 2012!! Things are heating up in the Admission office, with mail coming from all over the world. All of the materials I have seen so far indicate that our winter months are going to be filled to the brim with reading, reading, and more reading. I’m very excited, because this is my first admission cycle as an admission officer, so while I have been told what to expect, I have never experienced it first hand myself. I love new challenges, and this one looks to be quite amazing.

Whenever I see the year 2012 written, I think about when I was a kid and everyone talked about what the new millenium would be like. Flying cars, interplanetary travel, and cities in space. My dad was really into Star Trek, and we would watch Next Generation with him every week. I always imagined my grown up life to be a lot like the life on the starship Enterprise. I would be friends with other species and we would communicate telepathically. I had it all planned out. Except for the part where these things hadn’t actually been invented or discovered yet. Now, the only other species I’ve befriended are my cats, Saturn is my car, and I live an Earthly life in a regular house on a regular street. Oh well. Maybe someone whose application I’m reading now will be the one to get us into space, flying cars, or discover a new species. You never know. In the meantime, perhaps I should just take Captain Picard’s advice: “Live now; make now always the most precious time. Now will never come again.”

Ciao!

Emily

As the application deadline approaches… some topical/timely questions that many of you have been asking…

1. May I submit music/art/other extra stuff for my application?

We are certainly open to supplemental pieces to an application! However, please note that anything sent to us becomes the property of Olin College (i.e. we won’t send it back) and that we cannot guarantee that any supplemental materials (excluding letters of recommendation) will be reviewed. Given the size of our applicant pool, there are simply some things that we cannot get to in our short reading season if we’re to actually read ALL of the applications submitted!

2. May I send additional recommendations? Do you prefer a science or math teacher for the second teacher recommendation?

The simple answer is the first part is… Yes, most definitely! But don’t go crazy - we don’t need letters from every teacher you’ve ever had or the department chairs or headmaster/principal of your school. It’s about the quality of the letter and how well the person knows you, not the title underneath the signature.

If you’d like to submit an additional recommendation, it should still add dimension to your application. And since it’s supplemental, it doesn’t have to be academic. So ask your boss or Scout Master; consider your band director or coach; essentially, any adult mentor in your life would be a great addition to your file. Remember: an extra letter of recommendation is just that - icing on the cake! We do not require it and you won’t be at a disadvantage if you don’t submit an additional recommendation.

With regard to the second part of the questions above, we encourage you to consider asking a non-math/science teacher for the second letter of recommendation. The purpose of the Teacher Recommendations is to give us some perspective on what you’re like as a student. If have both of your letters come from teachers math and science, we often times get a rather one-dimensional view of you. So think about asking your English or history teacher (or some other humanities or social science instructor) - even if you didn’t make your best grades in those classes, those teachers often have great insight to share with us and can help flesh out your application by providing us with a different angle. But if you’d like both of your letters to come from math/science teachers, that is perfectly fine! We promise!

3. How strict are the 500 and 300 word limits on the essays?

We are not militant about the essay length, but we do expect students to abide to those guidelines as closely as possible. The word limits are guidelines; however, please don’t go too crazy over the limits. They exist so that we don’t get bogged down in really long essays and are actually read everything in everyone’s application files. If you go over by a few words, no worries - we can assure you that we do not sit around counting the number of words in each essay and then throw out the ones over 300/500 words!

4. Will you accept my scores from the December SAT and/or ACT?

Absolutely! As we’ve noted on the website, we are accepting scores from the December 1st SAT and the December 8th ACT test dates.

However, be sure that you submit your online application by the December 1st deadline (less than 3 weeks away)!

So those have been some of the hot topics of late. Hope you found these answers helpful. Good luck and we are getting really excited about reading all of your applications!!

~The Olin College Office of Admission

While Olin’s application deadline is December 1, we are aware that many applicants from California may have had their lives disrupted by the recent devastating wildfires - please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have questions or concerns about how this might affect your ability to complete the application by our deadline. We will definitely make every effort to be as flexible as possible with regard to your situation.

Best wishes and we look forward to reading ALL of your applications!
The Olin College Office of Admission