The OLINformer

Those followers of the Admission blog who were reading before Emily and I joined the scene knew it as “Allison’s Blog.” Allison has now left Olin to move on to a different career, so I suppose it will continue to be the OLINformer, just without Allison. Allison will be sorely missed here in the Admission office and at Olin as a whole. As ECE professor Oscar said at our good-bye lunch for her, “Allison embodies the Olin spirit and lives it every day.” She played on the soccer team, attended every play, musical and student performance she could, started our student blog, donated to the SERV (the organization to Support, Encourage and Recognize Volunteerism) auction each year, and most importantly, provided a listening ear to any student who wandered into her office in search of candy.

Allison made a huge impact here in the Admission office. She did an amazing job of running our big events and our application systems, but she also made time to answer questions from every prospective student and parent in a personal and friendly way. She leaves behind some very big shoes to fill, and while we are excited to welcome someone new to the Olin community, Allison will be missed by many. She wanted to avoid a big farewell party, but many of our students wanted the chance to say good-bye, so they came to the office for some hugs, salsa and chips. Here are some pictures:

They lined up outside her office door…

Then demanded a speech…

which was quite well-attended!

An actual picture of Allison (she hates it when we take pictures of her)

Good-bye…

Thanks for everything Allison, and best wishes as you move on to the Next Big Thing.

-Caitlin and Emily

Many of my friends are pretty rabid Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans and I finally decided to see what all the fuss is about. So thanks to the rather eclectic collection of DVD’s available in the Olin Library all 7 seasons of “Buffy” were at my fingertips… and I watched them all over the course of about 2 months this spring.  Although Firefly is my favorite Joss Whedon creation thus far, Buffy was such a great metaphor for what we all think at one time or another:  high school is hell. And it seems like that statement is especially true when it comes to applying for college.  But my how things have changed over the last 10 years!

Case #1 - “Buffy” Season 3
Buffy is a less-than-stellar student + has an epic Slayer battle the night before her SAT = she is convinced she’s bombed the test and holds no hope of going to college.  Fast forward, and we see Buffy getting her SAT scores… holy Toledo, she’s earned some outrageously high score - yes, folks, a 1430 was considered quite good* a decade ago!  Suddenly (cue the singing angels) she CAN go to college, leave her Slayer days in the past and have a “first rate educational experience” (meaning she could attend a well-known and prestigious school).

Sidenote:  Some folks look down on Buffy’s decision to stay local and attend college in little ol’ Sunnydale but, alas, we’ll save that rant…er, topic, for for another day.

*My eyes never saw a 1430 in high school, and yet I still managed to become a productive human being.

Case #2 - Coffee and college criticism
Not too long ago I was on the T (Red line, headed inbound toward Park) and I overheard two teenagers lamenting the college admission process and especially standardized testing.   I just about choked on my coffee when I heard the young woman say, “I did [insert descriptive expletive here] on my SAT… I only got a 2250.”  No, no - my ears have heard far worse in the ‘foul language’ department. It’s the fact that she considered such a high score to be a handicap on her college application that continues to astound me.  Yes, I realize we live in a competitive culture and that things have become far more test-driven.  But still… that’s just crazy talk!

Common theme in my two examples?  Test scores are everything.  Funny, the college admission landscape has changed quite a bit since I entered the profession, but that myth has remained.  Look, I’m not going to lie - standardized tests do matter… just not as much as you think they do, particularly at highly colleges and universities!  Olin is one of those schools and I can assure you that testing is not everything.  It is, in fact, just one piece of the puzzle in which…

your entire academic record in high school

+

your passion for learning and experiencing new things

+

your love of juggling or ballet or baking or making the world a better place

+

that certain je ne sais quoi that makes you, well, you

…mean far more to us than a couple of Saturdays spent sweating over the SAT or ACT.  In Sunnydale circa 1999, “good” SAT scores were apparently the sole means to college admission.  In Boston circa 2008, “good” SAT scores are no longer good enough and are apparently the death knell for one’s chances of admission.

Both of the above statements are absurd in their own way - remember that as you navigate the uncertain, yet by no means unchartered, waters of the college application process.

OK - I’ll climb down off my soapbox for today!  Best of luck to all of you, dear readers.

Take care and stay sane!
Allison

… to apply to Olin College!!

Yesterday we had over 50 young women and their families come to campus and participate in Women’s Open House. I don’t have the photos yet, but when I do I will be sure to post some! We had a great time meeting everyone and answering questions, and we look forward to hearing more about these amazing ladies starting in late August, when our application goes live!

Speaking of the application, we have been working hard to bring you some style changes from the past, which we are very excited about. We can’t wait to unveil the product of our summer work!

Only 19 more days until Freshman Move In!!!! I remember when I was going off to college, and I wasn’t exactly sure what to bring, so I brought EVERYTHING!! I ended up not needing most of it, and had to send some back with my parents. Consider space carefully, and remember that if you forget something you can either a.) buy it here (there’s a Target up the road in Natick) or b.) someone can send it to you. All you REALLY need is a smile and a good attitude for meeting your roomie!

Enjoy the rest of your summer, get some sleep, and we will see you in a few weeks!

Emily

Hi! You might think that we’re sitting around twiddling our thumbs, but we actually stay fairly busy during the summer. Right now we’re getting the online application ready to go, and planning for our annual Women’s Open House. The event will be Sunday, August 3rd  from roughly 12:00-4:00pm. If you’re 1) a woman and 2) interested in coming, please check out the event site and RSVP for the event at the bottom of the page. It’s a great opportunity to check out campus, learn more about life at Olin and meet some of our students, faculty, alumni and parents. You can also meet all of us from the Admission Office and ask us any questions that are on your mind.

In other news, Allison just bought a large quantity of bulk candy for visitors to the office. Hopefully we’ll manage to keep our paws off of it so that you all can eat it when you come for an info session and tour.

-Caitlin

caitlin.snow@olin.edu

781-292-2212

Hi Folks,

It’s been a while since I wrote, but I have been doing many exciting things, from taking a short vacation to San Diego (my new favorite city, other than Boston, of course) to attending the NEACAC regional conference with Caitlin at St. Michael’s College in Burlington, VT. I can’t believe that June is almost OVER! This summer is going to fly by, I know it.

Since many admitted students (Class of 2012) read this blog, I was hoping to put the word out that we are soliciting student profiles from entering students. Many of you may be familiar with our current student profiles, which can be found here. If you would like to be featured on our website as a student in the class of 2012, please email me at Emily(dot)Moscol(at)Olin(dot)edu and I will send you the list of questions that we need answered.

Thank you!!!

I hope you are all enjoying your summer! See you soon!

Emily

We officially have a new summer tradition at Olin… I say officially because this is now its second year of existence. Thanks in part to Boris ‘09 who started this gluttonous behavior last summer - and thanks to Evan Bryce ‘10 this year - the weekly eating extravaganza continues: in essence, large numbers of the summer research students as well as various and sundry faculstaff* gather each Thursday to gorge themselves on ridiculously large portions of pasta (and bread and roasted garlic and salad and…) at Vinny T’s. So far, we’re averaging about half the summer student population = 25-30! And the faculstaff joining the gang week were Professors Oscar Mur-Miranda (ECE) and Chris Morse (Chemistry), and l’il ol’ me.

*Faculstaff is my shorthand for the combination of faculty and staff members (not very creative, but useful!)

My stomach hurts just looking at this!

(more…)

We’ve fallen behind a bit here on the OLINformer, apologies to anyone who has been looking for a new post. Sunday was the Commencement ceremony for the Class of 2008! Congratulations graduating seniors! More about that in a future entry, hopefully with lots of pictures of people in funny hats.

Last week, Olin hosted the semi-annual Olin Exposition. This occurs after finals are over, and every single Olin student is required to create a poster or give a presentation on a favorite project from the semester. The idea is that by the end of their senior year, each student will have presented to external and internal evaluators at least seven times, which is great practice for the Real World. So, last Monday, members of the classes of 2011, 2010 and 2009 presented their work, and then the following day, the seniors followed suit with SCOPE Expo. SCOPE, if you remember, is the year-long engineering capstone project that all students are required to complete.

A sampling of some EXPO project titles:

Investigating Ion Charge to Mass Ratios with Penning Trap Simulation (Rachel, 2011)

Analog Stories: The history of circuit design and why you care (Boris, 2009)

Olin’s class of 2019? Volunteering to supplement STEM education (Alex, 2010)

Investigating the role of stiffness in malignant transformation of breast epithelial cells with 2 and 3 dimensional collagen-crosslinked hyaluronic acid gels (Whew, that’s a long one! Kate, 2009)

I stopped by to talk to Sarah, Class of 2010, about her project entitled “This Is How We Roll: Paul Revere’s Road to Rolling Copper.” She gave me a very thorough and interesting mini-talk about the role of copper in colonial-era warships, and showed me some examples of rolled copper that she made herself this semester.

I then headed to a classroom to listen to Mike and Jillian (both class of 2010) talk about their respective User-Oriented Collaborative Design class projects. Mike worked with firefighters and Jillian worked with cafeteria workers in order to better understand their work environments and improve them in some measurable way. They both did a great job conveying the process that they went through as a team, and the challenges they faced during the design process. I also listened to Erik (also class of 2010) discuss a class he created with a fellow sophomore called Vital Ideation. They had speakers come each week to talk about the process of creating new ideas, and new lenses with which to view the “ideation” process. It’s a really interesting concept, and very Olin. You can see the class website here.

On to SCOPE Expo!

SCOPE tends to dominate the lives of seniors here at Olin, so it’s only fitting that we devote an entire day to the culmination of this experience. In the morning, the team leaders presented their “rocket pitches” to the community, briefly explaining the problem that was set to them by their company and encouraging people to come to their full-length presentations in the afternoon. Some teams were under non-disclosure agreements, so they were unable to fully explain the solutions that they arrived upon. Here are some photos that Allison took from the rocket pitch session:

The Nortel SCOPE team worked on developing a product or service that would be technologically accessible for the growing population of senior citizens in the US.

Here’s Connor presenting Nortel’s rocket pitch.

The ROCONA biosensor team developed a device that would sit in a toilet and analyze urine. This team dubbed themselves the “whiz kids” and always drew laughs during presentations. This photo also demonstrates the ROCONA non-disclosure agreement.

Team leader Vito giving the biosensor rocket pitch.

I hope to add some other pictures of both EXPO and SCOPE Expo soon… until then, enjoy this lovely spring weather!
-Caitlin

Caitlin Snow

Assistant Director of Admission

781-292-2212

caitlin.snow@olin.edu

… my vote goes to anyone involved in FIRST Robotics!

I’ve just returned from my second trip to the National FIRST Robotics Competition in Atlanta, GA. This year, I definitely had a better idea of what to expect but the energy and passion of everyone involved in FIRST never ceases to amaze (and inspire) me!

So I now present the weekend in pictures:

For those of you living under a rock (or don’t listen to the news much) downtown Atlanta was hit pretty hard by a tornado last month, and I must say, several buildings looked rather beat up… okay, that’s perhaps the understatement of the year. But at least the hole in the GA Dome was fixed and folks were able to find other hotel arrangements - I cannot imagine what would have happened if such a large even would have been canceled! Anyway, a shot of the downtown skyline (courtesy of Ash ‘09, from whom I’ve stolen many pics since she let me share her camera over the weekend - THANKS, ASH!)…

Nerd trading cards… (that’s what Ash called them)…

(more…)

Hi!! I am a little bit tired this morning, mostly because I was up late last night making sure that the student-led chats were working correctly. The chat went for 2 hours (!) and I don’t think that any question went unanswered. Our moderators this week were Erik Kennedy and Jennifer Keene, both Class of 2010, and they discussed Student Life at Olin. We will have the transcript of the chat up early next week, so if you missed it you can catch up. You can read the transcript of last week’s chat on the admitted student site with Alyssa Levitz and Kaelyn Stadtmueller, Class of 2011. The theme of that chat was ICB and First Year courses. Next Thursday, April 24th at 10 pm (I know, Lost is back, but you can TiVo Lost, right? And then watch it in slow-motion to catch even the slightest clue fast forward the commercials?), the moderators will be Michael Ducker (’09) and Nikki Lee (’10). I urge everyone who has been admitted to use this resource to your advantage. No one knows Olin like the students, and they are an invaluable source of information.

That being said, Spring is finally (and hopefully firmly) here! It has been so nice out lately, and everyone has been trying to get outdoors as much as possible. I have seen several classes held outside, with the Academic Center windows doubling as dry-erase boards! When Spring comes to New England after a long and cold winter, the good weather seems like a reward for making it through. Plus, the campus is being prepared for Commencement, so everything looks beautiful. It’s a great time to come and visit, so if you haven’t yet, try and make it.

See you soon!!

~ Emily